The taxonomy of bad freelancers

Reading "Freelance Screw-offs" this morning at Lori Widmer's Words on the Page blog, I was reminded of one of the reasons I got into freelancing in the first place: As an editor, I knew quite a few freelancers who weren't particularly skilled writers or adequately responsive to my needs. Missed deadlines, botched assignments, and a bucketful of excuses is no way to go through life, son.

Yet, they seemed to make enough money to survive. I figured I could do better, simply by operating as a business rather than someone who took assignments for granted and expected a dollar a word for a mail-it-in effort.

In any case, I highly recommend a click over to Lori's blog, whether to make yourself feel better (you'd never make any of those mistakes, right?) or to remind yourself to hew to a higher standard -- and avoid a place in the taxonomy of bad freelancers.

New FreelanceZone post up

In the interest of turning a negative experience into a positive, educational one, I posted "9 rules of effective voicemail messages" to FreelanceZone this morning. Certainly email remains the best tool of reaching out to someone (in my opinion) but voice-to-voice still has its place for the freelancer trying to make contact with a client or interview source.

Things will be quiet, well, actually complete silent, around here next week, as I'm journeying out for some much-needed, no electronics R&R. And if you haven't taken a vacation in recent memory because you're a sole proprietor and think the world will end without your presence, take a quick refresher at my post from last year—"Vacation, all I ever wanted"—and start making plans!

The Naked Marketers podcast, Episode 07

Good morning all. I've been swamped here and I should be writing instead of posting, but I needed a mental break, so it goes. It's a quickie, which assuages my guilt somewhat. Somewhat.

I had the great honor and pleasure of being the featured (and fully clothed) guest on the Naked Marketers Episode 07 podcast with my friend Pete Wright of Fifth & Main in Portland, whom I spoke about last year on my 10th anniversary of being in business. The whole episode is worth listening to, as the panel talks Tiger to marketing and social media trends to technology and Pete's infatuation with the new iPad. My segment, which dives into a variety of freelance writing topics—choosing your battles, the importance of experimenting, how to tighten up your copy, and how technology is changing the lay of the land—starts around minute 40.

Paging Dr. Freelance

I've been populating content into a separate blogging project for a while, and it's high time to release it into the wild: DoctorFreelance.com.

I receive thought-provoking questions on a regular basis from a variety of colleagues, friends and over-the-transom folks, and I thought that an advice column for freelancers (or for clients with questions about working with their creative independent contractors) would be the ideal format to amplify that. The healthcare theme, ripe with metaphors of diagnosis, sickness, healing and wellness, seemed just goofy enough to be perfect for me.

And my parents always wanted me to be a doctor.

I'll still be posting regularly here at Jake's Takes, continuing to focus on my usual "business anecdotes with a moral" theme.

10 things you shouldn't ask a freelance writer

Susan Johnston at the Urban Muse posted a nifty little item yesterday, "10 Things You Should NOT Ask a Freelance Writer," assembled from an informal poll of her Twitter and Facebook followers. She was kind enough to h/t me for her #9 item--but all of them will surely generate a laugh or a cringe from anyone who's been in the biz for more than a few minutes.

101 Reasons Freelancers Do It Better

The Editorial Freelancers Association passed along this little item from HR World, of all odd places: "101 Reasons Freelancers Do It Better." Yeah, they stretched it a bit to tip it over the 101 mark, but they still get an "A" for blending humor & truth.