resources for freelancers

Freelancing Guide Explains Financial Considerations in Plain English

Some people envision freelancing as an escape from some of the more unpleasant aspects of full-time work — difficult bosses, office politics, rigid schedules, daily commutes, and unrewarding work. The truth is: freelancing may not really be much of an escape.

Yes, you do get the flexibility to work when and where you want to. But you won’t always be doing work that you love. Often, you must act as your own accountant, marketing person, and IT guy.  (Your computer will crash when your workload is the heaviest and the deadlines are the tightest.) Freelancing can quickly become like a never-ending job search as you keep your eye out for new opportunities and write proposals for potential new clients.

Freelancing Guide Symbols

Unless you prepare yourself for the realities of freelancing, you may struggle with an unstable and unpredictable cash flow, unexpected expenses, and the challenges of doing unfulfilling work for many difficult bosses.

Ultimate Freelancer’s Guide Tackles Financial Angles

So before you ditch a relatively decent and stable full-time job, you might want to take a deeper look at some of the financial realities.  One good place to start is “The Ultimate Freelancer’s Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Jobs, Getting Paid, and Getting Ahead.” The guide was published by The Simple Dollar, a top personal finance blog.

The guide consolidates a lot of practical advice about some of the pain points and long-term challenges. For example:

  • Income isn’t guaranteed.
  • Not every hour you work is billable.
  • Employers don’t pay for your benefits (including holidays and vacations).
  • Financial due diligence is a must.

The guide notes that, “You need a head for business, especially when it comes to finances and expenses. It’s not just about taxes; you also have to learn about accounting, billing, licensing, and contracts. All of that extra work can be tough if you’re slammed during work hours with freelance projects.”

Useful Advice

In the section of the guide about “Business Structure and Registration,” the authors discuss the advantages of formally establishing a business if you’re planning to build a long-term freelance career: “A registered business can shield you from personal liability and provide tax advantages. Less tangible (but equally important), a registered business builds legitimacy, so your clients forget you’re working from home in your pajamas.”

In the guide, you’ll learn about the need to set aside sufficient funds for estimated quarterly taxes and retirement. Setting aside funds can be difficult because when you freelance: “It’s tough to predict when money will come in and easy to say, ‘I’ll save when it does.'” Many new freelancers forget about taxes and some report that they haven’t been able to pay their taxes at some point.

In order to stay in the black throughout the year, you need to book a variety of projects and should know where your work will be coming from for at least the next six months.

When pricing your work, don’t make the mistake of basing your rate on the salary you earned as a full-time employee. Your take-home pay didn’t take into account some of the new expenses you will face as freelancer, such as FICA taxes, health insurance, materials, and travel.

If you are offered a project that will take several months to complete, don’t be afraid to ask for an up-front deposit. Your client shouldn’t expect you to devote months of your time to an assignment, then wait an additional 30 to 50 days after the project is finished to get paid.

The Ultimate Freelancer’s Guide consolidates a wealth of other practical advice about

  • managing your finances
  • what to do if you’re not getting paid
  • setting your freelance rate
  • how to find great freelance jobs and submit proposals
  • building your brand, portfolio, and professional network

Whether you choose to build a career as a freelancer or find yourself doing freelance work out of necessity, The Simple Dollar offers sound financial advice. Their tips and recommended resources can help you avoid some painful lessons that can wreak havoc on your bank account.

New Avenues in Journalism Conference Helps Freelancers Adapt

logo-newavenues2014WRITERS. The “New Avenues in Journalism” conference October 10-11 at San Francisco State University will help freelance journalists understand how to maintain profitable careers in the changing field of journalism. The event is sponsored by the American Society of Journalists and Authors Educational Foundation (ASJA), San Francisco State University (SFSU), and the Online News Association (ONA).

One of the keynote speakers in Kara Swisher, a pre-eminent tech journalist and former co-host of AllThingsD. She will discuss the shifting world of independent journalism and explain why she recently forged a path outside the traditional news organization and embarked on her own entrepreneurial venture as co-CEO of the tech blog Re/code.

“The traditional business model for freelance writers has collapsed,” said conference co-chair Laird Harrison, an ASJA board member and ONA local leader. “Hardly anyone is making a living writing for magazines anymore. But new opportunities are opening up for writers who think like entrepreneurs.”

