Seems like everyone is working from home right now. Even as people start venturing back into offices, there are plenty of people still trying to get it all done, but with the distractions of home life interfering.
We need things to make life and work a little easier to integrate. It’s been about a year since I put together a Resources post. Now seems like a pretty good time, don’t you think?
A word about the resources here — I’ve used a number of them, but not all of them. And I bring you free resources. While I do my best to make sure they’re all free, a paid one may slip in there. If you find one, let me know.
I’ll start with my absolute favorite:
1. Otter: Show of hands — how many of you transcribe your interviews? Well, thank Paula Hendrickson profusely for this find. I sure did. Otter, which is free, transcribed hours of interviews for me in just minutes. What’s more, you can create folders for easy storage, highlight text, tag speakers, copy, edit, save ….. you need this. You really do.
2. DrumUp: Be that person on social media who shares interesting, new-to-everyone content. Easy and free.
3. VisualHunt: Great images. Free.
4. Venngage: Make up to five free infographics per month. Yep, free.
5. Buildfire: Ever been frustrated because you can’t find a mobile app that does what you want it to? Build it with Buildfire. For free.
6. Due: Free online invoicing. Yep, free.
7. FreeConferenceCall: This one shows up on nearly every list of mine for a good reason: I’ve used this forever. You’re assigned a number, access codes, and it’s yours for life. Oh, and you get recordings of your calls. All free. Easiest I’ve ever used.
8. YouTube Learning: Not everything you learn is in a classroom. Free lectures from some of the top minds in the world.
9. YourRate: The easiest way ever to calculate your hourly rate.
10. 24.me: Wouldn’t it be great to have your life organized and everything in one handy place? Here you go.
11. HelloFax: How many faxes do you send in a month? If the answer is five or fewer, here’s your alternative to a fax machine and extra phone line. In fact, this may make me drop my extra line.
12. The Middle Finger Project: You need this blog in your life. The no-BS version of business advice hits the mark every time.
13. Sway: I don’t know why this hasn’t caught on with more fervor. Newsletters, reports, blogs, you name it — you can create it here for free.
14. Free education/training. No more excuses — learn something new today. There are thousands of free online courses available from top universities around the world. This huge list is an example of what you can find, but don’t forget to type “free online learning” into your browser for even more options.
15. Free books. You’re a writer. You should be reading in order to expand both your mind and your vocabulary. And since money is tight during a pandemic, take advantage of the freebies that are out there.
16. Zoom video call alternatives. You know Zoom. How could you not in the age of COVID-19? But with so many people using it (and it being limited to 40 minutes per session on the free plan), know that there are other options. And I’m going right back to FreeConferenceCall.com for this one. We tried it in a forum chat over at About Writing Squared. It was flawless and easy.
17. LinkedIn Marketing training. You have to give up your email address for access to this video series (might be a good time to revive an old, unused email account). But there are some good pointers in these videos once you get past the hype.
18. Wave accounting. Probably the easiest accounting and invoicing app out there.
19. Asana. Group projects are just run better with Asana. Up to five users for free. See in a glance who’s assigned to each task. It’s kind of brilliant.
20. Invoice.to. Seriously easy invoice template. Type in the info. Send it. Boom — you’re one step closer to getting paid.
21. Krop. If you must use a job listings site, look for one that isn’t overrun with awfulness. Krop, on first glance, appears to have a more curated list of openings for freelancers.
22. Working Nomads. These job listings are more along the lines of full-time work, but most are remote and some are freelance.
23. Click to Tweet. The easiest way to track your social media impact. Free. Seriously.
24. TinyLetter. What about a tool that helps you send newsletters and emails easily? From the MailChimp folks, TinyLetter is a free tool to help you do just that.
25. Sumo. Easy email capture for your website. Even easier social sharing. Go on, grow that customer base!
26. Time to Note. This may be the tool that answers my question of what to do with an in box full of older emails. It’s a CRM that helps you handle easily your email contacts. Never lose a potential customer again. Amen.
27. Freelancelift. A free community of writers. Free resources, too.
28. Notion. Notion is a gallery of free templates. A bit sparse on the freelance-related ones, but still worth a browse through what they have.
29. Writers Market Guidelines. I like this one from Writers Write, but even a simple internet search for “editorial guidelines” can connect you with what magazines are hiring freelancers (because hey, there they are telling freelancers what they’d like to see). Great for supplementing your income with some article work.
30. Pocket. Have you ever wanted to save that website when you were sitting at your desk, but really wanted to read it later on your phone? Pocket is your tool.
31. Rambox. This workspace organization beauty has made it onto the list again because it’s just so darned useful. Doesn’t everyone need an app where you can view every single social media account you have in one location? Email too? It really is a game-changer.
32. Podcasts and more podcasts. We writers get our best ideas from things we’ve read and heard. Podcasts can generate tons of article ideas. Player.fm is talk shows at your fingertips. Podcast Addict lets you choose from hundreds of topics.
33. Speechnotes. Word has a dictation function, true. But what if you’re in your car or out somewhere and a great idea hits? This online notepad lets you talk it out. Go on. It’ll be there on the app when you get back to your desk.
Writers, what must-have, free resources are on your list these days?
