This interactive guide helps you:

  • Get up and running as a freelancer quickly and efficiently. 

  • Prioritize the most important steps to take. 

  • Craft a durable strategy for financially and emotionally sustainable freelancing

Thanks to a Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship awarded to IIJ’s founder Katherine Reynolds Lewis, access to the guide is free. Take a quick pre-survey and then explore!

What’s in the Guide

  • 5 modules that combine short video lessons with exercises, explainers and tools around a specific topic: your niche and rates, marketing, time management, project scope and contracts, and business structure

  • Exercises take you through the main decision points for creating a sustainable practice.

  • Video modules to help you understand the steps needed to reach your goals and craft a strategy for getting there.

Guide-Created Resources 

  • While navigating through the guide, you will adapt contract templates to fit your needs.

  • You’ll learn how to scope a project, conduct a discovery call, and research prospective clients. 

  • You’ll finish the guide with a business plan that will continue to support your entrepreneurial journey.

About the Instructor 

Katherine Reynolds Lewis is the founder of the Institute for Independent Journalists, special projects editor for Greater Good Magazine, and a columnist for Nieman Reports. She’s an award-winning science journalist, educator and author who's been a full-time freelancer since 2008, with bylines in the Atlantic, NY Times, Undark, and Washington Post. Her book, The Good News About Bad Behavior, grew out of Mother Jones’ most-read story. A Harvard physics graduate, Katherine is a former national correspondent for Newhouse and Bloomberg News.

Thanks to the Association of Independent in Radio, a core IIJ partner, for hosting the guide on their learning platform, SoundPath. To access the guide, first create a free account on SoundPath.