Freelance Confidential – Review

From expert advice by members of the freelance community to hard cold numbers on what’s happening on the freelance scene from around the globe, Freelance Confidential tells all.

FreelanceSwitch editor Amanda Hackwith uncovers the facts and myths about freelancing and reveals some of the numbers and tips that keep freelancers on the top of their game.

The book is available from Rockable Press in eBook format for $24 and paperback for $34.99 from Amazon.

What’s the book about?

It’s been just over three years since FreelanceSwitch surveyed thousands of freelancers to see where they were at in their career and how their future was looking. With the release of 2010’s global freelance survey, we can now see how that future turned out for over 3,200 freelancers from around the world.

Freelance Confidential collects together all the data from the global freelance survey and serves it up in easy to digest portions. It’s now super simple to look at current and future trends in areas like pricing, marketing, and feelings from the freelance community without slogging through reams of data. It’s all very yummy.

But wait there’s more!

Before I start sounding like a cheesy infomercial, I should tell you that one of the stand out features of the survey results this time, is that they also come with expert advice from freelancers you know and trust.

But numbers will only take us so far! To get the whole picture on freelancing, we need to put faces to the numbers. Ten of the most prolific and successful freelance experts in our community sat down with us to share their experiences and advice they would give to fellow freelancers.

Who are the experts?

Now, before I say any more, I should tell you that I’m one of the experts that was interviewed in Freelance Confidential. Now you may think that it’s entirely self serving and egotistical of me to be recommending this book. But you couldn’t be more wrong (not about the egotistical stuff, you were bang on about that).

The advice and comments are from a good cross section of experts in the freelance community and it is these comments that take this book beyond just a dry look at the numbers. You are sure to learn much from the advice from these freelancers who are in similar situations or coping with the same decisions you face every day. Certainly more than you will from the survey results alone. It’s really what makes this book an interesting read.

To cap everything of, near the end of the book, Amanda has an interview with FreelanceSwitch and Envato founder Collis Ta’eed about his thoughts on the way freelancing is heading and the qualities he looks for when deciding to hire new freelancers.

You’ll hear from the likes of Ed Gandia, founder of International Freelancers Day and Freelance Academy, James Chartrand from Men With Pens, Collis Ta’eed, founder of FreelanceSwitch and co-founder of Envato, and many more.

What else is inside?

This is ultimately a book about the numbers of freelancing, so you’ll find plenty of charts and graphs of the survey results. Alongside most of the graphs you will also see a comparison of the 2007 survey results. It gives us a nice look at how things have changed for the good and what areas have started to slip.

The charts and graphs are extremely well laid out and very easy to understand.

Some of the stand out charts include how pricing changes with experience and the average income by profession. If you’re more interested in where freelancers find work or how happy they are in their career choice, there are also graphs and comments about that as well.

Conclusion

Freelance Confidential is an easy to read collection of advice and data. It’s a nice mix that will maintain your interest throughout the book.

Frequently asked questions like “How much to charge?” and “Where do you find clients?” are also considered by looking at the numbers. Overall, the book answers the important, and sometimes sensitive questions that we’ve all asked as freelancers.

The book is available from Rockable Press in eBook format for $24 and paperback for $34.99 from Amazon.

If you buy the eBook or the print version you get the PDF, ePub and MOBI (Kindle) versions as well.