
Career.fork() - How To Thrive As A Freelance Developer - hekker
https://leanpub.com/freelancedeveloperbook
======
jaggederest
My question about books like this is always 'If you are doing so well at what
you're writing a book about, why are you wasting the time writing a book about
it?'

Surely you don't expect that your time spent writing a book is going to pay
out at $300 an hour, or whatever your consulting rates are.

~~~
stevejalim
Hi. Good question. Why _did_ I write this book?

I think bdunn and robbiea's suggestions are valid.

(And, man, I wish pyre's suggestion that I don't need money was true :o)
though I'm lucky enough to consider myself pretty successful at what I do, so
I wasn't writing to make up for missing revenue.)

But, in addition to the residual income and, to a lesser extent, publicity
angles, the initial spark behind writing it was the fact that I found myself
being asked time and again about what life is like as a contractor/freelancer.
Which meant that a) there was definitely a knowledge gap/problem to be solved
and b) the repeated nature of similar requests meant it made sense to optimise
how I shared what I'd learned over the years.

I'm well aware that no one gets rich from writing a book - so I deliberately
didn't sacrifice _any_ client time; I was able to (just) fit it into what
spare time I had.

Along with all that, there's the fact that I knew I _could_ write this book
and wasn't intimidated by the task (I had the knowledge and the skills -- I
used to be a national-level journo) and the fact that writing is still fun, so
it was a pleasure to make.

Yep, that pretty much covers it.

~~~
mgkimsal
"I found myself being asked time and again about what life is like as a
contractor/freelancer."

This was the same impetus behind indieconf, the conference I run in November
(shameless plug - <http://indieconf.com> \- we might even get bdunn speaking
this year).

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ricardobeat
Pay-what-you-want with a high minimum price gives me conflicted feelings. What
I read is "this book costs $11.99, but you can give me more money if you
want!".

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bdunn
Steve, this is great! As somebody who's a week or two away from releasing a
book on pricing for freelancers (<http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com>) I'd
love to compare notes sometime.

Buying now. I'm especially interested in the "Oiling the wheels" section.

~~~
jqueryin
Speaking of pricing, even your initial rate is too high for my blood. Are you
going to be offering it up in different formats? I'm only personally
interested in a Kindle Fire edition, but the only site reference is to "book",
which I'd believe to be paperback but I could be wrong.

~~~
bdunn
It's a PDF, but I'll be converting it to Kindle and epub after it's released.

Also, if the cost of a $39 book that might be able to help you raise your
rates, thus resulting in thousands of extra dollars is too high... Well :-)

~~~
gjm11
The kicker here is that word "might". I'd willingly pay $39 for a book that
_will_ get me thousands of extra dollars; I wouldn't for one that will do so
with probability 0.1%. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle; perhaps
the book is worth every cent it costs and much more; but it's no good just to
say "it might make you thousands" as if that settles the matter.

~~~
jinfiesto
Actually, by your logic, it is. If the book stands to possibly make you
$10,000 with probability .1%, the book is worth $10. As you mention, the truth
is probably somewhere in the middle. I'd conjecture the book is worth at least
$39 if it stands to make you $10,000+ with greater than .1% probability.

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antihero
Can we get it free then pay you back double once the advice starts to work?
Call it an investment...

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joss82
Why link to an ad for a book instead of an article that would add value, and
maybe point to the book at the end?

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jiffyjeff
I purchased this book and read it today. I think it's a nice collection of
advice for the budding freelancer. It's a little light on the legal aspects
such as business structure, taxes and contracts. I would consider it a
beginner's book on freelancing.

For a little more depth on the business side of freelancing, I strongly
recommend the following book: _Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for
Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants_, by Stephen Fishman J.D.

~~~
stevejalim
Thanks jiffyjeff. It was tricky deciding how much detail to go into on the
legal/financial details, because it's hard to write things that are globally
applicable and also useful. However, the plan has always been to add support
for other geographical areas in 1.0 (as well as a bunch more general topics),
so thanks for the US-specific book tip -- should come in handy.

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edanm
This seems like a very interesting book. How relevant is it for people
starting consulting businesses, i.e. not solo freelancers but rather freelance
companies?

I'm talking about questions like: how to allocate the different people to
different tasks, how/when to hire employees, hiring on-site employees vs.
hiring freelancers who work from home (potentially form elance or similar),
etc. Does this book get into any of these topics at all?

~~~
stevejalim
Hi - I wrote the book and its focus is on client work as an individual, rather
than starting a company. In future releases, my list includes adding a section
on sharing work with others, which might be more relevant. If you ping an
email to feedback@freelancedeveloperbook.com with stuff you'll like covered,
I'll add it to my Trello board

~~~
edanm
Great - I've sent the email, hope it helps. Will definitely be picking up this
book.

By the way, I've heard the book "Design is a Job" praised on HN as a freelance
Designer's guide to freelancing. I'm currently reading it. It seems your book
is very similar in its goals and content, only for programmers instead of
designers. If I'm right, I would definitely consider marketing it as "Design
is a Job - for developers", or at least include that message somewhere on the
leanpub page. I know _I_ looked for it.

