Social Innovation Camp 2 (The Revenge!) was an amazing experience – tiring, draining, seemingly unending, but fun, fulfilling and infinitely rewarding. Around 60 people descended onto 7 different ideas trying to make positive social change to bring them from the glint of an idea into a project that could be taken on past the weekend. The key idea … Read more
Becoming a freelance consultant is a dream for many. I’ve been lucky enough to have a successful freelance career as a social media and digital PR consultant for the last few years. There’s been some bumps along the way, but advice and encouragement from a wide range of people enabled me to go it alone … Read more
Finding freelance work can be difficult during the summer months. When school is out and the kids are at home many clients take time off for their holidays, meaning new projects and work is put on hold until the autumn. There’s a reason why freelancers call it the "summer slump". But finding freelance work while … Read more
One of the main things people ask before they go freelance is how to work out their freelance consultant rate. Setting your freelance consultant rates is difficult. Set your day rate too low and you have to work longer and harder to make a decent income. Set your day rate too high and you risk putting … Read more
I’ve been looking at the products and services I use as a freelancer, so wanted to get some advice and other opinions on what freelance tools are the best to use. I’ve become a big fan of the Freelance Subreddit, which has a whole community of freelancers, so I asked "What’s your freelance stack?" to … Read more
Last night I went to an event organised by 160characters and the Mobile Entertainment Forum called Sending Out an SMS: Charities Prepare To Go Mobile. Although charities have been slow to pick up the potential offered by mobile the barriers to adoption are crumbling. With a growing number and range of successful case studies, the … Read more
!["Self-publishing]("https://benrmatthews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/self-publishing-a-book-720x328.png")
Freelance in 30 Days is the first book I’ve written. It’s self-published and I wrote and published the 200-page book in around 100 days, starting late August and finishing in early December.
Along the way I’ve learnt a lot about the self-publishing process and gathered lots of information about how to make it work for you.
Here’s my experience on what worked and what didn’t go so well in the self-publishing journey.
You’ve got the perfect name for your freelance consulting business. You may have even gone and registered your freelance domain name in a fit of excitement. You may even be lucky enough to have won your first client. It’s time to register your freelance consulting business. If you’re like me, you may find the idea … Read more
Today is my 30th birthday. Yes, I’ve reached the big three-oh. I can already see wrinkles appearing by the minute… To celebrate, I’ve been whisked away for a surprise trip and I’m writing this from the cosy bedroom aboard a boat. One of the advantages of freelancing is that you can take a trip whenever … Read more
I’ve teamed up with the lovely guys at Crunch accounting to give away 5 copies of my book, Freelance in 30 Days. And the book giveaway is easy to enter! Just leave your email address in the box below and I’ll draw 5 winners at random, after the draw closes on 31st January. Everyone … Read more