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Dear Ed archive
May 2008
I'm just starting out freelance. Can you give me some advice about running a business?
Helen
Hi Helen
Thanks for dropping that query in my lap. It sent me all the way back to my first day as a freelance editor, back in the year dot.
After ten years working in-house and making money for other people I didn't have a clue about running a business, apart from the quaint notion that you'll go broke if you spend more than you earn.
Anyway, it was my first day of being freelance so I went to my local library in search of a good skinny book about running a business. ('Why a skinny book?' I hear you ask. Because a skinny book is a fat book minus the frills.) I keyed 'freelance' into the computer and two titles came up. The first was a book for writers, called Ideas and research. The second was a book called A chosen death, and it was all about assisted suicide. I figured it had to be the most appropriate book about freelancing ever written.
Now, before you think I'm about to go all gloom-and-doom on you, I'm thinking of 'death' as a metaphor, as an ending of ways. That is, because the transition from working in-house to working as a freelancer is an ending of ways. Close your eyes and think of your current workplace. Now subtract the carpet (which I suggest you throw in a skip afterwards), the aircon, your colleagues, the water cooler, the coffee machine, the camaraderie, the endless meetings, the IT department, the receptionist, the stationery cupboard, the photocopier, the accounts department, that person in management who drives you nuts, and the entire building. And your desk, chair and computer. (Did your workplace supply your clothes, too? Okay, that's fine; just checking.)
You now need to replace, do without or become all of those things. Some are easy to replace: carpet, window, coffee, building, computer; some you'll be happy to leave behind: meetings, that person in management; but everything else is up to you. Congratulations! Because of budget cuts, we've rolled the IT and accounts departments into one, and would you mind buying your own stationery, doing your photocopying and posting the Express Post envelopes while you're at it? We've also tacked training, marketing, workflow management, cold calling and cheerleading onto your job description... Is that okay?
Actually, I didn't learn any of the stuff above in A chosen death, mainly because I didn't read it. But I'm happy to recommend Flying solo, by Robert Gerrish and Sam Leader, published by Allen and Unwin. It's practical, inspirational - and skinny.
Ed