About
Hey there and welcome to HandleyNation. My name is Andrew Handley and I’m a freelance writer living in Costa Rica. I moved here about in March 2009 from my home in North Carolina for the “amazing” tropical living experience. Amazing is not how it turned out to be, folks! In my first year here I made it to the beach approximately once between slogging away at full time call center jobs. In November of 2010 I left my job at a local sportsbook and started freelance writing full time.
I’ve since been learning all about internet marketing and SEO, performing my own little experiments along the way, and that’s what I’m bringing to you on this blog.
If you need a freelance content writer for your business, you can get in touch with me on my website, HandleyNation.com
Or, you can contact me for any reason at
handleynation@yahoo.com
HandleyNation on Twitter
Andrew Handley on LinkedIn
Disclaimer:
While the main purpose of this blog is to educate people on current SEO and internet marketing strategies, there are occasions where I will post links, banners, or other advertisements, and I will receive a commission on those advertisements. This is in part to keep the blog up and running, but also because some of the ads and methods I use could even give you an idea of how to monetize your own blog.
Andrew,
My first question is, “…had you ever been to Costa Rica before you moved there?? If so, how did you choose it??”
I have made my living as a writer since the late 1980′s. The first thing was business plans and that morphed into acadmic writing after I ghost wrote a couple of Managment and Finance textbooks. I also moved to Europe in the mid 1990′s when the dot-com bubble was building and got involved in a new telephone company that sold out to one of the majors in 2001, just ahead of the dot-com bubble bursting–thank god!
What I will tell you about freelance writing as a profession is that it is a very hard one and not terribly remunerative. Living outside the US or the UK makes it harder but not impossible. I have lived in Europe for a good many years, and still live in a developing country.
Do not use Paypal or similar services that will provide refunds to dissatisfied clients. If you do they will all, at least many, decide they are dissatisfied and you will wind up getting charged back. Get paid up front by bank transfer!
Good luck,
Larry
Hey Larry,
Thanks for those tips. It sounds like you’ve got a unique perspective on how this business works. Fortunately, freelance writing has done a complete 180 since it went online. I haven’t found any trouble so far, and from what I’ve seen it’s just as easy to work in countries outside the US or UK provided they’re developed enough to have an infrastructure that can support high speed internet.
I had never been to Costa Rica before making the move here, no. It was a bit of a gamble, but one that really paid off. It’s a beautiful country and I couldn’t see myself anywhere else at this stage of my life.
Thanks for coming by and commenting.
Andrew