Freelance Your Heart Out!

Freelance Your Heart Out by Kris Emery...what an aptly named book for me at this stage in my life because that is exactly what I want to be doing.

Kris Emery is a writer, editor and author of Freelance Your Heart Out. She studied a Translation and Linguistics Masters and was a staff writer for three years before breaking out to become a freelancer.

This book is all about her journey from in-house writer to running her own transcription and editing business. She writes candidly about the good, the bad and the ugly, giving great advice and funny anecdotes along the way.

As I read I felt I could seriously relate, “I love to write, but fretted over whether I could do it seriously and go it alone” she says. However, as I read on I feel I have a little more confidence and a little more “Yeah, I can do this” attitude.

Her book is filled with great advice about how to be patient, set goals, persevere, stick to deadlines, move with times, and find your niche.

She talks about the joys of freelancing freedom once she had established herself – she travelled to Brazil and continued working to fund the trip. Kris also included interviews with other experienced transcribers and editors to find out how they felt about their freelance lifestyles. It was great to read about other people taking the plunge into freelancing and also succeeding.

There was no sugar coating it though – “it is hard work. Don’t even think about going freelance if you aren't prepared to work harder than you've ever worked” she writes. “Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned at some point that freelancing is deceptively hard. A major mistake when going into freelancing is underestimating the work”.

The most beneficial parts of the books in particular for me were dealing with knock-backs and surviving feedback, especially as I am a person who tends to take things a little too personally. Also the interview with a company who hires freelancers provided great insight to what they expect and don’t expect from freelancers. For me, being completely and utterly new at this I found it invaluable.

What I also got from this book was you need to have a passion for writing, editing, proofing, transcribing – whatever your freelance career might be - something that will get you out of bed every day. Clearly Kris Emery has that passion. This is a great book for people wanting to freelance their heart out.