New Avenues in Journalism will bring together media innovators like Swisher to coach freelancers about how to achieve their professional goals in new and diverse markets. Much of the meeting will address the burgeoning field of custom content — journalistic articles commissioned to support products and services. Other speakers will discuss how writers can: secure funding from investors, foundations and philanthropists; successfully act as their own publishers; and sell merchandise and consulting as auxiliary income.

Attendees can choose the full day on Friday ($195 for 10 am – 4:30 pm plus networking event) and an optional half day on Saturday ($95 for 9 am to noon). Admission includes a boxed lunch and a wine reception Friday.

About ASJA

Founded in 1948, the American Society of Journalists and Authors is a professional organization of independent nonfiction writers. It membership includes nearly 1300 freelance writers of magazine articles, trade books, and many other forms of nonfiction writing.

LINKS

New Avenues in Journalism Conference

American Society of Journalists and Authors

 

Freelance Community Helps Match Qualified Creative Pros with Global Marketing Jobs

Full-time, freelance creative professionals who have the skills, multicultural awareness, and desire to work on global advertising and marketing projects should check out the innovative freelance job marketplace established by Creative Professionals Worldwide (CPWW).

Creative Professionals Worldwide is a web-based community of 800+ creative professionals in more than 45 countries. Members of the CPWW community represent more than 75 nationalities. Many have lived and worked in more than one nation.

Currently, most members have skills in graphics, photography, architecture, digital media, industrial/product design, video/motion, and writing. But the site also welcomes creative pros with skills in event management, social media, printing, illustration, packaging, project management, music and sound design, art, and branding.

Through the job marketplace on the Creative Professionals Worldwide website, companies can hire prescreened creative freelancers in countries around the world for global marketing projects and ongoing initiatives. Multicultural freelancers can help clients ensure that planned creative projects have multinational, cross-cultural appeal.

Discover a one-of-its-kind Community & Job Marketplace for creatives from Vanessa Moulédous on Vimeo.

Last week, I enjoyed a Skype conversation with the site’s founder Vanessa Moulédous in Paris. Before starting CPWW, she worked on global branding projects for a design agency in Paris. She started building an active worldwide community of creative professionals while living in Sydney, Australia and Copenhagen, Denmark. Now that she has returned to Paris, Vanessa is devoting her time to raising awareness of CPWW among creative freelancers and the global brands and agencies who can benefit from hiring them.

While the CPWW community is open to students, Vanessa said the job marketplace isn’t really geared for the part-time freelancers or hobbyists who bid for paying jobs through sites such as Odesk and Elance. While these sites offer an affordable way for small companies and solopreneurs to get help with specific, short-term tasks, these all-purpose freelance sites aren’t the most efficient way for agencies and corporate clients to find the super-skilled, dedicated creative professionals needed for larger branding and marketing projects.

To apply for freelance jobs posted on CPWW, you must have the types of business licenses and professional liability insurance that most agencies and global corporations require their contractors to have.

Another differentiator of the CPWW freelance marketplace is that it taps the collective wisdom of experienced creative pros to help clients find the best-qualified candidates. Instead of relying on human-resource generalists to judge which creative professionals might be best for a specific project, members of the CPWW community who have five or more years of experience in a given field can evaluate the qualifications of applicants for relevant assignments and privately recommend the candidates they believe are best qualified.

After the CPWW community recommends three top candidates, the hiring company can interview them and choose the individual they feel would be the best fit for their creative team.

As a creative professional, there are two ways to earn money from participating in the CPWW freelance job marketplace. First, you may get opportunities to work with big, global enterprises that can be difficult to sell services to on your own. Second, if you help the community evaluate and pre-select potential candidates for specific jobs, you can earn monetary rewards if your recommended candidates succeed.

Members of Creative Professional Worldwide envision building a globally integrated creative industry in which creatives are multi-skilled and the richness of the creative projects comes from the mix of expertise and profiles. If this concepts appeals to you, watch the video below, visit the website, and join the community!

Creative Professionals Worldwide- 2013 Crowdfunding campaign_Creative Freelancers supporting us! from Vanessa Moulédous on Vimeo.

Join the Community! 

Even if you aren’t seeking freelance work, you can still benefit from joining the community. Through Creative Professionals Worldwide, you can network with your counterparts throughout the world, share experiences, and ask for help. In some cities, community members are organizing face-to-face get-togethers.

LINK

Creative Professionals Worldwide

Freelancers Can Thrive in New Era of Independent Workers

Plenty of opportunities await professionals who aspire to the flexibility and independence of freelancing. That was the theme of the keynote presentation delivered by Erik Vonk, during the 2012 International Freelancer’s Day Conference held online by the International Freelancer Academy.

