Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business by Entrepreneur Press and George Sheldon

Weeks ago, when I was browsing the business section at Tattered Cover, our biggest independent bookstore here in Denver, I ran across this book: Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business and More, by the Entrepreneur Press and George Sheldon.

Although I'm not really a startup freelancer anymore, I thought this book might be of interest to some of my readers. It's a pretty handy guide to freelance writers who are just starting out. It covers a lot of topics that newbies often ask me about, such as:

* Getting started
* Daily schedules
* Finding work
* Querying
* Marketing
* Expenses

The book also talks a bit about copyediting and proofreading, and provides a chart with standard copyeditor's marks (something you'll need to know if you want to get into copyediting).

What I found really interesting was what the book had to say about magazines. The author adamantly insists that you should NOT write for markets that pay on publication, because they can hold your manuscript without publishing it or paying you for however long they want. For a discussion about this hardline approach, please see the post about pay-on-publication markets on my regular blog.

If you are a newbie freelance writer, or just wanting to break into the business, this book does a good job of painting a well-rounded picture of everything you need to get started.

Tax Deductions A to Z for Writers, Artists and Performers

With 2007 coming to a close, I'm already thinking about tax time again. So when I happened across this book — Tax Deductions A to Z for Writers, Artists and Performers — in my library's online catalog, I went ahead and placed a hold.

Anne Skalka's book is a great overview of the tax deductions you can take as a writer. Unless you have something specific in mind that you want to look up, I think it's best just to skim the entire book to get an idea of what deductions are available. Remember, as a freelance writer you are self-employed — even if you still maintain an hourly or salary "day job" — so your business expenses are deducted from your self-employment income on 1040 Schedule C.

As a side note on this book, it's great as an overview, but isn't incredibly detailed. When you actually sit down to do your taxes, you will probably want a book that goes into a little more detail about things like the home office deduction, amortizing home office equipment, and other more complex expenses.

BAM: Book a Month by Cyn Mobley

I ran across BAM about a month ago in the Writers Weekly newsletter. As a past NaNoWriMo participant, I immediately thought of how useful this book might be for other NaNo-ers.

Before I say too much, I want to make it clear that I did receive a complimentary review copy of BAM so that I could review it on my blog. However, I also want to point out that very few (if any) of my posts are harsh or critical, so I am not in any way going out of character by raving about BAM. I loved this book, and it has nothing to do with the free copy — in fact, I told Cyn Mobley that I would be buying her next writing book, First Pages, which is due out next week.

But now, down to the review.

BAM is based on the premise that in order to be able to write quickly, you first have to have a thorough outline to follow. Some writer — I don't remember who now — once said that writer's block, in her opinion, was the result of not having thought the story through well enough before beginning to write. That's basically what BAM is circumventing.

I always thought I outlined well enough, but after reading BAM I know I was wrong. My outlines were not nearly detailed enough. Nor did they address the critical elements every good story must have. Instead, I was pretty much winging it.

BAM basically walks you through a formula for creating an outline for your book. It's not just a skeleton outline, though, like the ones I used to work off of — you plan the book out, act by act and chapter by chapter. BAM also makes sure you work certain important elements, such as conflict, into your outline, thereby making sure it all gets into the right place in the novel.

That alone is probably not all that unique. Plenty of writing books tell you how to outline (although I honestly haven't come across any that are as no-nonsense or effective as BAM). What is unique is that BAM shows you how to do all this — outline and write your novel — in one month.

I'm not going to give up Ms. Mobley's secrets — you'll have to pay the $12 for those — but as someone who has written a novel in a month, I can tell you that it would have been much easier had I done it the BAM way.

The Milk Memos by Cate Colburn-Smith and Andrea Serrette

I read this book about a month ago, actually, and blogged about it on Livre du Jour. Although the book is primarily for mothers who work out of the home, it does have a small section on working from home while you are breastfeeding.

I have noticed that many of the members of the online freelancing community are mothers. Many of them say that they have to juggle their writing duties with their responsibilities as a stay-at-home mom; some even chose to freelance because it would allow them to be at home for their children, too. In light of this, I thought some of my fellow writers might be interested in this book.

Like I said, this book is written primarily for mothers who work away from home. However, there are a few tips for juggling motherhood and working at home. There are also some amusing stories that many of my fellow freelancers will relate to, including stories of babies crying during conference calls, and even a story of nursing during a conference call!

Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Business by DL Byron and Steve Broback

I spotted Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Business at the Apple store. Although I am a writer first and a blogger second, I was immediately interested; after all, blogging does involve writing, and does help my writing business.

I was amazed by how helpful this book really is. It's written for any level of blogger, whether you haven't even begun yet or you've been in the blogosphere for years. I've been blogging for about a year and a half now, but there are still things I learned from Byron and Broback's book.

Publish & Prosper starts with a pretty basic explanation of blogs: the short version of how they evolved, how they work, etc. The book also goes into more detail on various feature you can utilize, how to make your blog work for your business, etc. Some of this stuff I already knew, other things I did without understanding why it seemed to work so well, and still other things I didn't know at all (but plan to try out on my own blogs).

Whether or not you are a writer, if you have a business to promote online Publish & Prosper is the perfect resource on blogging!