For those who are still at the beginning of their freelance careers and are just getting a taste of the freedom that comes with it, a whole new world has opened up. Entrepreneurship is bumpy and self-education is essential to thrive. If you’re a budding freelancer, you’ll love this entrepreneur book recommendation. But even if you are in the entrepreneurial business for a while, you’ll find something to enjoy.
These business books collected here will help you avoid wandering cluelessly through the plethora of information for freelancers. You’ll find a wealth of useful information and inspiring, eye-opening ideas. You’ll get a guide to help you get your business up and running faster and more efficiently.
1.Tim Ferriss – 4 hours workweek Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Tim Ferriss’s New York Times bestselling book is the bible for freelancers and digital nomads. It is one of the first widely distributed books on freelancing. It shows how Ferriss managed to get out of the 9-to-5 grind, while earning a higher income with less time investment.
The book introduces you to the lifestyle design method, with useful tips and case studies on what steps to take for those like Ferriss who want to break away from the drudgery of working 40 hours a week (or more).
The first 50 pages of the book, which has been translated into several languages around the world, are available free of charge from the author’s website for an email subscription. And if you want extra inspiration alongside the book, Ferriss’s other books and weekly newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) are also worth listening to, along with the business podcast The Tim Ferriss Show, which recently crossed 630 episodes. During the conversations, a host of world stars, academics and widely respected professionals open up to Ferriss and share the essence of his success.
2. MJ DeMarco – The Millionare Fastline Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime
MJ DeMarco’s book is a page-turner. It shows that you don’t have to accept the life roles that many people have come to expect as the default. Not everyone has to live their lives on the school-job-marriage-family-(house-buying)-pension axis (the same theme is explored in more detail in the author’s book Unscripted).
There is no great wealth to be made by saving. To get into the gear of wealth creation and achieve financial freedom, you have to leave the safe comfort of the slow lane and get into the fast lane. An average life path has little chance of leading to outstanding results and a better-than-average standard of living.
The entrepreneur book symbolically divides people into three groups, with those in the slow lane struggling with debt and trying to make headwinds. Those in the fast lane are a notch more conscious, trying to get ahead by saving.These categories are more efficient than those in the slow lane, but it’s hard to build a fortune just by being frugal. So he prefers the fast-track approach. The idea is to educate yourself, use the knowledge you acquire to create value, solve as many people’s problems as possible, and thereby build a thriving fortune.
3. Seth Godin – Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Seth Godin’s book shows that a great workforce not only follows instructions, but can also act when the rules of the game are not clear. You don’t wait for the cards to be dealt, you shuffle the deck.
And as a freelancer, this is the attitude you need to master. After all, you need creativity just to keep your business going. You need to figure out how to manage the administration of invoicing and tax, how to attract new clients, how to increase your efficiency or what marketing tools to use to promote your service. And in project-based working, you need to manage your time effectively, prioritise your tasks and schedule them accordingly.
4. James Clear – Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
It’s not doing one thing that makes someone successful or unsuccessful, but the building of committed, long-term habits. It depends on the things you spend your time doing every day. Things that are almost subconsciously ingrained in you and you almost don’t consciously notice them. Things you’re used to doing, like brushing your teeth or taking a shower.
The book Atomic Habits will help you not only know what you should be doing, but actually make a habit of the activities that bring you closer to your goal.
Among other things, it teaches you:
– how to take time to develop new habits (even in the midst of a constant rush),
– how to consolidate your new habits,
– free yourself from old habits,
– how to overcome a lack of motivation and willpower,
– how to get 1% better every day (and thereby increase your progress at an incredible pace),
– or how to get back on track if you lose your way.
5. Freelance business book by Freelance Business Community
The Freelance Business Community’s (FBC) free downloadable e-book explores the experiences of hundreds of experts in the freelance ecosystem in 10 chapters.
Starting with the biggest pitfalls of getting started, through the difficulties of client acquisition and the key components of the freelancer mindset, to the importance of personal branding, you’ll learn everything you need to know about freelancing.
To help freelancers share their experiences, FBC has created Freelance Business Month, a month-long event for the third time this year. You can watch the session recordings from past years on the Freelance Business Community’s YouTube channel.
6. Tom Albrighton – The Freelance Introvert Work the way you want without changing who you are
Even in a traditional workplace, introverts are more prone to retreat into themselves and become lonely wolves in a quiet corner of the office. To work alone in contemplative silence, away from the noise. The loneliness of being an entrepreneur is a burden for many, but it is a good opportunity for introverts, who are often burdened by an overly busy work environment.
This business book will help readers with a more reserved personality to take on the obstacles of freelancing with confidence. How to find out what area to work in, how to benefit from the strengths of the introvert personality trait and how to overcome its weaknesses.
We use a lot of electronic devices in our personal lives and at work. Everyone is vying for our attention: apps, streaming providers, websites, newsletters, billboards, newspapers, social media sites, ads… the list goes on. Every day, we are bombarded with a wealth of information. We are dopamine starved, hungry for new things. Meanwhile, we feel overworked, restless, overstimulated.
By following the advice in this book, you can regain control of your attention after a digital detox. And all in 2 days or less. Some of the steps include: Refrain from using digital devices as much as you can. Reduce screen time, turn off notifications and don’t reach for your phone before bed or when you wake up.
You’ll find that after a cleansing regimen, the feeling of de-concentration will be replaced by a sense of calm. And the fidgety, slightly tense work is replaced by focused concentration.
The full audio of the book is available here.
This business book is written specifically for freelancers who want to write. Whether it’s an online platform, a print magazine, or a marketing agency.
How to get started? This is one of the questions answered in the book. It helps you to choose the right clients/platforms/interfaces, to find topic ideas or to decide when to take on a job (part-time or full-time) and how many hours. You can find more about how to become a good freelance writer with Grego’s session on making great content.
There are also reviews of the book here.
As an entrepreneur, success is made up of many factors. The basic premise is that you need to be an expert in your field (whether you are an accountant, graphic designer, web designer or, say, an artist, you need to bring quality work to the table). At the same time, you need to master a number of other skills. Skills that are essential for everyone, whatever their field.
Starting with how well you can network, make new contacts, or how to put together a unique and representative portfolio, or even how well you can sell yourself. You will need to improve your communication. After all, even if you don’t have any colleagues in the strictest sense of the word, you need to keep in touch with your existing and potential clients. You need to be aware of your bookkeeping tasks (or be able to delegate them to an accountant). You need to set strategies, targets and manage your time. In a word: you have to pay attention to a lot of things.
This book gives you a direction, bringing together the areas that are essential to creating a well-functioning sole proprietorship.
There is only room for 9 readings on this list, however you can find a longer list on our blog with the top 30 best books for freelancers! All the books share with readers some very actionable ideas. We hope you found the compilations useful.
Have you read a book that should be added to this list? Join our Slack channel and share your thoughts!
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