30 Ways to Succeed at Freelancing - Part I

Everyone can use a bit of luck in finding the ideal client or discovering a well-paying freelancing opportunity. 

What happens after that is up to you. Are you ready to carve your own success story? 

There are 30 tips to help you by. The first 10 are presented in this series. The rest will be published in the coming days. Enjoy and feel free to add to the list.

1. Open your mind. Be aware of the cold truth to hot online jobs. Like many other industries, the world of freelancing is home to both the legit players and the con artists.
    
   
2. Learn as much as you can about freelancing and being a freelancer. Blogs, e-books and forums contain first-hand information and helpful tips to prepare you for the world you're about to enter. 
   
   
3. Do ample research about your potential clients' reputation. Online visibility is a good indication that the company won't vanish into thin air when it's time to collect your dues.

Around the Water Cooler

The thing itself is a gadget, but to many writers, the  water cooler is a place where employees can enjoy a brief respite from the work load. It is a popular place during coffee breaks. 

What makes the area far more interesting is the buzz created by the people who surround it. Freelancers who work in a team are apt to associate the water cooler with juicy tidbits of gossip, information, misinformation and possibly a ton of freelancing jargon. Here are some interesting topics you will often hear discussed:

Going Rates. The going rate is also known as your asking price. At what compensation range are you willing to take on projects? How high do you charge and how low are you willing to dive?

Scope Creeps. Have you found yourself in the awkward position of having to please a client who is very fickle? Scope creeps are people who expect you to work for the same rates while changing the volume of work required, asking you to make too many changes or modifying the time needed for you to complete the job.

Low Ballers. No matter how high-end the community or bidding site, there's bound to be a whole lot of the bad kind. Low ballers are freelancers and service providers who go to the extent of charging unreasonably low rates in order to get the job and kill the competition.

Botches and Slip-ups. Gossip aside, the water cooler is also a place to learn from another freelancer's mistakes and how to avoid them. As a green horn to web content writing, you will often be warned by kind enough veterans to steer clear of critical errors that freelancing newbies tend to commit. 

For even the non-sociable folks, there's a thing or two to glean from hanging out at the water cooler. What you won't be hearing though are best-kept secrets such as which client pays best and how well-paying your last project had been. *

Freelancing can be a Handful

If you think being floored by paperwork on your day job is a handful, try freelancing.

Chores aside, there are different deadlines to beat and a variety of clients to please. There's no sense of monogamy or loyalty here.

Neither the client nor the service provider (you) is obligated to stick together. The only binding agreement between the two would be a contract.

Everyday is just business... like retail even. Do a good job, and you get repeat orders. Disappoint, and the clients say, "Thank you" and you never hear from them again.

Here's a template conversation that you're bound to engage in whenever someone asks you what you do for a living. I get this so many times that I've resorted to giving out cookie-cutter replies...

10 Common Freelancer Booboos to Avoid

It's April Fools Day, folks! Time to back up your blog. As the occasion seems fitting, this month's theme will be about booboos.

Booboos? Editors call these "gremlins," data entry workers "typographical errors" and common folks "mistakes" "slip-ups" "botches" and a whole lot of things. 

I must admit that I've had my share on some of them. The rest I heard from freelancers who got burned rather badly and whined about their plight.

The good news is you can learn from our stupidity. Here are the 10 common freelancing mistakes you want to avoid: