By Jeanne Erdmann, AHCJ board member and freelance committee chair
Finding success as a freelancer is more than pitching and publishing enough stories to pay the mortgage. Freelancing is a business. We need to find efficient ways to help manage our research and the money side of our creative efforts. Any amount of time we spend away from pitching and writing is money lost.
The October 20, 2022 Lunch and Learn covered how some of our members organize projects and invoices using paper, software and virtual assistants.
If you do a lot of work for a small number of publications, you can probably keep track of your own projects and invoices with a Word document and folders. On the other hand, if you write small stories for many publications you may need some extra help. Either way, if you are ready to up your organizational game, here are some tips:
Personal assistants (virtual and otherwise)
One busy participant uses a virtual personal assistant via a worldwide organization called TimeEtc. The assistant tracks invoices, payroll (handy when you’ve set up your business as an LLC and you’re the payee) and deadline reminders. Cost for this is $480 dollars per month for 20 hours worth of work.
Some writers hire college students for preliminary research, for example to comb through white papers and journal articles or to catalogue and summarize media coverage of a particular topic. A journalism degree is not required for this type of research, and you can spend time on writing and reporting.
Spreadsheets and stickies
Spreadsheets can help organize every bit of info on a project, making really big months- or year-long projects manageable. One participant is using a spreadsheet for a large, multi-person project to keep track of sources, dates of interim deadlines, the final deadline and dates, names and affiliation of contacts.
Sticky Note apps for Chrome and Mac work just like the paper version. They can even be color-coded to projects. Type reminders on e-notes — such as deadlines for artwork or outlines — and stick them on your desktop or in documents. Watch it though; they can get out of control.
Software solutions
Scrivner is a program for both Mac and PCs, although the Mac version gets better reviews. One writer puts everything on Scrivner from stories, to interviews to applications for fellowships and awards. Backing up such information to the cloud means that if your laptop somehow ever ends up lost or overboard, nothing is lost.
Mural software works just like a whiteboard to create scenes, list key quotes and key moments—and then move everything around into a narrative. These entries can be Like Stickies, the work can be color-coded and can also be shared with partners on the project.
Paper still works
If paper is still your thing, more than one participant said they still print studies, interviews and notes, cut it all up and physically move them around to organize the story and then outline on the computer.
Another participant has stopped printing and uses two computer screens. One screen holds the story, and the second screen holds PDFs of studies.
What matters most is what works for you.
Transcription software
Transcribing notes can take up precious time. Speech-to-text programs can help, but they do need cleaning up, especially when it comes to medical terminology. The most popular online programs, Trint, Rev, and Otter, all work about the same.
If you value accuracy and clean copy, CLK Transcription comes with high recommendations. One way to save money is to move the audio file to Audacity and cut out what you don’t want transcribed.
