My So-Called Freelance Life: How to Survive and Thrive as a Creative Professional for Hire

by Michelle Goodman

Book Overview

Tired of clocking in and losing out? Want to pursue creative, fulfilling work on your own time and also make a living in the process? My So-Called Freelance Life is a how-to guidebook for women who want to avoid the daily grind and turn their freelance dreams into reality.

Michelle Goodman, author of The Anti 9-to-5 Guide and self-proclaimed former "wage slave," offers tips, advice, how-to's, and everything else...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580052592
• ISBN13: 9781580052597
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Seal Press (CA)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Great guide for creative peeps...

Goodman dishes on what it's like to be a creative professional in this guide for freelancers. She covers everything structurally (business plan, anyone?), as well as important (licenses and lawyers?) and unimportant (do you really need 1,000 sheets of letterhead on your first day?) issues. Broken into three categories: You Fled the Cube, Now What? Sell, Baby, Sell Your So-Called Life and followed by the epilogue and web resources, Goodman dishes it to her readers straight. She doesn't pretend to know it all or have been the star student in her learning process, but she does impart her knowledge in an approachable way. She even suggests that if you can't take the rejections that come in with selling yourself and your work, for a quick pick-me-up, you should Google "famous rejections." I LOVED that piece of advice. Goodman also breaks down game plans into do-able pieces. What would you do to write for your favorite magazine? She has suggestions on how to make this happen. She lived it and learned it, and she shares it with us here.

Practical + Funny = Easy Read

As someone who has just recently embraced the freelancing lifestyle, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on. Out of all the books I've read, I'd probably put this one at the top of my list. The author does a great job of mixing irreverent humor (the best kind) with her years of practical experience. The book did a great job of covering everything you need to know ranging from a freelancer's tax issues to dealing with frustrating clients to setting up your work environment. I finished the book with a hit list of to-do's that hadn't even crossed my mind. Another thing that helped this book to stand out was that its advice wasn't confined to one type of freelancing. As someone who freelances in multiple arenas (writing, speaking, etc), I found other books to be frustratingly narrow. Enjoy! Ken Clark Author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Out of Debt

If you're self-employed, you need this book

As a freelancer for 16 years, I was skeptical at first that this book would teach me anything I didn't already know. I started out around the same time Goodman did, in my twentysomethings, and was just as green at the time (she and I both spent too much money on neat new business stationery). But I'd been waylaid along the route by a grad-school stint, and then got sucked into teaching, so her real-world advice has helped me refocus on the freelance goal, identify (and correct) a few re-entry missteps, and build on my niche expertise (even if you don't think you have one, you most likely do). Plus, this book is a terrifically fun read. It's like sitting down with one of your gal-pals to talk shop instead of gossip. Although filled with practical, usable suggestions, Goodman writes with humor and pathos, sharing some of her own horror stories (such as a gig that dragged on so long, she ended up making a few cents per hour on it) and hewing to a no-nonsense, colloquial tone, with subheadings such as "Problem: Your Client Is a Bloodsucker" and "Ebbs Are for Amateurs." I often receive e-mails from budding young freelancer-wannabes seeking advice. Now all I have to do is give them this book.

Your FABULOUS So Called Freelance Life

I read Michelle's last book, The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, and loved it, so I was eager to read this her new one. I have to say that she did not disappoint. Her candor is refreshing, as is her contemporary yet tried-and-true advice for those of us in the freelance trenches. Some stuff in here I'd never thought of, like renting a spot in an office co-op to avoid climbing the walls with loneliness. I'd recommend this book for new and experienced freelancers alike - in fact, I've already bought a copy for a friend.

Cure for the Common Freelancer

If you're like me, you probably fell into your freelance lifestyle, rather than deliberately planned and strategically designed a solo career. Which is why Goodman's book had me at the title! This is a well-written, hilarious, solid resource for creative types who still have a 9 to 5 and want to switch to working for themselves, or those of us who kinda already are but not as professionally as we might like. Goodman covers the fun stuff like getting your online portfolio up and hobnobbing with fellow freelancers. She talks about the icky stuff--like recordkeeping and invoicing and working with a tax professional. And she keeps it real, with discussion on how to not "sell out" creatively while keeping your bills paid and maintaining the work/life balance. All the while, Goodman freely admits her mistakes as proof that it's never too late to get in shape, businesswise. Her popular 1st book, The Anti-9-to-5 Guide, website of the same name, and columns and writing gigs give her advice plenty of street cred. I have shelves of books on the freelance writing lifestyle, many of which are dear to my heart and great references (Bowerman's "Well Fed Writer" is one example). But "My So Called Freelance Life" is now #1 with a bullet because it's a targeted blueprint to laying the foundation and building my writing business, delivered in a hip, conversational tone that spoke directly to me.