I’ve stumbled onto a few wonderful discoveries lately in my quest for more efficient reporting, writing, and collecting money from clients, and wanted to share them in the interest of good freelance karma:
CallsFreeCalls: I discovered this in a time-sensitive situation. I was trying to set up an international call for an interview and figured I’d have time between scheduling and doing it to straighten out my international service on my phone. Well, suddenly, the princess’ people (yes, she’s a Middle Eastern princess) were telling me she had an hour-long window right now, but the Verizon website was down and the call center was backed up accordingly. I downloaded CFC and was able to purchase enough time for the interview for just $5. They’ll also let you build up free long-distance time by watching ads.
HelloSign: Get this to revolutionize your paperwork nightmares. Freelance writers never stop filling out paperwork if they actually want to get paid for their toils, and printing/filling out/scanning/attaching can end up forcing you to delay your own payments by weeks. This app, for your email, allows you to open a document, electronically sign it, reattach it, and send it back within a minute or two.
TapeACall: The moment independent reporters have all been waiting for has finally arrived: We can now tape our damn phone interviews like real, professional reporters who still have access to landlines because they work in ancient offices. Those of us with cell phones only have been MacGyver-ing our poor little iPhones every which way in attempts to record our interviews—elaborate cord-splitting constructions that led into old-school recorders but yielded terrible sound quality, putting people on speakerphone so we could tape on a different device … but TapeACall has solved all that with a (fairly) simple app. It even allows you to instantly send your recordings to a variety of outside storage means (Google docs, etc.), email, and even …
Rev.com: With the click of an app button, TapeACall will send your recordings directly to Rev.com, which will transcribe them for $1 a minute, with a turnaround time of 48 hours. Totally affordable, even on freelance pay.