How To Start Your Own Freelance Business Using Free Online Platforms

In 2019, I resigned from my position as Quality Associate Manager of a BPO company. My stay in the company lasted 11 years from customer representative to Quality Specialist, to Quality Associate Manager. I have been in many accounts and different lines of businesses and never strayed from my department – Quality. While my reason for leaving was due to health issues, I have always wanted to leave the toxic corporate environment of a BPO company to pursue my own dream and become a writer. I wanted to do a stay-at-home job with flexible schedule and make income from mere hobbies that I have always wanted to do but didn’t have the time to go after. I wanted to be a freelancer but didn’t want to be an employee of any company anymore. I wanted to be my own boss, the owner of my own business. And now, I am doing exactly that, but it wasn’t easy from the start. I had some failures and learned from my mistakes before I finally established myself as a freelancer. Now, I make my own schedules, provide only the services I am confident to deliver, continue to add more services as my skills grow, and learn more services that my clients need or may need in the future. And most importantly, I no longer have to put up with tasks I hate doing, nor deal with people that have toxic personalities. But the advantages don’t end there. The best thing about being a freelancer is...as long as you have a laptop, you can do your job anywhere – home, coffee shop, beach, and even in the airport before travelling to another country.

Being the owner of a small online business that provide services as a freelancer is a great business to have if you want to achieve the flexibility that many dream of. If I only want to work in the morning and allot time for my hobbies in the afternoon, I can. If I don’t want to work during the holidays to spend quality time with my family, I can without having to ask anyone’s permission. It’s an exhilarating experience, but this is only because I’ve already learned what works, and what doesn’t work in the freelancing industry.

In this article, I’d like to share how you can break free from the shackles of an office job and start your own freelance business:

Let’s say you’re a very creative person and is good at graphic designs. Perhaps you love books and also have an eye on what book covers can entice readers to buy them. I know the story or content is the most important thing in a book, but so is a book cover. A book cover sets the mood. It’s more than just a pretty surface. It is an important marketing tool that can attract potential readers because a book cover should convey the essence of the story. If you have both the creative and artistic skills needed, then why not start your own business offering book designs? And if you think creative and artistic skills are the same. The answer is, NO. They are different things. Creativity pertains to having a good sense of idea for a certain topic or project, while artistic skill pertains to your ability to transform that idea into an art. For now, we have established that the first service you would like to offer is BOOK DESIGNS, so let’s use that for the rest of this “how to” list. This is only an example, and you can add more service or change them depending on your skills.

You may have the creativity and artistic skills needed to make a book cover design, but you still have to research how you can do this in the most efficient way. You must learn everything you need to know. Like for book covers, there is a standard size for different formats. If you check a book on Amazon, you’ll see that it is available in Kindle (e-book), Paperback, Hardback, and Audible (audio) format. Learn the technical stuff about what service you are offering so that you can offer high quality service to your clients. You may also find a way to make your job easier by using an app that has free templates for book covers that will serve as your basis or foundation. If you want to use a free platform that already has templates that you can just tweak, I recommend Canva. It is not limited to book covers. It has templates for logos, business cards, flyers, posters, and a lot more. There are free templates and there are also templates that would cost you money. If you feel like you don’t need Canva to create and design a book cover because you are that impressive, then that would be even better. All you need to do next is to make sure you provide a book design service that will meet your client needs.

Since you’re just starting, it is best to offer an affordable rate for your service. One that is a bit cheaper than other book designers. If you want to design book covers, your competitors are most likely from Upwork and Fiverr. But remember this, they are working for a company while you’re not. You are a freelancer who’s starting your own online business. So, start from the ground and establish your way up until you no longer have to design books yourself and has grown your business large enough to hire other people to the job. My business isn’t that big yet, but I am earning twice and sometimes even thrice as much as I used to earn when I was working as an employee. And the best part about that is, I am not working 9 to 12 hours like I used to. I’m only working in the morning and doing my hobby of writing fiction and contents like this in the afternoon. Other times, I’m just relaxing, listening to music while reading a book, or watching on streaming platforms like Netflix, DisneyPlus, and HBOGo. These are things I couldn’t even enjoy doing when I was working a full-time job in the toxic BPO environment because I was always catching up on sleep during my days off, or bonding with my kids. Going back to the rate for the service you want to offer where my example is book designs, you might want to rate it based on the quality of design: Basic, Standard, and Premium. Based on my own experience, I suggest you start your rate at $35 for Basic, $70 for Standard, and $140 for Premium. For more details about what basic, standard, and premium entail, you can do your own research on this.

Never start your own freelance business without samples or portfolio. You have to show your prospective clients how good you are. Create book designs first and I suggest, you make them based on the different pricing range, as well as difference genres. Create one cover for a children’s book, one for a nonfiction book, then one for each genre of fiction – romance, paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, scifi, mystery, action, adventure, thriller, etc. Don’t worry about them going to waste because they won’t. You can also sell them as premade covers. There are authors who get inspired to write once they see a great cover. I’m one of them. I start with my cover first before I write. Then, there are also authors who might already be writing something that would fit the book cover you already have, and all you need to do is do some tweaking.