~~~
stevejalim
Email received and Trelloed :o)

Thanks, too, for the suggestion. I've tried not to make my pitch copy on the
leanpub site too SEO-ey, but I certainly get the point about helping people
understand what the book may be like compared to ones they know. I'll check
out "Design is a Job" when I get a moment.

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wodow
This looks good. But it wasn't clear to me that the author is talking about
the UK (primarily? exclusively) without reading a fair amount of the page.

~~~
stevejalim
Hi wodow - thanks for your interest.

Someone over on the Leanpub page has asked about how UK-centric it is, so I
thought I'd post pretty much my answer to that question here, because I think
it's relevant:

"The majority of the book is relevant to going freelance wherever in the world
you are. There are some sections, though (basically the money and legal ones)
where, because I have first-hand experience of operating in the UK, I've
framed it in UK terms. However, the principles/topics covered are still pretty
relevant wherever you are in the world and will set you on a decent path to
finding out about the local equivalents.

While it's impossible to write a book that covers legal/financial stuff
relevant to the whole world in one go, I do want to add in more territory-
specific detail where people ask for it. So, in a future release of the book
(which you'll get for free, remember) the plan is currently to refactor the
UK-specific stuff to be generalised and then 'add support' for versions of
that info applicable to additional territories (most likely in an appendix,
but I'll see how realistic that is when I've had more feedback about the
territories people want the book to cover).

But, like I said, the advice in most the book is location-independent."

~~~
wodow
Great answer - thanks - and I see it on the leanpub page too. But maybe move
it up top in case your comments there scroll it off the bottom of the Disqus
section?

I am actually resident in the UK and buying a copy shortly!

~~~
AshtonBRSC
I'm going to buy a copy because the author is based in the UK and is less
likely to have irrelevant information in it for me.

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moystard
Does anyone own this book? I am actually thinking of going the Freelance way
and am looking for a good overview of the outcomes and challenges. I feel a
bit lost with all the various information that I have read on the Internet, so
am looking for something I can trust and that reflect the reality of
freelancing well.

~~~
stevejalim
Hi moystard

The Leanpub page contains a run-down of the main sections and (now that the
book is published) also auto-includes the real table of contents - not sure if
you've scrolled down the page all that way (it's quite a scroll to get there).

For what it's worth, of the experienced freelancers I beta-tested the book on,
the key peice of (pleasing) feedback that I got was a bunch of them all saying
"I wish I'd had this book X years ago, when I started out".

~~~
moystard
Bought it, I don't know if you are interested in the feedback of your readers,
but will probably post one on this topic in a couple of days.

~~~
stevejalim
Hi - yep, feedback always welcome, and - indeed - the plan has always been to
shape future 'releases' of the book based on feedback from this release;
that's part of the whole 'lean publishing' thing that Leanpub.com promotes.

In case I miss it on HN, please send it over to
feedback@freelancedeveloperbook.com - the same goes for feedback from anyone
who's read it.

~~~
moystard
I am almost done reading it. It is definitely a good read for someone who
wants to go the freelancing way. However, I think it might be difficult to
give a feedback without applying the concepts presented in the book. I could
do it in a couple of months if I start freelancing, for now I am still
hesitating and the book did not answer some of my incertitudes.

What I can say is that this book seem to give advice, the ones you read and
think it is common sense are usually the best.

~~~
stevejalim
Hi moystard - please do drop me a line (email in profile, or
feedback@freelancedeveloperbook.com) and I'll see what I can do in terms of
answering other questions. Some stuff will be too specific to be relevant in a
book, but other stuff will may be worth adding. Also, the Stack-Exchange-style
Q&A site I'm setting up (questions.freelancedeveloperbook.com) might become a
handy resource for you and others (once it's live!)

Steve

~~~
moystard
Email sent, thank you for your time.

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andr3w321
No free chapter?

~~~
draven
The introduction would be nice, especially since it contains a "note for non
UK readers", a group I'm part of.

Still, I'm thinking about going freelance, the book is reasonably priced and
the table of contents looks interesting.

------
ilaksh
The hard part is finding good clients who have lots of money. How do you do
that?

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sebilasse
I bought and read the book. It is a good overview of many aspects on
freelancing work. Being a freelancer myself most of the stuff i knew,
experienced it or read elsewhere, so nothing ground-breaking. However it's a
good compilation of all the advice out there. Recommended

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neurostimulant
Just bought it. As a new full time freelancer, I really appreciate your effort
to take time and write this book. Thanks.

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jqueryin
Where's the coupon code for HN :) I'd suggest doing this and then having a
link to your PayPal if we feel it was worth more.

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richo
Object.fork ? is there any environment in which that even attempts to make
sense?

Fork is a system call.

~~~
tptacek
Groan. You mean like, any language with class methods in which "Process" is a
class? Like, say, Ruby?

~~~
richo
In which case you're not calling it on an instance, are you? Also, in ruby
Process is a module, which kinda proves my point.

The only reason I point it out is that I find it difficult to take anyone who
posts titles like this seriously.

~~~
stevejalim
The title of the book is actually "career.fork()" not "Career.fork()"

I wouldn't have been happy with a title that throws an exception :o)

~~~
paulgb
I believe HN auto-capitalizes the first letter of titles.

Can't wait to read the book :-)