20 responses to “33 More Rocking Freelance Resources”
Ooh, some good stuff here Lori! I think I played around with Otter once when Paula mentioned it on Twitter, but I never could remember which one it was later. I’ll have to go test that again and remember to bookmark it this time. 🙂
I hope you don’t mind, but I have two I’d like to add:
1. Canva — It’s tough to beat Canva’s free accounts these days if you need to create images for your content or your professional site. Lots of free stock images and nice templates to work with. I’ll likely switch to premium soon just for access to more images and better folder organization, but I’ve managed great with the free version for years.
2. MooSend — When MailChimp started charging users for their unsubscribed contacts too, I said “screw that” and went on the hunt for an alternative. After testing email marketing services over several months, I settled on MooSend. Overall, I’m pretty happy with them, and their support has been incredibly responsive. Just yesterday, a rep worked with me for hours via live chat to try to find a workaround for a customization I wanted. Most wouldn’t do that. While I have a paid account with them because of my number of subscribers, just like MailChimp had for years (maybe still does?) they offer a free account too. The big difference? MooSend lets free account users send unlimited emails to their subscribers (free accounts can have up to 1000 subscribers I believe, which is plenty to start building a list). Most, including MailChimp, have limits on the total emails you can send, even if your list is small. It’s a much more visually-oriented setup, which took a bit of adapting, but is fairly user-friendly. The only issue I’ve had is that the support docs can be a little outdated quickly because they’ve been growing fast recently. If you do upgrade to a paid account, they also have a landing page generator which is handy if you don’t know how to build one directly on your site or if you want better tracking. Overall, I’m quite happy with them, and the free account could be a great starting place for freelancers looking to build a prospect list!
Don’t mind at all! Thank you, Jenn! I think Canva was on one of my previous lists.
Not heard of MooSend — thanks for mentioning it! I’ll give it a look later today.
Can’t wait to try some of these.
I like:
Canva — for all kinds of graphics, especially for client social media accounts.
Be Funky — I like their collage maker and photo editor better than a lot out of there. Some services are subscription, but these are free.
Freedom With Writing often has good calls for article pitches and/or fiction.
PS For surveys, I like SurveyPlanet — prefer it to the other, more popular brands like Survey Monkey.
Oh, never heard of that one. Thank you, Devon!
I need to modify this about Survey Planet — they’ve decided one has to “upgrade” for some of the elements in the survey — only they don’t tell you until you’ve done the whole survey, and then they just tell you the elements won’t show up unless you upgrade. Um, no, thanks. So I’m looking for good survey tools again. Sorry.
Thanks for letting us know, Devon.
Sounds great, Devon! I’ll try out some of these.
Thanks for a great list, Lori. I had an interview to transcribe this morning, so I tried Otter and I agree–it is excellent. I had previously used Trint, but I like Otter’s ability to listen to the recording and see each word so you can correct mistakes.
Isn’t it great? For the free version, they do limit you to so many hours/uploads, but I find I don’t have that many interviews, so the free service works just fine for me.
Otter recently changed its terms, so recordings have to be under 30 minutes for the free account. A friend just breaks her longer interviews into separate recordings. Bingo!
I think they recently added things to help improve the AI – you can input special terms and things.
The funny part: When my dog barks, the transcript is blank.
I’ve noticed it doesn’t record “Uh huh” or “hmm” but catches every “Ok.”
Didn’t realize they’d changed their terms. Luckily, my interviews are typically under 30 minutes, so that’s a relief! Usually toward the end of an interview, people will just repeat what they’ve already said, so a quick listen to the original recording isn’t too difficult.
But honestly, if I needed to pay for this one, I would.
One thing I don’t like – mostly because of the topics I cover – is that Otter frequently abbreviates “television” to TV. In direct quotes, I need to be certain which term my source used. Most people wouldn’t noticed which they used, but some people are sticklers.
Great list. I was bummed when Trint went to a subscription model from PAYG, because none of the price plans worked. A month or so ago, I took otter.ai for a spin and…lo and behold…better price and it’s more accurate. (Frankly amazing some of the words it recognized, even in weirdly technical stuff like mining and healthcare. It even spelled my name correctly, which ~80% of humans can’t do lol.)
Perfect example of why we shouldn’t get locked into what’s comfortable/familiar, and always be willing to experiment!
Jake, you should see what it does to insurance terms. Egad! Yes, Paula turned me on to Otter, and I loved it instantly. Truth is I’d pay for it if I had to. It saves that much of my time.
I hear you on the name — believe it or not, I get a dozen different misspellings of my FIRST name!
Because of the quantity of transcriptions I need and the way that I use them, it was worth getting premium Otter for $99 for the year. Heck, I was spending that sometimes in a single month with Trint!
Having known dozens of people over the years with variants of your name, it’s veeeerry easy to believe. 🙂
Same here, Jake. If I had a ton of transcriptions needed, I’d happily spring for the premium account. I spend that on MS Office every year. It probably saves me two or three billable hours per recording, so I’d save that in under an hour!
Last week I uploaded a file to Otter, but the alert never came that it was ready. After 24 hours, I contacted Otter’s Help Desk, asking if the new terms include a longer wait time. They replied promptly, saying my transcription got stuck, but they would reprocess it. Less than five minutes later it was ready. And they gave me a month of premium service, too! (Sadly, I have nothing left to transcribe right now.) So their customer service is good, too.
Great list, Lori, and a couple that are new to me. I’m putting in another vote for Canva.
Just tried Otter again this past week, and it is awesome!
Another Canva fan! I’ll try to get it on the next list then, Sharon. Thank you!
Another vote for Otter. What a great little program that is, isn’t it?