Once you’re done creating samples of your work, you can start creating a CV which will also work as your portfolio. I suggest you create an account on Clearvoice.com and create your CV there. This way, while you’re still establishing yourself as a book designer, you can just easily send a link of your CV to your prospective clients, so that you can start building trust.

While website is very important, this isn’t the case for me. I rarely and almost never needed to have a website for my own business, so don’t worry if you stumbled upon this article to start your own business without spending money, only to find out that you have to have money to create your own website. There are free website builders with free templates for small businesses and you can use that, but don’t expect your own domain name. Examples of these free platforms where you can create your own website would be WordPress, Wix, and Strikingly. But still, the best way to showcase your own business is to really build an impressive website with your own domain. There is no such thing as a free domain. You have to pay for it monthly or annually. If you’re just starting, you may try any of the free website platforms I mentioned, or you can just do without them. You’ll know why you don’t need a website of your own for now, as long as you have your CV ready.

Since we’ve established book design as the service you want to provide, then that would mean your market would be authors. Particularly, self-published authors because traditional authors normally don’t have to worry about their book cover. A legit publishing company takes care of everything an author needs. They just need to focus on writing. But for independent or self-published authors, they may be able to write and edit their own work, but when it comes to book covers, they’d have to search someone who can do it for them. And that’s where you come in.

For me, the best platforms for my business are Instagram and Twitter, but only because I have already discovered a way to grow my followers there. I have introduced Canva before, and you can also use it to make a professional or business profile on social media. It is best for your profile to also be your business logo. For details on how to grow your followers on Twitter, you can check my article: https://hubpages.com/hub/Legit-Effective-Tips-to-Grow-Your-Twitter-Followers?hubview. You can pretty much apply the same thing on Instagram as long as you understand the idea. The key thing is to make sure you only search and follow your target market, which on this example would be authors.

LinkedIn is the reason why, for me, it isn’t important to have my own website. Of course, I have my own business website which I created using Strikingly, but I rarely and almost never have to use it because my most important platform is LinkedIn. It is practically a gold mine. It has valuable information and resources that you need for your freelance business. And yes, it is free, but you can opt to have a premium account if you can afford it for your business. I used to have a premium account, but I didn’t renew it because I didn’t need it. To grow your connections, just search for independent or self-published authors and filter it by People and Location.

Now, there are critical things you have to know about LinkedIn and I am sharing this because I have already learned from my mistakes in the past. I am not letting you experience the same mistakes, so make sure you do the following: (1) Only add up to 100 connections per week but do not do it in just one day. For me, I add 50 connections in two days, but I used to add 25 connections in four days which is a total of 100 connections per week. LinkedIn has a limit for adding connections and that number is unknown. But based on my experience, the safest is 100 connections per week or you’ll get a warning and eventually get banned if you keep on going over their weekly limit, (2) Send only up to 30 direct messages to clients and do not do it every day of the week. Again, LinkedIn has a certain limit that is unknown, but based on my own experience, 30 is the safest number of messages you can send in a day. You can also post about your service, but for me, the best way to do it is by sending a message directly to your prospective clients. Adding connections and sending my pitch directly has been an important routine of mine. Even if I have already established recurring clients, it is always a must to keep growing my client base.

For me, PayPal is the most convenient method of payment because my clients are mostly based in the US and UK. Plus, even if your client doesn’t have a PayPal account, as long as they have a credit or debit card, you can send the PayPal invoice to them, and they can process the payment through the electronic email they receive. If you have other method of payment to set up, feel free to use the most convenient one for your own business.

Your own business as a freelancer will only be official if you register it. This is quite a tiring process, but you only have to do this once. You don’t have to worry about the step-by-step process because once you relay your interest in registering your freelance business, there will be people there who will tell you what you need to do, what you need to fill out, and where you need to go. They will also ask you to attend a seminar and pick the schedule where you can attend one. This seminar will teach you how you’re going to pay for your taxes. After that, if anything isn’t clear, you can ask anyone from the BIR, or you can simply google or check out YouTube videos about filing different forms online. Yes, ONLINE. After you register your business, you can file taxes online. This is the only thing amongst this list that isn’t free. Of course, you have to pay for the registration which isn’t that much, plus you need to buy your own journal, ledger, cash disbursement, and official receipt. Everything you need to know about the books of records can easily be searched online. Currently, there are many, many freelancers who haven’t registered their own business. That, ladies and gentlemen, is tax evasion. Even if you are earning below the taxable income, you still need to register your business. You never know when your business might grow. It can be sooner than you think.

Hope this article helps in establishing your own freelance business! If you have any questions, be resourceful. That’s the main skill of a great freelancer. Your ability to find everything online and discover them on your own will make you realize that there is more out there that you can earn from.