New Book

Today I will receive the first printing of the book I alluded to in some prior posts. So I think this is a good time to explain what the book is all about. The title really says it all: The Successful Home Business Guide: Practical advice for starting and operating a productive and profitable home-based business.

The idea for the book took form from the convergence of many of my early blogs and my work with COSE on its Home Network advisory board. As the winter progressed I also had a strong sense that a book on profitable home businesses makes a lot of sense as an increasing number of unemployed people are searching for non-traditional means of earning an income.

Initial research showed that there are today over 20 million home based businesses contributing over $350 billion to the US economy, which accounts for a significant percentage of workers. The further question in my mind was to what extent the businesses are really productive and profitable?

So, in my book, I tried to cover all the bases from starting a business to closing it, with all the information one needs to fund, market, sell, collect money, price goods and services, hire employees, and survive in a home environment in between.

In order to publish the book I considered several options, including the traditional publishing route. Current research confirmed my past experience that a) it takes several months to negotiate a deal with a major publisher; b) once the manuscript is in the hands of a publisher it takes an average of 18 months for the book to be published; c) the author is expected to market and promote the book. So the option I chose was to self-publish, a growing trend among relatively obscure authors who don’t mind doing the leg-work.

So over the past five months: I’ve written the book, had it edited by the wonderful Carolyn Jack, designed the book and cover, and contracted to get it printed. As I explained a few days ago, I’ve also written a marketing plan. All great and exciting stuff. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

The Successful Home Business Guide will be available at amazon.com.

Will Limkemann
440-871-0976
will@limkemann.net

Small Business Frustration

The  Wizard of ID comic in Sunday’s paper beautifully expresses the frustration of so many “micro” businesses.

Small Business Frustration

Will Limkemann

Employee versus Contractor Classification

Many small businesses, especially financially stressed ones, cut corners by deliberately reclassifying employees as independent contractors. The carrot given the employees is that they will still be employed. The employer profits from not paying workers compensation, unemployment insurance, social security, and other benefits. The employee, often not even realizing it in advance, ends up paying unemployment tax and receives no unemployment benefits should he or she become unemployed. I won’t even mention the complications resulting from a workplace injury!

The IRS has long-standing rules about employee versus contractor classification which are posted on its website (www.irs.gov). And now the Ohio attorney general,  who claims that this “underground economy” is costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is cracking down on  these abusive employers.  See the press release from the attorney general’s office.

Will Limkemann

Marketing

Now that my book, The Successful Home Business Guide,  is at the printer, and will be ready in about two weeks, I’m now squarely in the marketing phase of the project. In my chapter on marketing I stress the importance of a written marketing plan, so I figured that I should practice what I preach! During the writing process I was constantly making notes and clipping articles relative to promoting the book. So yesterday I spent the better part of the day writing a comprehensive marketing plan – and I just know this will be a dynamic document that will continue to evolve. What a great process!

Here’s just a sample of the planned activities: writing sell sheets and other marketing material; press releases to local papers and key national publications; send books to appropriate reviewers; market to libraries; promote to local independent book stores; put the book in the Geniocity.com marketplace; contract with Amazon.com; speak at chambers of commerce and other groups. And the list goes on.

Writing a marketing plan really forces one to think through the whole marketing process. Each idea put on paper spurs a new idea and really locks in a strategy.

I’ll let you know in the future how this all works out.

Will Limkemann

Self Publishing

In a recent post I alluded to a book I am writing. I’m happy to report that the book is complete and was delivered to the printer yesterday.

Today, and as this project unfolds, I’m going to talk about self-publishing as a business.

Many years ago my first book, a technical tome called “Application Programming in CTOS” was published by Prentiss-Hall. In total only 600 copies were sold – the royalties of which did not come close to compensating me for the time it took to write the book. Poor sales were the result of 1) A narrow topic with limited appeal; 2) An elapsed time from manuscript submission to publication of eighteen months; 3) No marketing.

In learning more about the publishing industry I have discovered that publishers typically take eighteen months or more after spending several months negotiating the book deal, and that it’s up to the author, not the publisher, to promote the product (unless you have a celebrity name or a blockbuster book).

So, as I set about to write “The Successful Home Business Guide” my priorities were to 1) write a relevant book with significant appeal; 2) self publish in order to compress the publication schedule, control the process, and hang onto the profits; 3) promote like crazy.

