| Short Takes: Starting Out |
 101 Best Home-Based Businesses For Women, Revised Second Edition
By Priscilla Y. Huff
Huff runs through the possibilities, job by job, in such fields as customer services, arts and crafts, mail order, computer services, etc. She tells what works and what doesn't in areas like training, equipment, marketing, and pricing. The idea is to choose the right one for you. In each job category Huff advises on startup costs and expected income (for a computer consultant, $55 to $100+ per hour). She estimates how much time each job requires out of the home (for a medical billing service, one-third of the time in doctors' offices). It has a competent index. Buy it
 The Best Home Businesses for the 21st Century: The Inside Information You
Need to Know to Select a Home-Based Business That's Right for You
By Paul and Sarah Edwards
A revised edition of the top-selling Best Home Businesses for the 90s, the
Edwardses have added 150 pages and a score of new home business ideas
(they've dropped about the same amount) for the new century. They profile
more than 100 businesses, and discuss the skills and knowledge required to
run them, ways to get clients, the advantages and disadvantages of each. The
authors also pass along advice from people who have tried each business.
Weighing in at 430 pages, this is a comprehensive volume that includes
recommendations on how to price products and services as well as thoroughly
researched estimates for start-up costs.
Buy it
 The
Business of Bliss: How to Profit from Doing
What You Love
By Janet Allon and the Editors of Victoria Magazine
This thick and glossy book tells the stories of two dozen women who
turned hobbies into businesses. Among those profiled are Elizabeth Terry,
who started her own restaurant in Savannah, Ga., in a turn-of-the-century
mansion and home; and Karen Skelton, who opened a pottery studio when
she came away from a gift show with 7,000 orders for her glazed pots.
Other businesses covered include bridal and antique shops, a lampshade
business, and a home-furnishings mail-order business. Here's proof that
a business book can be attractive, with 150 pretty color photographs
of handmade vintage dresses, jewelry, flowers, and pillows. Buy it
 Business Start-Up Guide: How to Create, Grow and Manage Your Own Successful
Enterprise
By Tom Severance
Although the title emphasizes the start-up phase of running your own
business, this is a thoroughly hard-headed approach to every aspect of being
in business for yourself, including how to write advertisements, how to
forecast sales revenue, and how to "determine the lifetime value of a
customer." Especially emphatic about the importance of pricing, Severance
suggests a wide range of tactics (about 30), including first penetrating the
market and then adjusting your rates to meet the fluctuating demands of the
market. The author is an attorney and CPA who practices in San Diego and
teaches at Mira Costa College in Oceanside, Calif.
Buy it
 The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business
By Barbara Weltman
As with others in the Complete Idiot series, this guide presents key issues simply and clearly, but has the added advantage of Weltman's lucid style and expertise. The book is comprehensive and thorough but more for the beginner and intermediate than for the advanced IP. The author covers start-up financing, a survey of various home businesses, taxation, local zoning, home office issues (she is a home-based attorney) and questions on balancing work and personal life. Each chapter begins with a preview of what is to come and ends with a summation, called The Least You Need to Know.
Resources and contact information, forms, and a glossary are also provided. Weltman is a nationally-known expert on business and tax planning and the author of several other books on small business. Buy it
 The
Concise Guide to Becoming an Independent Consultant
By
Herman Holtz
An abridged edition of Mr. Holtz's book How to Succeed
as an Independent Consultant, revised for "the young person
who is just embarking on a consulting career." The guide discusses
current government procurement rules and various marketing, financial
and ethical issues, and recommends books, periodicals, consultants'
organizations and public speaking contacts. Buy it
 Get
a Life! Start Your Home-Based Business Now: One Action Step at a Time
By Sheila Robbins
Sheila Robbins believes owning a home-based business is the most enjoyable
way to live and work, and her book explains how to be productive and
happy doing so. Believing that the main impediment to making the leap
to self-employment is fear, she shows a step-by-step process of replacing
fear with knowledge and planning. Don't just think about your business
idea, the author advises, research it, read about it, test it, find
out who else is doing it, talk with others, and get their reactions.
The main reason to be an IP, she says, is not the money but the independence.
The book includes case studies, forms, and checklists. Buy it
 Going
Indie: Self-Employment Freelance and Temping Opportunities
By Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley
The aspiring IP must have a good mind-set and a healthy outlook, according
to Elster and Crowley. With the right psychology a freelancer can choose
the business with the right fit, overcome anxiety, and take prudent
risks. A typical theme of the book: five common inner roadblocks to
success. Roadblock one is "waiting to be discovered" -- the fantasy
that clients will seek you out and find you. Roadblock two is not charging
enough because the work is "easy" for you -- a common attitude
for highly talented IPs who love their work. (You'll have to imagine
roadblocks three through five for yourself.) The book is the product
of a successful entrepreneur and a Harvard-trained psychotherapist.
Buy it
 Going
Solo: Developing a Home-Based Consulting Business
from the Ground Up
By William J. Bond
If you've got the expertise in your field,
Bond knows how to turn it into a thriving home-based consulting business,
and he presents his case in a motivational style packed with success
stories. His book advises the fledgling consultant IP on how to get
in the door for a first meeting with a potential client, how to cultivate
clients, and how to present findings, as well as how to identify and
develop spin-offs as additional revenue sources. Bond has also included
suggestions for 350 consulting areas. The underlying premise is that
you'll never get rich working for someone else. Buy it
 Home-Based
Business for Dummies
By Paul Edwards, Sarah Edwards, and Peter Economy
The authors advise on most issues that the home-based IP will encounter,
including start-up costs, insurance, taxes, Web sites, and marketing.
