Books That Have Helped Me Make Money as a Freelancer

There are books about money, and books about freelancing, but there are also a few excellent books that specifically address how to optimise profits as a freelancer. Here are a few of the ones that have had an actual impact on the revenue I bring into my freelance business.

The Compound Effect: Multiply Your Success One Simple Step at a Time by Darren Hardy

If you’re a money minded person, the word ‘compound’ might make you immediately think ‘interest’. But this book digs deeper into the concept and discusses how we can also compound our habits, repeating and building on the things that work for us within our business and slowly growing our revenue by taking consistent action.

This book helped me:

• Break some unproductive habits
• Install some key habits that, regularly repeated, can’t help but lead to increased revenue
• Track progress effectively to monitor the impact my new habits are having

12 Months to $1 Million: How to Pick a Winning Product, Build a Real Business, and Become a Seven-Figure Entrepreneur by Ryan Daniel Moran

Full disclosure: This book hasn’t made me a millionaire. At least not yet. But it has helped improve revenue, and to be fair, it’s not really aimed at someone like me.

This book focuses on building a physical-product-based business, whereas I sell services and digital products. I wouldn’t even have picked it up usually, but a friend was reading it and I got curious. I found that some of the principles can be applied to my business, and especially to my digital products.

This book helped me:

• Get clear on which digital product to launch next, given my current customer base
• Consider new advertising strategies that make sense for the product and the audience
• Think about how to build a stable of digital products over time that will lead to more plentiful and consistent sales

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

Every time I mention this book I include a caveat: I don’t really want to only work 4 hours a week. In fact, around 4 hours a day is my aim (I enjoy my work, and that still leaves 20 for rest and play).

I just like the fact that the main aim of this book is to help you work less while earning more, and you can use the concepts to design a work/life balance that works for you and your circumstances.

This book helped me:

• Pare back my business to the bare bones and focus on the key, revenue-generating actions I need to take each day
• Think about the lifestyle I want to build around my business and the practicalities of how to do this

Chillpreneur: The New Rules for Creating Success, Freedom, and Abundance on Your Terms by Denise Duffield Thomas

I’m a big fan of a former book by this author, Get Rich, Lucky Bitch, which covers a lot of important, if not wholly original, aspects of money mindset. But this book focuses in — much like the 4-hour workweek — on working less but earning more, specifically asking the question: Want to make twice as much money with half the work? (Don’t we all?)

This book helped me:

• Tweak my current business model so that it perfectly fits my personality
• Use specific concepts — such as the Golden Goose and the Keyless Life — to help me work less and earn more

The author explains both concepts at those links, so if you’re looking for quick fixes take a look. But read the whole book if you have time. It really helps you pull those concepts, and several more, together to create a high-revenue, low-hours business model.

I’ve read a hundred books or more that have helped me be a better freelancer, but these are the ones that have led to the actions that contributed most in terms of directly increasing income. They’re well worth digging into if that’s your aim right now.

Karen Banes is a freelance writer specializing in entrepreneurship, parenting and lifestyle. She writes articles, website content, ebooks and the occasional award winning short story. Her work has appeared in a range of publications both online and off, including The Washington Post, Life Info Magazine, Transitions Abroad, Brave New Traveler, Natural Parenting Group, and Copia Magazine. Learn More About Karen