International bestselling editor and writer with over 35 million books in print, Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in many genres, from science fiction to mystery, from western to romance. She has written under a pile of pen names, but most of her work appears as Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov's Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.

Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award.

She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own.

To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com).

Time Management by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Being your own boss means setting your own schedule. Sounds easy, right? Instead, it's one of the toughest parts of freelancing. In this short book, international bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch shows you how to create a schedule, meet deadlines, take time for vacation, and cope with illness. The perfect guide for freelancers who can't find enough time in the day.

 

REVIEWS

  • "[Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog,] The Business Rusch…is full of sound advice and analysis about what's going on."

    – Jeff Baker, The Oregonian
  • "Kristine Kathryn Rusch's new book Discoverability is by far the best resource I have read to date to help indie authors succeed after the book is written."

    – Chris Syme, Principal of CKSyme Media Group
  • "The bible for the self-employed."

    – John Ottinger III, teacher and editor of Grasping for the Wind, on The Freelancer’s Survival Guide
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Introduction

The hardest thing for first-time freelancers to do is manage their time. It sounds easy, right? You figure out what you need to get done, and then you do it. You have all day. After all, you don't have to drive to a day job.

But it's not easy. The first six months of freelancing are often the least productive of your entire career. In those six months, you reinvent the wheel when it comes to time management. You figure out what gets in the way of your work (and it's usually you), then you solve that problem, and then you move on to the next.

There are other issues, as well. When are you too sick to work? When do you take a vacation? Should you take a vacation? Isn't your work a vacation…from a day job?

Then there are deadlines, schedules, and family members to organize yourself around. If you're not good at saying no, you'll have trouble with time management.

This short book has a lot of tips to help you schedule your time and yourself. It covers everything from discipline to deadlines, vacations to scheduling each moment of your day.

Time Management is part of a series of short books excerpted from my longer work, The Freelancer's Survival Guide. I wrote the Guide on my blog, kristinekathrynrusch.com. Each segment of this book came from a blog post, some of which I've altered and some I've left as is. If you want to see what else is in the Guide, or look at the original versions of the posts (along with the comments), go to my website and click on the Freelancer's Survival Guide tab. There you will find the table of contents.

Or you can buy the entire Guide in paper or electronic form. But I know that some of you need help in only a few areas, so the entire Guide might be full of too much information. That's why I've broken certain sections, like this one, into a short book. There are several other short books, including books on How To Make Money and When To Quit Your Day Job. You'll find a complete list at the beginning and end of this book or on my website under the electronic books/nonfiction tab.

The time you spend reading this short book should help you save time in the future. Thanks for buying the book—and good luck with your freelance career.

—Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lincoln City, Oregon
August 27, 2010