To date, in addition to doing the writing, I have engaged an editor who did a terrific job in editing the manuscript, been assigned an ISBN number, designed the book and cover, and negotiated to have the first run printed. Currently I’m in the process of completing a marketing plan and writing a sell sheet and other marketing material. It’s been, and will continue to be, an interesting process. I’ll keep you informed of the process and results.

A book that has given me great insight into self-publishing is  Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual. I highly recommend it to any author wanting to bypass the mainline publishers.

Will Limkemann

SBTV video

At the small business conference in October I was interviewed for a spot on www.sbtv.com. I’d forgotten about it until I recently received an e-mail with a link to the video. Enjoy.

Will Limkemann

Public relations

Some time ago I attended a luncheon seminar sponsored by the Beachwood Chamber of Commerce on the world wide web marketing. The breadth of the topic precluded anything but a general overview in the al0tted 45 minutes. None-the-less, there were plenty of take-aways from the talk. I never cease to be awed by the power of the Internet in reaching out to the public – no matter who your public is, and I’m always learning of new techniques for effective use of the Internet.

One of the take-aways from this meeting was an understanding that there are public relations sites hungry for free posting of press releases. A site specifically mentioned is www.prweb.com.

My company, Wolcraft, has just recently introduced a line of LED-based lamps. So, upon returning from the seminar I wrote up a press release and posted it to www.prweb.com. Incredibly, within three weeks I had received two orders that I could directly trace back to that press release. Needless to say, I will be further exploring this and other sites as I develop future marketing strategies.

From my own experience and experiences of many other business owners I know, I’m convinced that collectively we have just begun to understand and use the power of the Internet in effectively reaching our public. Perhaps we all need to take a page from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in which he so very effectively used the Internet.

Will Limkemann

COSE (Counsil of Smaller Enterprises)

Today I’m specifically targeting readers in northeast Ohio. Many of you who run businesses may already be COSE members, others may be aware of COSE as providing health insurance at large-group rates to small businesses.

I’ve been a COSE member, through various companies, since the mid-1980s and have seen the organization evolve and grow. It’s now an amazing resource of all kinds of services to the 15,000 or so small businesses it serves. The annual membership fee of only $300 quickly pays for itself through discounts at OfficeMax, free admission to the annual Small Business Expo, countless educational events,  many networking opportunities, and much more.

I chose to write about COSE today as I just received information that COSE is offering a seven-week FREE trial membership. If you’ve thought COSE is just an insurance provider, or if you’ve been curious about what COSE can do for you, you’ll want to enroll in the trial.

Click here for more information and to sign up.

Will Limkemann

Stimulus Scams

At a meeting yesterday one of the participants excitedly told the group that he has been contacted about a grant for his business from the stimulus program. He said it might be a scam but it seems ligitimate to him. He’s going to follow-up and let us know how real it is.

I had my doubts – it just seems too good to be true. Interestingly, Kelly Spors has a Wall Street Journal blog today that addresses this very issue, so I want to share this with you.

Will Limkemann

Backup and restore

I’m writing a book, but more about that in a later post. Today I’m talking about how a good backup and restore process saved my neck during the writing process.

Last Monday I fired up Microsoft Word and went to open the file of my manuscript. Nothing happened. Nada. Word hung with the little circle just going round and round and round. So I killed word and tried again and naturally got the same result. The prior Friday I had backed the file up to a removable hard drive, so I attempted to restore the backup file with the same result. Panic began to set in.

Now, you may remember that in a post a few weeks ago I mentioned subscribing to an on-line backup service called Idrive.com, which automatically backs up specified folders every night, and which keeps prior versions of all files it backs up. Idrive came to my rescue.

I logged onto Idrive, found the Friday backup and downloaded it. Same thing – Word hung. Panic continued, and escalated when Thursday’s file also failed to open. Wednesday’s file worked!

I had to reconstruct work done, mainly editing, for three days which did put me back a bit. But, as I’m virtually finished writing this 224 page book, I’d hate to think where I’d be had I not been using the daily backup service that keeps prior versions. I just can’t sing the praises of Idrive loud enough. If you’re not using Idrive or a similar service, don’t wait to sign up and start using a good backup service. Today.

Will Limkemann