Resources for Freelancers

More than half a year ago I wrote a post on my first years as a freelancer. While writing the post I noticed that there are quite some resources I would like to recommend which I deferred to another post that never was written. Last weekend at SoCraTes we had a very productive session on freelancing. We talked about different aspects from getting started, kinds of and reasons for freelancing to handling your sales pipeline.

#freelancing #session #mind #map #summary #socrates14 #softwerkskammer pic.twitter.com/JAkFMfaOHZ

— Benjamin (@dataduke) 8. August 2014

David and me recommended some resources on getting started so this is the perfect excuse to write the post I planned to write initially.

I will keep it minimal and only present a short description of each point.

Softwerkskammer Freelancer Group

Our discussion at SoCraTes lead to founding a new group in the Softwerkskammer community. We plan to exchange knowledge and probably even work opportunities.

The Freelancers' Show

A podcast on everything freelancing. Started as the Ruby Freelancers but the topics always were general. Fun to listen to, when it comes to software development you might also want to listen to the Ruby Rogues.

Book Yourself Solid

I read this when getting started with freelancing. Helps you with deciding what you want to do and with marketing yourself.

Get Clients Now

A workbook with daily tasks for improving your business. It's a 28 day program that contains some really good ideas and helps you working on getting more work.

Duct Tape Marketing

A book on improving your marketing activities. I took less out of this book than the other two.

Email Course by Eric Davis

Eric Davis, one of the hosts of the Freelancers' Show also provides a free email course for freelancers.

Mediafon Ratgeber Selbstständige

A German book on all practical issues you have to take care of.

There is also stuff that is only slightly related to freelancing but helped me on the way, either through learning or motivation.

Technical Blogging

A book that can help you getting started with blogging. Can be motivating but also contains some good tips.

My Blog Traffic Sucks.

A short book on blogging. This book lead to my very frequent blog publishing habit.

Confessions of a Public Speaker

A very good and entertaining read on presenting.

The 100$ Startup

Not exactly about freelancing but about small startups of all kinds, a very entertaining read about people working for themselves.

I am sure I forgot some of the things that helped me but I hope one of the resources can help you and your freelancing business. If you are missing something feel free to leave a comment.

About Florian Hopf

I am working as a freelance software developer and consultant in Karlsruhe, Germany and have written a German book about Elasticsearch. If you liked this post you can follow me on Twitter or subscribe to my feed to get notified of new posts. If you think I could help you and your company and you'd like to work with me please contact me directly.