Reviews
Making Money Freelance Writing.
From the editors of Writer's Digest Magazine, Writer's Digest Books,
Cincinnati, OH. 304 pages. $19.99.
You don't have to be a writer or editor to find this book useful.
It's about the business of writing, not how to write snappy stories.
If you're interested in doing almost anything as a freelancer-producing
videos, designing web sites, photography or being a technology
consultant-you'll find plenty of tips in Making Money Freelance Writing.
And that goes for anything from making a few extra dollars of second
income to going to full-time freelancing.
The book is a compilation of 37 articles organized into three
sections: Conducting the Freelance Business, Freelance Opportunities,
and The Freelancer's Life-style. Particularly generic to all types of
freelance work is the first section on how to conduct a freelance
business. There's a good chapter about marketing yourself and your
business called "The Service Edge," by Dick Schaaf. He says there's
no better competitive edge these days than superior customer service
(the customer being the editor or whoever you're working for). "If
you're writing to make money, you must become a business too. It isn't
hard, but it is work. The rules are the same for freelancers as for
Marriott Hotels, FedEx or L.L. Bean: Take care of your customers and
they'll take care of you."
He goes on to talk about the importance of long-term relationships
for freelancers (it costs five times as much to attract a new customer
as to keep one you already have). Some of the other tips may sound
like Marketing 101, but they work: listen, understand and respond to
the customer; define superior service and establish a service strategy;
and set standards and measure performance. Playing "The Contacts Game,"
per the title of another chapter, can be intimidating. But contacts
can include friends and acquaintances. Playing the contacts game is
simply relating to people, telling them what you do and asking them
what they do.
There are chapters on Stalking the Business Client, Care and
Feeding of Clients, How to Set Your Rates, Five Strategies for Beating
the Tax Man, and The Art of Negotiation. About negotiating: Everything
is negotiable-money, rights, deadlines, expenses, payment schedules
and editing. You're probably making a mistake if you're working for
the same rate now as when you started freelancing. Beginners should
take whatever terms are offered, but continuing the practice after
breaking in is like turning down raises. Have you ever turned down a
raise?
John M. (Jack) Sperbeck
University of Minnesota
Web-Based Instruction.
Badrul H. Khan, ed., Educational Technology Publications, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey 1997. ISBN 0-87778-297-0. 463 pages. $59.95 soft
cover.
Distance education is a hot topic on many university campuses today,
and one of the fastest growing areas within that discipline is the
delivery of instruction and training via the Web. Web-based
instruction (WBI) has taken many forms, from the simple posting of a
syllabus to a full-fledged delivery of course materials including
instructor/student interaction and online evaluation. A dedicated Web
surfer can find many examples of WBI, but until recently reference
material in print has been rare.
While developing a graduate course in educational technology
focusing on WBI in 1996, Badrul Khan of the University of Texas at
Brownsville found a lack of centralized information on the subject.
With the encouragement of several colleagues, he began to compile
information and solicit contributions for a manuscript that eventually
became this book. Khan divides the work into five sections:
introduction to Web-based instruction; Web-based learning environments
and critical issues; designing Web-based instruction; delivering
Web-based instruction; and case studies of Web-based courses. Over
90 authors from educational institutions in the U.S., Canada, England,
Australia, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands contribute chapters
concerning their various specialties. Assisting the reader's
comprehension and helping to keep the 400 plus pages from becoming
soporific are a number of tables, diagrams, illustrations and
'snapshots' of Web pages.
The subject matter appeals to a wide range of interests, ranging
as it does from pedagogical discussions to production tips to listings
of useful Web sites. Fair use and other copyright issues are addressed,
and I found some of the best material I've seen on formative and
summative evaluation of Web-based courses. Web-based conferencing
systems for the development of on-line courses also find mention in
the book, including the Virtual-U Education System
(http://kochab.cs.sfu.ca:8000) and Web Course in a Box
(http://madduck.mmd.vcu.edu/wcb/wcb.html.) Other topics include
student motivation, faculty incentives, faculty and staff training,
and interactivity. Practicing what it preaches, the book provides Web
site addresses and e-mail addresses along with traditional references
at the end of most chapters. Faculty members, instructional designers,
computer and media specialists and other support personnel should find
this book to be a valuable resource in planning distance education
projects over the Web.
Ron Thomas
University of Florida