Vonk is CEO of Back of The House, a privately held company that offers portable health, retirement, and liability protection to independent professionals. The firm also can handle distracting administrative, accounting, tax, and IT tasks for solopreneurs. Vonk’s speech was titled “How to Thrive as a Free Agent in the Upcoming Era of Independent Work Arrangements.”

The growth of global commerce, online communications, changing demographics, and the speed of technological change have created both confusion and opportunity. In addition, these mega-trends are creating an increasingly dynamic workforce, said Vonk.

Exchanging our competencies for income today is no longer tied to a specific job with a specific employer. Since 1980, the percentage of people who work independently or on a contract or project basis has more than doubled, rising from around 15% in 1980 to 31% in 2011.  Over the same period, the average length of time a person held a specific job has declined from about 15 years to less than 4 years.

“So there’s nothing permanent about work anymore,” observed Vonk. Now that organizations are under pressure to have access to talent and competencies on an as-needed basis, he said, “It no longer makes sense for organizations to make open-ended commitments to workers.”

To replace fixed employment costs with the variable expenses associated with contract workers, many companies now use their business plans to determine what kinds of employees they will need and for how long.

To Vonk, this progression is simply part of societal evolution. The way work worked in the past was steeped in the evolution from an agricultural era to the industrial era. In the industrial era, professionals were all dependent on the employer. As workers, our identities, status, security, and destiny in life were all tied to our place of work. As we have evolved through the information age, our identities as workers have become further and further detached from our place of work, and more attached to ourselves, as individuals.

“And that is where we are today, in the conceptual age, where worker identity is attached to the self,” said Vonk. “The worker has become global and independent, and no longer attached and dependent.”

During the heyday of permanent employment, freelancing was often regarded as something to be tolerated if you happened to find yourself between jobs. Freelance work started to become more desirable as people wanted the flexibility to design their work schedules around family life, travel, and personal interests. Now, independent work is becoming something that more and more people are aspiring to.

Vonk acknowledged that some misperceptions still exist about what the U.S. government still calls “the contingent workforce.” The Back of the House website includes a list of Ten Myths and Realities regarding taxes, terminology, and employee quality and loyalty.  He advised freelancers to educate themselves about these issues, and discuss them when negotiating contracts for new assignments.

“For all of us who work independently or have plans to work independently,” said Vonk. “This is the era in which to do it.”

LINKS

International Freelancers Day Conference

Ten Myths and Realities about Contingent Work Arrangements

About Back of The House

Survey Shows Freelancers Are Optimistic About Business Prospects

Despite the meteoric growth in freelancing and self-employment over the past decade, very little information has been published about who freelancers are, what they do, how they land work, what they earn, and why they freelance.  The 2012 Freelance Industry Report by Ed Gandia seeks to fill this information gap.

In the report’s introduction, Gandia cites a May 2012 Aberdeen Group report that shows that in the average organization in the U.S., nearly 26% of the workforce is considered contingent or contract-based. The labor law firm Littler Midelson predicts that over the next few years, contingent labor (i.e., freelancers, consultants and independent contractors) could rise to as much as 30 to 50 percent of the entire U.S. workforce.

“Politicians and the mainstream media seem to completely overlook this segment of the workforce,” says Gandia. “When addressing the needs of small businesses, most discussions center on traditional brick-and-mortar operations. Freelancers and other self-employed service providers are ignored, forgotten or dismissed.”

The bulk of the free, 70-page report summarizes the findings of a 2012 survey of 1,491 freelancers in more than 50 different fields.  The top 10 professions represented in the survey of freelancers were:

  • Designers (20.4 percent)
  • Writers (18 percent)
  • Editor/Copy Editor (10 percent)
  • Copywriter (10 percent)
  • Translator (7 percent)
  • Web Developer (5 percent)
  • Marketing Profesional (4 percent)
  • Business Consultant (2 percent)
  • Virtual Assistant (2 percent)
  • Illustrator (2 percent)

Other creative professionals represented in the survey included Photographers, Videographers/Video Editors, and Authors at around 1 percent each.   Other freelancers specialized in proofreading, IT systems support, training, software development, public relations, blogging, SEO, and social media.

