The Publishing Secret No One Wants to Discuss One publishing industry secret no one likes to discuss is that writing and publishing have historically been the domain of the wealthy. Most authors throughout history were rich before they started writing, and that is still largely true today. For every rags-to-riches author story, there are hundreds of riches-to-less-riches stories you don’t hear. Publishing is expensive. Most authors only make money years after doing the work of writing. Because of that cash flow cycle, people who live paycheck to paycheck find it difficult to thrive in publishing. Some folks can afford to wait to get paid upon publication, which may be three years after they’ve done the work. Others need income to put food on the table tomorrow. Publishing also requires a lot of education. Developing a writing craft that merits a reader’s enjoyment, time, and money takes practice and hard work. If only there were a way to educate yourself while making money instead of spending money. There is! If you haven’t started making money from your writing career yet, you could be earning money right now as an author assistant. In addition to earning, you’ll get to connect with other authors and learn about the publishing industry. Our podcast producer, Laurie Christine, has done just that. She started her career working as an author assistant. Today, she hosts her own podcast, Redeeming the Chaos, and recently successfully Kickstarted her first book, Rise of the Enemy. How do author assistants track their hours? Thomas: Author assistants will do various types of work, such as building websites, bookkeeping, editing, or researching ancient Mesopotamia, but one thing all freelancers have in common is the responsibility of running their own businesses.  One of the first things new freelancers need to know is how to track their time. Most author assistants charge by the hour for most jobs. How do you track those hours? Laurie: I use a software called FreshBooks, which makes time-tracking easy. Whenever you sit down to work for a particular client, click “start” on the timer to track your hours. If you need a break, you can pause the timer and restart it when you return. You can add multiple clients to the software, and FreshBooks will track how many hours you worked for which client. When you’re ready to bill that client, simply click “Generate Invoice.” FreshBooks will add up the hours you worked and put them in an invoice. Then you send the invoice to your client, and with FreshBooks’s payment tool, your client can pay the invoice online, and the money comes straight to your bank account. Thomas: I’ve been using FreshBooks myself for about 17 years. When Author Media was a web design company, we did all our billing through FreshBooks. It is very transparent and clear. People tend to pay you faster when you send them a FreshBooks invoice because it’s easy for them to pay.