The reader also benefits from an abundance of tips on survival, such
as sidling into self-employment by starting as a moonlighter or taking
a part-time job for steady income. And the authors are on target about
how to make a home business look extremely professional -- with a custom-designed
logo, business bank checks, and a federal ID number. Nobody knows this
terrain better than the husband-and-wife Edwards team, but please note:
this is a book for beginners. Buy it
 Homemade
Money: How to Select, Start, Manage, Market and
Multiply the Profits of a Business at Home
By Barbara Brabec
Brabec, who has written several books specifically
for artists and craftspeople, is well aware that ideas and talent are
not always accompanied by business savvy. She addresses her advice to
"dreamers" as well as to the downsized, the corporate dropouts, those
who have their own businesses as a sideline, and the well established
self-employed. The author's expertise rests on fifteen years of experience
as publisher of a home-business newsletter, during which time she interviewed
and exchanged ideas with hundreds of IPs. The fifth edition of her book
has been expanded and updated to reflect changes in home-based businesses
in the new millennium. It includes a 76-page "crash course" on business
basics, thirty full-page charts and illustrations, and a resource directory
of 300 listings, as well as material on taxes, copyright infringement,
multi-level marketing, and municipal regulation of home-based businesses.
Buy it
 Honey,
I Want to Start My Own Business: A Planning Guide for Couples
By Azriela Jaffe
Honey, I Want to Start My Own Business is a couple's guide to getting through both the psychological and the financial challenges of an entrepreneurial venture. Azriela gets up-close and personal with more than 130 entrepreneurial couples in a variety of industries across the country, who share their successes and failures. Azriela's research shows that business and personal relationships both require solid commitment, thorough preparation, skillful communication, and the ability to keep perspective and a sense of humor. The book stresses the need for a complete family strategy, not just a business plan. Buy it
 How to Really Start Your Own Business : A Step-By-Step Guide, 3rd Edition
By David E. Gumpert
Gumpert, a senior editor at Inc. magazine, guides the reader through the
formative stages of a business, including the pre-start-up planning stage,
which in his view should be used to test and assess ideas and secure legal
protection. He strongly encourages entrepreneurs to carefully estimate what
their cash flow will be, and he attaches major importance to defining the
scope of the business, niche marketing, and financing. At the end of each
chapter, readers test their readiness to move on to the next lesson by
completing a series of exercises.
Buy it
 Making Money in a Health Service Business on Your Home-Based PC
By Rick Benzel
Extensive outsourcing in the health service industry has created many opportunities for independent professionals. The author's comprehensive examination of the field begins with a succinct explanation of how health insurance works and why physicians need a billing service. It goes on to advise on how to buy software, what to look for when considering the purchase of an existing business, how to attract new clients, how to get proper training, and how to get started, interspersed with tips from successful IPs in the field. A CD with sample medical billing software and sample medical transcriptions is included. This updated edition reflects changes in the healthcare industry since its initial 1997 publication.
Buy it
 Start Up: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Launching and Managing a New Business
By William J. Stolze
Should you even think about being an entrepreneur? This book, written by a
seasoned veteran who started his own radio communication business, begins
with an analysis of the temperament necessary to succeed and a warning of
the workload that awaits the unsuspecting beginner. Although it is a
positive and upbeat book that emphasizes success and how to grow a business,
it also strongly recommends getting experience in your market and fully
describes the pitfalls and unwelcome surprises. Stolze, who has also taught
entrepreneurship in the MBA program at the University of Rochester, writes
clearly and concisely. With new material on how to use the Internet for
information and promotion, this update is the fifth revised edition of a
book that has sold more than 70,000 copies. Buy it
 How to Open and Operate a Home-Based Communications Business
By Louann Nagy Werksma
A guide for those who want to earn a living coordinating direct-mail marketing, planning special corporate events, or conducting marketing research and analysis. The book reviews the supplies you'll need, and discusses how to set up your office, find clients, establish fees, and manage large jobs. Buy it
 Upstart Start-Ups! How 34 Young Entrepreneurs Overcame Youth, Inexperience,
and Lack of Money to Create Thriving Businesses
By Ron Lieber
Here you'll find nearly three dozen stories about young go-getters forging
ahead in business despite skimpy credit and little in the way of track
records. Although the secrets of success that the author uncovers are fairly
standard, and although the tales of scrambling for start-up money -- by
means of moonlighting, credit cards, life savings, and parents -- have been
heard before, they are vividly presented in a series of frank and breezy
interviews well worth the ambitious IP's attention. The author reveals that
most of his subjects found ways to attract attention in a crowded
marketplace, and contends that entrepreneurship is becoming easier because
boundaries are falling. Lieber, the co-author of Taking Time Off, writes for
Fortune magazine.
Buy it
 The Young Entrepreneur's Edge: Using Your Ambition, Independence, and Youth
to Launch a Successful Business
By Jennifer Kushell
How to cope with life while transforming your big idea into a successful
business is the theme of this 26-year-old entrepreneur/author's book.
Although The Young Entrepreneur's Edge might well aid any IP, the accent
here is on those go-getters starting businesses in their college dorm rooms
and their parents' garages. Kushell, who started her own painted t-shirt
business at 13, gives advice about getting older people to take you
seriously, winning your family's approval, meeting important people, and
responding decourously when you're carded while entertaining clients. The
author founded the Young Entrepreneurs Network, which educates teens and
twenty-somethings in 40 countries about thriving as IPs.
Buy it
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