Survey Findings

The report includes charts and data on income trends and lifestyle choices, including: hourly rates, billable time, pricing, the impact of the economic downturn, and how freelancers attract clients. Here are some noteworthy findings:

Status: 47 percent are the primary income earners in their households; 14 percent work their business on the side while holding a full-time day job.

Age: 62 percent of the freelancers were under age 50, with 26 percent in the 30 to 39 age range and 25 percent in the 40 to 49 age group. Of the 38 percent over age 50, 12 percent were age 60 and up.

Satisfaction: 90 percent report being happier now than before going solo. 55 percent said that they wouldn’t consider working as an employee again, regardless of what the job paid or what it entailed.

Business Prospects: Fully 77 percent of the respondents said that they are optimistic about their business prospects over the next year. Pessimism was highest among photographers (25 percent), business consultants (16 percent), and editors/copy editors (16 percent).

Challenges: The biggest challenges facing freelancers as a group were:

  • Finding clients (21 percent)
  • The feast-or-famine cycle of work (16 percent)
  • Maintaining work/life balance (10 percent)
  • Managing time/staying productive (7 percent)
  • Getting better fees (5 percent)
  • Getting affordable health insurance (4 percent)
  • Having to wear all the hats (4 perecent)

Professionals who reported the most difficulty finding clients included photographers (33 percent) and copywriters (27 percent).

Marketing Methods: 68 percent of freelancers named referrals, word of mouth or tapping their own personal and professional networks as their most effective methods for finding and landing clients. Only 6 percent considered online job sites such as Elance and oDesk to be most effective way to get clients, and a mere 3 percent ranked social media as the most effective method.

Self-Promotion: Even though finding clients is the top challenge facing freelancers, most freelancers (53 percent) said they spend five hours or less on self-promotion. In fact, 30 percent spend fewer than 2 hours per month. Only 12 percent spend more than 20 hours per month on self-promotion.  Photographers (44 percent) and copywriters (17 percent) were among those who said they spent more than 20 hours per month promoting themselves.

Accidental and Entrepreneurial Freelancers

The report takes an in-depth look at differences in the data among two key groups: accidental and entrepreneurial freelancers.

“Accidental” freelancers include those who started freelancing as a result of a layoff or company downsizing. The report reveals that “accidental” freelancers are faring well. About 85 percent said they are much happier now than they were as employees, even though they are more likely to earn less than freelancers who planned their way to self-employment. Still, 66 percent of the accidental freelancers are optimistic about their business prospects.

When asked whether or not they considered themselves to be entrepreneurs, 72 percent of the survey respondents said yes. The professionals most likely to identify themselves as entrepreneurs were business consultants, virtual assistants, and copywriters. Photographers, researchers, and editors were the least likely to view themselves as entrepreneurial.

Freelancers who regard themselves as entrepreneurs tend to be happier and earn higher rates: 38 percent of “entrepreneurial” freelancers earn $70 or more per hour, as opposed to 20 percent of non-entrepreneurial freelancers.  When asked if they were happier overall since they started freelancing, 92 percent of the self-labeled entrepreneurs said yes, compared to 86 percent of the freelancers without the entrepreneurial mindset.

International Freelancers Day: September 21

The 2012 Freelance Industry Report helps set the stage for the International Freelance Day event on Friday, September 21. Sessions at the free, online conference are designed to help freelancers take their business to the next level. Experts will cover a mix of business and personal development topics and present tips for negotiating, prospecting, writing winning proposals, promoting yourself, keeping your creativity flowing, and designing an abundant life.

LINKS

The 2012 Freelance Industry Report

About Ed Gandia and The International Freelancers Academy

International Freelancers Day

Freelancers Should Consider Themselves Entrepreneurs

WRITERS. DESIGNERS. It doesn’t really matter whether you became a freelancer by choice or “accidentally” (through downsizing). To make the most of this career phase, treat your freelance business like a real business. That means having strategies for attracting clients, managing productivity, pricing your services, hiring and orienting employees, maintaining cash flow, marketing your services, closing the sale, serving your customers, and planning for growth.

As a freelancer myself, I hadn’t really given these issues much thought until I attended the free conference celebrating International Freelancers Day on September 23.

Like other women, I have freelanced at different stages of my career—first, as a young mother balancing work and family and now as a “maturing” single woman/displaced magazine editor striving to finish my writing career more like I had originally envisioned. My freelance business plans have been complicated by how radically the world, publishing and communications technology, and the economy have changed since my first go-round with freelancing. (Back then, the “World Wide Web” had just been introduced and the Apple IIci computer was state-of-the-art in ad agencies).

