I’m going to be putting together a top ten list of free online tools for freelance writers soon here at All Freelance Writing. Before I make my final picks though, I’m opening it up to suggestions. Here are a few of my own favorites. I hope you’ll leave a comment and share yours.
WordPress
Microsoft Accounting Express
OpenOffice
Serif WebPlus SE
Stock.xchng
About Jennifer Mattern
Jenn is a professional blogger and freelance business writer. She has worked as a writer since 1999, and began blogging in 2004. She owns All Freelance Writing as well as several other sites and blogs covering indie publishing, social media, and small business. She expects to release her first book for freelance writers,
The Query-Free Freelancer, in 2012 and she is the author of the
Web Writer's Guide e-book series.
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Hm, I’m a bit stuck on what would be considered a “tool” versus a “resource”, and what is meant by “online”, but I’ll happily share a bunch of the free applications and services that I use regularly as a part of freelance writing.
BTW – This comment field is giving me trouble and not translating the “Enter” key as a carriage return, so sorry for the weird list-style here:
Google Docs, Q10 (a writing software), PayPal (though you might not consider it free), PortableApps, Thunderbird, RememberTheMilk, PrintableCEO.
How about any blogging site that hosts blogs for writers. This gives writers an online presence and a promotional tool.
I really think freelance writers should learn how to utilize Google Documents for file sharing!
I’d stick to tools for this one – think things you can “use” (whereas anything you could read could technically be a “resource”). :)
As for online – it could be something you use on the Web (like a blogging platform) or something you find there and download for use (in most cases at your computer, but I suppose downloadable forms and templates could be another acceptable example).
Deborah – Thanks for the Google Documents addition. :)
Isaac – Do you have any favorites? For the top ten list, I likely won’t include free blog hosts simply because the platforms for self-hosted blogs are also often free (and self-hosted is generally better from the professional standpoint). But include them anyway.
The plan as of now is to put together a “master list” (which I’ll then continue to add to and publish later here). When we have enough (between here, others I find, and some forum submissions from DP), I’ll try to setup a poll here with 20, letting readers narrow down the top 10. :)
I love OpenOffice, but the latest release is such a memory hog and crashes often for me. I’m using AbiWord Portable.
Speaking of portable, portable apps on a USB drive are wonderful. You can have your browser, with your customized settings, with you always (FireFox), your email client (Thunderbird), and more.