I’ve been a long-time fan of Colson Whitehead, and recently read the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Nickel Boys, his newest novel. Read more about it, some of his other works that I love, and the unfortunate significance of reading The Nickel Boys this week.

We probably all have mixed feelings about customer service, from love to hate to envying those who do it well. I spent over fifteen years in frontline customer service, and am thinking about how my lessons learned there apply to my new freelance world.

I recently heard that there are some freelancers who just set up their profile on Upwork and wait for clients to come to them, or who only send out one pitch a week. As someone who built a website based on getting my presence and my value out into the world, I’m learning how to increasing my efforts at visibility to land more clients — and you should too.

One thing freelancing does for you is this: It radically alters your understanding of what income is, especially if you’re coming off of a paid position at a company. Today I talk about how freelancing is like going out daily and hunting down your dinner.

Proofreading isn’t just a glance through before hitting publish. It’s a lot more intricate and nuanced than that, and today I share how I go about proofreading (since I’ve been actually getting paid to do it recently!). Ultimately? All those writing mechanics should disappear to create a seamless reading experience.

I’m back with a new Daily Freelancer, coming off of a busy week last week where I learned lots of things! Today, it’s all about thinking about the customer and how to connect to their identity when marketing your company — with a little help from Simon Sinek’s TED Talk.

I reread Leading Men last week for a book club, and it was one of my favorite novels of 2019. Read about what a beautiful, stylistically written book it is, full of longing and desire.

Today I talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and how those look very different in a 9-5 than they do freelancing.

I’m finding that there are many mindset shifts you have to go through to become a successful freelancer — one of them being the shift to understanding yourself as an expert. Freelancing, ultimately, is not about an employee/boss relationship, but is more like a B2B business mixed with deep customer service.

Today, I changed one of my rates. Here’s what happened.

It was an up-and-down day, with successes and rejections. I borrow some principles from meditation and mindfulness to look at how we can rise above the emotions of being a writer.

Today I talk about one of the best things about freelancing, something that I’ve learned in my few months of doing this so far. (Hint: It might be jeans, but it might be bigger than that.)

Writers aren’t perfect…but kinda have to be perfect when they write (so says I, who found a typo in my Upwork profile this past weekend). Since I’ve been going overboard on proofreading today, here are some quick tips on how to get rid of those last-minute typos.

While SEO might be a great framework, and a way to crack the formula of Google rankings, there’s something at the core of good content that we never talk about: emotion. Today I talk about how to craft great content by focusing on writing techniques.

As a writer, ideas are our gas. Learn how to fill the tank with some of these suggestions.

Do you dread hitting publish? Are you constantly rereading your work because you’re terrified of a typo? Here are some tips on how I got over my mindset of “perfect” in order to produce content that’s “good.”

Since I sent some pitches out today, for different types of work, I talk about the myth of the perfect pitch. I do list some of the basics you need to cover to make sure you’re coming across as human.

I thought that branding my freelance business under another name would be a good strategic option. I found otherwise… Read about why I’m not collecting everything under the “Jessica A. Kent” brand.

Whenever I’m asked how to be a better writer, I have one answer: Read. A lot. Here are some of my go-to fiction recommendations for my Fiction Friday kick-off.

Today I give you a quick-and-dirty way to get started on freelancing projects, and what I did to launch myself. It’s super easy, and most of the learning will come once you get started.