So, I was happy to attend the International Freelancers Day Conference organized by Ed Gandia and his partners at The International Freelancers Academy. The content was so relevant and inspiring that I gladly spent $29 to buy the post-conference package of session transcripts, audio recordings, and video replays.

After reviewing the sessions, I was struck by how well-balanced the content was. The 20-minute online videos were presented by a stellar mix of book authors, entrepreneurs, design-firm owners, bloggers, motivational speakers, and financial experts. They highlighted the many different ways freelancers could attain greater financial success by being more entrepreneurial in their thinking. Below are just a few themes that caught my attention.

Make Marketing Less of a Chore

Let’s face it. Freelancers often let marketing lapse when we get busy. This is partly because we tend to feel uncomfortable hyping ourselves or closing the sale. Or, we fear getting flooded with more work than one person can reasonably handle. Many conference speakers emphasized that marketing doesn’t have to be painful, if you do it in a way that feels authentic.

Do work you are passionate about. “Passion is the fuel to creativity,” says Peleg Top, author of the soon-to-be-released book “Designing Abundance: A Creative Guide to High Growth.” Doing work you are passionate about will motivate you to do more work: “It will motivate you to grow your business and do the things that you need to do to grow your business.” When you can express your passion through your marketing, “you start attracting and winning the kind of clients” who will respect your passion.

Carve out a niche. “When you’re really good at what you do, or you have a niche that few others can claim, the marketing that you do will be more productive because repeat business and referrals will come naturally,” explained Peter Bowerman, author of “The Well-Fed Writer.” That means you will have to do less marketing on an ongoing basis. This is particularly true if you can carve out a niche where few others are operating. As Bowerman puts it, “The narrower niche, the less necessary it is to be the best writer in the business.”

Another advantage of having a niche, says Rebecca Matter of American Writers & Artists, Inc., is that you can work smarter and faster because you won’t face a brand-new learning curve with every project you undertake. Plus, you can build on the work and research that you’ve done for one project, and turn it into another project for another client.

Dedicate time every day to marketing yourself or building your business. It can be as simple as following up with a potential client, adding a new sample to your website, or writing a blog post, says Matter. “It can take you ten minutes, but try to get in the habit of doing one thing every day that will help build your business.”

Establish Financial Security

Several sessions provided tips for pricing your work and raising your rates as demand for your services grow. Others addressed the issue of financial security in more general terms.

Build on your strengths. “Competence is at the heart of freelance security,” stated Peter Bowerman. He pointed out that a well-established freelance practitioner who has a “diversified portfolio” of clients and multiple revenue streams can feel far more secure than a salaried employee these days.

Set up three online bank accounts for (1) tax money, (2) retirement savings, and (3) emergencies. Keep these three accounts separate from the standard bank account you maintain for everyday spending, said Denise Kiernan, co-author of “The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed.” She recommended having an ATM card only for your everyday spending account: “Try to throw up as many obstacles as possible between you and the money you’ve put away in savings.”

Join Forces with Other Freelancers

The conference highlighted online resources through which we can connect with other freelancers who can help us build “virtual teams” for different project assignments or workloads. As Sean Hedge of FreelanceSwitch puts it, “It may feel like freelancing is a solo mission, but there is a whole ecosystem we can tap into to grow our businesses, and there are clear advantages to doing so,”

Do not hire someone just like you. Hire someone with complementary skills, advises Mike McDerment, the entrepreneur who founded FreshBooks online invoicing service for solopreneurs. “Bring in people who are going to enable you to do more of what you are good at and comes easily to you.”

Streamline employee training. In his presentation on “How to Profitably Grow Beyond a Business of One,” Hedge suggested documenting guidelines and procedures so each new hire and project partner can get up to speed quickly. Then, you don’t have to spend a lot of time verbally repeating the same instructions to each new person you work with.

Take Risks

If your niche begins to feel boring and repetitive, don’t be afraid to take some risks.

Go after projects you think you’re unqualified for. “The most important projects you’ll ever do are the ones who get you noticed and make you feel fulfilled,” says Tyler Tervooren in his presentation “Smart Risk-Taking for Savvy Freelancers.” Although it’s natural to want to feel comfortable with the work you’re doing, Tervooren noted that “Comfort doesn’t propel a career, and it doesn’t prepare you for bigger and better things.” If you step out of your comfort zone, you’ll probably be highly motivated to get the job done right.

