“Stress is poison”, as Agave Powers says. For us as freelancers, stress can poison the whole process of working, and spoil the fruits of our efforts. Freelance writing is often known as an unhealthy and highly pressured way to earn a living, and rightly so.

What we need are some quick and effective remedies to keep the process of freelancing as intriguing, remunerative, and personally rewarding as it can and should be.

Getting rid of stress is a vital skill to master, because we want to avoid its negative consequences, even the potential failure, of our freelancing career. In general, stress in freelancing can be overcome by effective time management, frequent and regular change of activity, and reasonable expectations about deadlines and workload.

Any freelance gigs, including freelance writing, which can precipitate stressful situations, require preventive measures such as proper time management. To avoid negative outcomes from too much hurrying, the freelancer needs to figure out how to allocate time appropriately. It is helpful, and in fact, necessary if your workload is at all complex, to create a detailed schedule and plan. Then, using this as a guide, you can perform the tasks in the plan according to your schedule, step by step. Read the rest of this entry »

As you know, guys, we are constantly trying to keep you updated on the staff, that we do within the project to make your life easier.

Some of these changes are major, and might affect the whole process of your work. But a lot of them are quite small and might not be noticeable, but they’re nevertheless – important. After all, perfection is in details.

That’s why we are trying to specifically highlight them for you. This helps you to get acquainted with these updates in order to start utilizing them as soon as possible. This time I’m telling you about a couple of small twitches to user interface, which should sort out confusion among writers and add more usability to the order request procedures.

These updates are active as of today, so you’re welcome to check them out by yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

As anyone, who has ever written an academic paper, you probably know that the citation styles are quite important for the outcome of the paper.

A lot of institutions formalize this form of academic expression to an almost military extent – carelessness with the rules of a specific citation style is similar to being a deserter during war time! And a lot of people suffer the consequences of this type of attitude.

For all of our clients citations styles and adherence to them is vital.

That’s why we provide details for specific citation styles on our Format Requirements page, to keep us all on the same page, when it comes to dealing with citations. It contains links to major resources, which are extremely helpful for learning the peculiarities of each one of the available citation styles. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you at a crossroads between full time freelance writing and holding a full time conventional job? Can you think of dozens of arguments for both? Are you waffling over a decision?

If so, then you need to examine all the pros and cons of freelance writing with insight, and make an informed and genuine choice. There is definitely a long list of advantages and disadvantages to freelancing; however, you need to define what freelancing is for you individually: an unhealthy occupation, or a vocation for an entire life.

Freelance writing is often deemed to be an unhealthy profession because of the many stresses caused by the lack of steady income and work stability, and the need to spend excessive time at the computer, often accompanied by way too much junk food. The stressful situations that crop up in freelance writing are usually precipitated by the absence of work, and by dishonest customers. Such stress was incisively described by Robert Benchley definition: “The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”

However, in reality, freelancing is not nearly as stress inducing as is commonly imagined in the contemporary business world. As with any other job, freelance writing is only as stressful as the current set of circumstances. For one thing, working with a firm that pre-screens and arranges payment for all work can reduce the probability of being “stiffed” by a client. Furthermore, the absence of regular work for a freelance writer is directly comparable to the potential for lay-offs from a full time position. Read the rest of this entry »