Freelance writer's toolkit needed

February 8, 2011 12:18 PM

How can I quickly get my presentation skills up to speed for use in general freelance writing roles? (white papers, marketing pieces, newsletters, etc.)

I have been doing some small freelance writing gigs on the side for the past year. I have been able to successfully combine my writing abilities with a fairly specific and in demand area of knowledge. I am coming to realize I am severely limited in the presentation department. I basically can write, and insert the most basic of visuals into a Word document... and that's about it.

What other software programs or courses should I investigate in order to be able to expand my skill set to offer nicer "deliverables." I would love to be able to expand my services into offering newsletters, professional white papers and other higher level documents that depend on more than just the text. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

posted by the foreground to Work & Money (3 answers total)

PowerPoint. Believe it or not, lots of companies will take your paper and convert it into a PPt presentation. Knowing the basics and taking a look at the type of presentations that they tend to do is probably good enough to get hired for those projects, and you just need to summarize the info and come up with the words.
posted by Wolfster at 12:36 PM on February 8, 2011

One rather stereotypical but probably efficient tool for you is Apple's iWorks suite. Pages is actually also a competitor to Pagemaker than only word, and perfectly suited for you needs/skill-set. You would need a Mac though...
posted by brorfred at 2:15 PM on February 8, 2011

Best answer: Seth Godin's rules on making effective Powerpoint presentations. You need to read this.

More from Seth here.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 5:34 PM on February 8, 2011