Every freelance is the new fish in the pond at some point. We all go through the first few rocky months and confusions of setting our rates, how to deal with clients, and the worst – getting paid.

This week I’m posting a few excellent resources for the two. In the coming weeks I’ll be doing a post on freelancers who are pure gold in terms of helping other freelancers out.

Freelance Switch has done an overview of How To Set Your Freelance Rates.

My favourite trio who fell in love with a girl and broke their pact to each other, posted The Last Ditch Letter That Might Help You Get Paid. The men have used it twice themselves and according to them, they got paid both times!

They also discuss The Big Secret No One Talks About. Yeah, you guessed it. Freelancer rates.

Chris Bibey of Freelance Writing talks about  Managing Invoices and Payments as a Freelance Writer.

Before you accept a Freelance Writing Job, its important to do these four things to save you future problems.

Got any posts you came across related to setting your rates and getting paid? Do share!

Technorati Tags: Freelancing, freelancing rates, link love

Since I’ve just completed a series on Twitter, it is only logical to do a round up of twitter related blog posts I found useful. Or not.

• The Best Article Everyday is a site that updates everyday with an article it deems best of the day. They chose PC Mag’s post “Top 10 Twitter Tips For Beginners” a few days ago. On a side note, Best Article Every Day is using the new WordPress theme released by Smashing Magazine a few days ago. Looks neat!

• Confident Writing stays true to its theme and talks about “How Twitter Can Help You Write With Confidence“.

• There are manners to be minded and etiquettes to be followed in any social setting. Twitter is no different. Beyond the Rhetoric lists the “Top 10 Rules of Twitter Etiquette“. How many of these do you follow? BTR only lists 5 rules. Find the rest of rules at Design is Philosophy.

• Word Count comes to the rescue of all twitter newbies (and the not so newbies) and lets them know that “There is No Such Thing as a Dumb Twitter Question“. Phew! That’s good to know!

• All Freelance Writing wonders, “Is Immediacy (Re twitter and Blogging) a Good Thing for Writers?”

• While we’re still learning the ropes of Twitter, Problogger is telling the Secret to Writing Posts That Go Viral on Twitter. Which is why he’s the guru and we’re the minions.

Technorati Tags: Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Tools

If you’ve read even a single article on how to increase blog traffic or make a post search engine friendly, then you must know how every one says blog posts with lists are one great way to do it.

Every one does them. Me too, only I’m obviously doing something wrong. Because even though my search engine results have spiked, blog participation is a bit fat zero. This week, it’s time to share the love with list posts.

1. 49 Tips to Become a Better Blogger
2. Zen Blogging – 5 Benefits to Getting Started
3. Top 100 Books for Freelance Writers
4. The Top 30 Blogs on Writing
5. 3 Easy Ways to Write With Style
6. 100 Freelancer Writers You Can Outsource Your Blog Content To – I’m at number 26! (muhaha! =P)

And keeping tune with this week’s theme, I’ve numbered the links too!

Technorati Tags: link love, List posts

Another week is at an end and it’s been excellent so far. Somebody decided to give The Base a boost by stumbling a post Thank you, whoever you are.

This week I’ll be posting links to better customize your blogger blog through widgets and other ways.

• ‘What Would Seth Godin Do’ is a great WordPress plug in. What’s even more great about it is that there is a blogger version of WWSGD too – which I installed today. What does it do? WWSGD monitors your cookies and lets you put up a welcome message. And not just a welcome message, it lets you set up separate welcome messages for new and returning users. How cool is that?

• On my WordPress blog, I use the Sociofluid plug-in for social bookmarking options on every post. Even though it has a blogger version, I couldn’t figure out how to put the icons in every post. The widget was putting the icons on my blog but not in separate posts. So a search led me to Blogger Plug-ins where I found my perfect answer.

• The past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about removing adsense ads from the blog (homepage) and adding them to my posts. Since I’m a novice in all things designing and customizing, I had no idea how to do it. Even though I haven’t yet made the decision of adding ads in my posts, I found my answer in How to add Adsense inside single posts only. It’s not a widget but it’s definitely worth knowing.

• A lot of WordPress blogs have tabbed navigation in their blogs. It saves sidebar space, makes for easy navigation and looks very professional. Blogger Buster has a tutorial on how to add tabbed sidebar navigation in your blogger blog.

• While it’s easy to optimise WordPress blogs for SEO through plug-ins, Blogger blogs have no such widgets to help. Reading SEO Tricks in Blogger Blogs and Blogspot and SEO takes care of this drawback to a great extent.

If you have a Blogger blog, and keep thinking that it’s very limiting, you might want to reconsider that after reading these. I know I am! Hope this week’s themed links help you as much as they have helped me!

Technorati Tags: Blogger, Blogger widgets, Wordpress

Clients are on everyone’s minds these days. Or maybe they’re just on mine. For this week’s link love, I’ll be highlighting blog posts that cover various aspects of our work’s lifeblood: Clients.

Freelance Folder had an excellent open thread post. Mason asked ‘Where Do You Get Your Clients?‘ He narrowed it down to three questions that his readers answered in the comments. If you’re looking for ways to find new clients, the comments on this post is a good place to look.

Freelance Switch posted ‘6 Ways to Follow-up With Prospects Without Being Creepy’. If you’re wondering when or how to contact a client you had initial talks with but haven’t heard back from, this post is your answer.

Another blog post from Freelance Switch outlines time-tested sales techniques to win clients.

The Wealthy Freelancer listed ‘4 Simple Rules for Getting More Repeat Business & Referrals’. Returning clients or recommendations are the best way to grow your business. A testimonial from one client is worth more than payments from five when you’re looking to expand your work.

Chrisblogging has a trio of blog posts related to clients that I found helpful.

• Three Times to Ask Clients for More Work
• Don’t Shy Away From Small Clients
• How to Rid of a Freelance Writing Clients

Cedric from Your Article Resource shares (not so secret) Secrets to Keep Your Freelance Clients Happy.

To wrap up the topic of clients, Jennifer Mattern from All Freelance Writing shares a client-from-hell story. Reading ‘Dealing With Abuse as a Freelance Writer’ is important for every freelancer. While some of us are lucky to have great clients, it is only a matter of time before we come across a bad client.

Technorati Tags: Clients, Freelance, Freelancing