I’ve been working on various changes, upgrades, and new features for All Freelance Writing for a while, slowly unrolling them as they’re ready. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t posted personally much lately (changing next week). I’ll be taking some time off this Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, and during that time I’ll be finishing up a few of these blog changes while I’m kicking back and taking care of other “life stuff.” So between now and Wednesday of next week, you can expect to see some changes. Here’s what I’m hoping to finish up in that time:

• The new marketplace will finally launch. I scrapped the classifieds script we were going to use because there was no option for marketplace feeds. While no scripts I’ve found will give us that, plus integrate seamlessly into the AFW template, I’m going to get around that. I’ve laid out and will be setting up a more custom solution. It should look cleaner on the front-end, be easier to manage on the back-end, and still offer all features we want up front. So yay for that.
• I’ll be adding new series or author links to the sidebar so you can find posts from all of our contributors a bit more easily.
• The whole black bar at the top will undergo some changes. The job board will be replaced with the marketplace. The “free downloads” will be changed to reflect the broader base of free stuff there — like our new free freelance hourly rate calculator. The free articles section will also be scrapped and replaced.
• I’m going to prep one or two of the WordPress themes I purchased for you to get it ready for free release. At least one will be released in that time — maybe more, depending on how many are ready to go and how many are still waiting on coding.
• Featured posts will be updated.
• The logo might undergo a few more changes — slogan stays, but I’m still not thrilled with how the logo has come out and have some ideas.
• I’ll be finalizing plans for the next 2-3 free tools to be released, and announcing them here as they’re sent off to my coder.
• I’ll also be announcing some updates and changes regarding the Freelance Theater project.

Basically, other than the marketplace, it’s a bunch of little changes that will add up. I just want people to know what to expect so no one is confused if they’re looking for something and can’t find it in the next couple of days.

We still have other, bigger changes and features in the works, from a podcast and serious industry survey and report to a potential video and / or cartoon series. Those are just the tip of the iceburg. We have even bigger projects being planned for All Freelance Writing that are still to come. And as always, we’re open to ideas.