Say no to projects that won’t get you closer to your goals. “It’s hard to say no to guaranteed money, but it is absolutely essential to do so if you ever want to focus your business on something meaningful to you and get known for the type of work you actually want to do,” says Tervooren.

If you missed the 2011 International Freelancer’s Day Conference, you can visit the Facebook page for updates on next year’s event. Or, check out some of the same kinds of training videos that will be presented year-round through The International Freelance Academy.

Onlne Resources

International Creative Freelancers Day
(Sign up for e-mail new about the 2012 event)

The International Freelancers Academy

American Artists & Writers

FreelanceSwitch.com

Advanced Riskology: Better Living Through Uncertainty

Books

The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman

The Wealthy Freelancer by Ed Gandia, Steve Slaunwhite, and Pete Savage

The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed by Joseph D’Angneses and Denise Kiernan

RELATED POST

Conference Celebrates International Freelancers Day

 

Conference Celebrates International Freelancers Day Sept. 23

International Freelancers Day is a global initiative to celebrate independent workers and the tremendous impact they have on our economic growth. The movement was founded by three long-term freelancers–Steve Slaunwhite, Pete Savage and Ed Gandia–who are experts in the freelance market, making the transition into self-employment, and building a profitable and enjoyable solo business.

International Freelancers Day will be celebrated on Friday, September 23 with a free, online video conference that is expected to connect tens of thousands of independent workers and other viewers from all over the globe. The conference will start at 10 am EST and run through 6:30 pm.

Gandia, Savage, Slaunwhite, and 14 other authors and thought leaders will present sessions on topics such as pricing, attracting clients, working more productively, outsourcing administrative tasks, promoting yourself, and growing your business. The goal of the conference is to offer strategies that can help take your “business of one” to the next level.

“With many economists and thought leaders heralding the arrival of the ‘freelance economy,’ there’s never been a better time to celebrate freelancers and solo professionals the world over,” says Ed Gandia, co-author of “The Wealthy Freelancer.”

A record number of professionals are currently pursuing freelance work — either by necessity or simply because they want to. According U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates, one-third of the workforce is now self-employed or freelance. As a growing portion of the labor force continues to shift in this direction (a 10% year-to-date increase, according to SurePayroll’s Small Business Scorecard Review in July) many of these professionals are now seeking better ways to not just survive — but to thrive — in the new “gig economy.”

Register for the free conference at: http://www.internationalfreelancersday.com

2011 Freelance Industry Report

Earlier this month, Ed Gandia released the “2011 Freelance Industry Report: Data and Analysis of Freelancer Demographics, Earnings, Habits, and Attitudes.” The report presents data from more than 1200 freelancers who responded to a survey conducted through Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail during a nine-day period in August, 2011.

Self-employed individuals from 37 different fields responded to Gandia’s survey. The report tabulated statistics and findings from the top 10 fields represented among the respondents:

  • Writer (18% of respondents)
  • Copywriter (12%)
  • Designer (11%)
  • Translator (9%)
  • Web developer (7%)
  • Editor/copy editor (6%)
  • Marketing professional (4%)
  • Business consultant (4%)
  • Software developer (3%)
  • Virtual assistant (2%)

2011 Freelance Industry Report by Ed GandiaOther types of freelancers who responded to the survey included bloggers, illustrators, photographers, video editors, authors, SEO specialists/consultants, fashion designers, videographers, accountants, engineers, bookkeepers, and social-media consultants.

The report includes 70 charts that provide insight such as:

  • The biggest challenges freelancers face and how those challenges differ by profession, location, experience and other factors.
  • Attitudes toward freelancing, the economy’s impact on freelance work, and freelancers’ business outlook for the next 12 months.
  • Income trends, hourly rates, billable time, and how different freelancers price their services.
  • Lifestyle choices, including average hours worked, the importance of free time and flexibility, and attitudes toward re-entering the traditional workforce.
  • How freelancers attract clients today, how much time they spend promoting their services and what marketing strategies they’re planning to implement over the next year.

One major finding is that “Professionals who are freelancing as a result of a layoff or being downsized are more likely to earn less as a freelancer than peers who planned their way to self-employment. However, 80% of these ‘accidental’ freelancers are much happier now than they were as employees.”

Download the free 50-page report  from the International Freelancers Day website.

LINKS

International Freelancers Day Conference

2011 Freelance Industry Report by Ed Gandia

Book: The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle