My head is still swimming with all the information I tried to soak in last week at the 2008 Creative Freelancer Conference in Chicago. Fortunately it has been officially announced that MP3 audio recordings of all of the seminars will be available for purchase soon, likely sometime in the next few weeks. I’ll post a link as soon as they are available.
One of the books I picked up at the conference is The Designer’s Guide to Marketing And Pricing: How to Win Clients and What to Charge Them (Amazon.com link) co-authored by two of the key presenters, Ilise Benun and Peleg Top from Marketing Mentor. I’ve only read portions of the book, but so far I can say this is one of the best books on self-promotion and pricing that I’ve seen in a while. It’s a detailed primer covering the nuts-and-bolts of finding the right clients, networking, pricing your work, and lots of advice on what to say (and what not to say) when negotiating a project so that you appear as professional as possible. The chapter on how to talk to clients about money is well worth the price of the book. While primarily targeted at graphic designers, there is a wealth of helpful information most of which could easily apply to illustrators, photographers, web designers, etc.
Another book I picked up at the conference is Identity Crisis! (Amazon.com link
Finally, designer Ian Arsenault has posted a bunch of photos from the conference on his Facebook page. Give them a looksee to see how much fun everyone had. Ya should’a been there!