Out Of Office – Ditch The 9-5 & Be Your Own Boss By Fiona Thomas | Review

I was sent this book for the purpose of review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

If I was to ask a couple of friends to say a few words that described me, I can guarantee two of those words would be books and freelancer. I love a good book and I am a freelancer so when offered the chance to review this book – Out Of Office: Ditch The 9-5 & Be Your Own Boss by Fiona Thomas aka Fiona Likes To Blog -, I was intrigued to see what she had to say.

I’m not going to lie – after six years of freelancing, I’ve still got a lot to learn. I’m still learning the ropes in some ways and I am always looking to broaden my horizons and learn more. So what did I think of the book?

I will admit I found myself nodding along at times, completely agreeing with what Fiona had to say. I lost count of the times I read a passage out to Steve that I could identify with or some statistics that I was quite shocked by. I even got a pencil out to underline things that I wanted to refer back to in the future.

This is a book for both the seasoned freelancer or someone who is thinking about starting out. With topics such as tax returns, raising prices and dealing with loneliness, Fiona has covered all the bases and then some. I found myself learning new things even after all this time and listing things I want to work on – I am awful for raising my prices and have only just recently got a really good organisational set up going!

The book is set out into easy to read chapters so you can dip in and out as you like. There are numerous pages which host important quotes from that section and the author has gained some fantastic articles and interviews from freelancers I have always admired.

The author talks to you as if you are their friend but also educates you without being patronising. She also makes some incredible points  – I particularly loved this quote ‘For example, I can make £300 for a twenty-minute speaking gig, but that doesn’t mean I make £900 an hour. Far from it in fact.‘ – I couldn’t agree more. I actually had someone recently try to get me to take really low paid work on because it would only take me a few minutes and then they’d offer more. Now I’ve done this before at the start of my freelancing journey and been burned as they nearly always ghost you. On the other hand, friends often think I earn more than I do because I can command a certain monetary amount for a certain amount of time but they don’t consider that thing might be the only thing I’m working on at that point. This is a great quote to show how misunderstood freelancing can be.

The stats the author includes are also really interesting and often a little shocking. Did you know 2 out of 5 people in traditional employment say that their commute is the worst part of their day or that globally, only 23% of freelancers are female with 77% being male. In the UK, this is a little more balanced with female freelancers making up 41% and males 59% – although the majority (95%) of freelancers I know are female!

A fact that really interested me was that the number of self employed disabled people in the UK has risen by 30% since 2014 and disabled people account for 14% of the self employed workforce. I love that freelancing is so accessible to pretty much everyone and can name many successful disabled freelancers killing it right now!

Overall I loved this book – it is the perfect guide for any freelancer, no matter what part of the journey they are on. Reading this feels like reading a note from a friend, I love the authors writing style and I can’t wait to put some of her suggestions into action.

You can buy the book on Amazon here {affiliate link} – the publication date is October 1st 2020 so get your pre-orders in now!