This is for a freelancing blog carnival, and also because someone may have the same problem I did, which is not knowing anything about working for yourself.

I did not intend to start earning money for my writing. This situation is not one that many people fall into; usually you have to go looking for work first. But someone liked the writing on my blog (the writing for fantasy/science-fiction, such as my Kindlelicious reviews, or my thoughts on the Hugo nominees for best novel, and such). And so I got to write for money for Tor.com.

I didn’t have trouble with the writing to a specific word count, or at least, not real trouble. I manage to get in a couple reviews per month and maybe a blog post or two—and I have plans starting tomorrow to put my weekend morning time to use. Unlike in other areas of my life, I have no problems with being edited or rewriting my pieces. In fact, I welcome editorial input.

So all in all, no big deal for me.

Except for one thing.

I didn’t know how to prepare an invoice.

Stop laughing. I’m pretty new to the whole work-for-yourself thing.

Some googling found me a bunch of invoicing software that cost you money, sometimes serious money. I could definitely imagine using such a professional, or at least holistic, system if my bread and butter was really freelancing and I needed to keep track of multiple clients; but it’s not. At the same time—well, I didn’t know what invoices should look like.

So this is how I created an invoice for free. (Thanks to Torie Atkinson who helped me with the details!)
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