Successful Freelancing: Tools for a freelance career that works for you

£130.00 +VAT

13th, 20th & 27th August 2020
1pm – 2pm

Whether you’re currently freelancing or you’re a publishing professional thinking about moving from in-house to freelance as the next step in your career, this course has been designed to support your journey and give you the tools you need for success.

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Description

Course overview: 

Over three sessions, Successful Freelancing will cover everything from what to expect as an expert service provider to the practicalities of taking your business to the next level, as well as how to make sure your freelance career works for you. This course is aimed at editorial and production publishing professionals but will be useful for other content specialists too.

It’s also *50% off* for BookMachine members.

Key benefits of this course:

  • Offers practical tools to help you to plan, operate and scale a freelance business that meets your individual needs and your career goals.
  • Gives insight on the working practices of the successful freelancer and how to ensure you meet client needs.
  • Delivers expert advice and guidance on successful freelancing.

Who is this course for?

There are a few different groups who would benefit from this training, but it is mainly aimed at mid-level publishing professionals with some years of experience.. 

This course for you if… 

  • You’re a freelancer in editorial or production and have been freelance for under 5 years (possibly with many more years previously working in-house).
  • You’re currently working in-house and thinking about freelancing in editorial or production.
  • You’re new to freelancing and have worked on a few projects, but you’re ready to start growing your business.
  • You’ve been thrown into the world of freelance due to COVID-19 and want to learn how to make this career work for you.

Agenda

Session 1 – Your freelance business

  • Pre-course work: What does successful freelancing look like for me?
  • Introductory Exercise: Setting success measures for you and your business.
  • You as an expert service provider: How to pitch your service offer, understand your market and position your skills as an expert service.
  • Discussion – Rates and Payments: Reflecting on rates and making them work for you (including hourly rates v. page rates v. value-based pay), improving your invoicing and making sure you get paid!
  • Wrap-up exercise: What could go wrong? How to troubleshoot possible pitfalls in freelancing.
  • Issue pre-work for next session.

Session 2 – The successful freelancer at work

  • Case Study review [This will now be presented live]
  • Group review of Case Study: What could the client and freelancer have done differently?
  • Group Discussion: Lessons Learned to ensure client and freelancer satisfaction.
  • Asking for feedback and what to do with it.
  • What next? The importance of CPD for the freelance professional.

Session 3 – Classroom hour

Course extras

  • Get access to a dedicated BookMachine CAMPUS group, where you can ask Melody questions about the course and introduce yourself to fellow course members.
  • 6 months access to the BookMachine Community, granting you hours of ‘Wednesday Wisdom’ interviews with publishing industry personalities, discounts on BookMachine events and CAMPUS courses.*

*This offer is for new members only

Your Course Leader: Melody Dawes

Melody Dawes is the founder and Managing Director of Just Content. With over 20 years of publishing sector experience, Melody set up Just Content in 2013, to offer on-demand editorial, production and project management solutions to publishing clients. Just Content works with hundreds of freelancers every month, collaborating with them to deliver services to clients for everything from Commissioning Editing, Development Editing, Copyediting, Proofreading, Design and Illustration and anything in between. With Just Content’s agile business model, based curating the best possible team for every project, Melody knows how to help freelancers to ensure client satisfaction and demonstrate the value of a truly expert service.

Testimonials

 Working with Just Content and with Melody in particular has been an absolute boon in helping me source high quality, effective, professional freelancers. That they take feedback, work constructively to solve problems and are flexible – especially with changing deadlines (which sometimes cannot be helped!) – means that I can totally trust them to do the job, and a great one at that.

Ruth D’Rozario, Development Editorial Manager, Hodder Education

I love working with Just Content. They are amazingly responsive, and their pool of freelancers includes some of the best talent in the UK. I know that I can trust them with my complex projects, and I’ll get a great service!

Astrid deRidder, Head of Global Custom Publishing, MacMillan Education

Just Content have helped us out of many a tight deadline and tricky project over the years we have been working together. What impresses me most is their enthusiasm for any publishing task we throw at them – sometimes at very short notice. Calm, professional, creative and client-focused are just a few of the many qualities I’ve come to expect from them. 

Rachel Grant, Head of Rewards and Resources, Optimus Education