The Freelance Way: Best Business Practices, Tools and Strategies for Freelancers by Robert Vlach is a hefty textbook on the subject of how to shape a successful career path through self employment. It’s a valuable tome—at 460 pages—and concretises many ephemeral concepts that may be vaguely swimming in a freelancers head. It reminds one of a well-informed, intellectual uncle who has been thinking hard about these matters, but unfortunately, has the story-telling talent of a fern.

The book begins by detailing the freelancer economy, and helps the reader define one’s work: Are you a consultant employed by a firm during specific periods, such as financial year ends, like a chartered accountant. Or are you a free ranger, offering your service to many, sometimes at the same time, like an interior designer. It helps the self-esteem very much when Vlach points out that Bruce Springsteen and William Shakespeare are/were very successful freelancers, so successful that they were able to generate employment opportunities for others.