Have you ever dreamed of starting your own home-based writing business? Have you been hesitant to put your plans into action? This comprehensive guide contains all the necessary tools and strategies you need to successfully launch and grow your own business. Author Lucy Parker, a successful home-based writer, shares her experiences and down-to-earth advice on every aspect of setting up and running a thriving home-based business. She shows you how to develop a business plan, estimate your start-up costs, price your services, and stay profitable once you're in business. From painless record keeping to savvy marketing techniques, her step-by-step methods are realistic, innovative, and easy to understand. Whether you want to earn your living writing advertising copy, producing flyers and brochures, or ghostwriting, with this guide at your side (or next to your computer) you may soon experience the satisfaction of building your own home-based business. Learn all about: Honing your writing skills; buying the right computer equipment; getting clients and referrals; effective networking; using the internet as a resource; bidding competitively; outshining the competition; controlling start-up costs; establishing a daily schedule; getting paid. Other special features include business-success worksheets, prospect-information forms, estimating forms, job-log and job-control forms, assignment checklist, guidelines for software selection and more. A front-page byline in The New York Times ! A People magazine cover story! A travel assignment in Katmandu! Dream on. "This is a book," says author Lucy V. Parker, "about commercial writing, business writing, nonfiction writing. It is a book about obtaining practical, often unglamorous assignments that can pay the bills." Sure, celebrity profiles and investigative journalism can be thrilling, but so can paying the rent. Besides, someone has to write all those newsletters, brochures, press releases, speeches, instructional manuals, and articles for employee magazines. With Parker's help, you can write a business plan, form a business, market your services, learn what to charge (and how to collect your due), and deal with taxes and contracts. Parker even tells you how to cope with the loneliness inherent in running a solo venture. Hint: online chat rooms are OK, but "people breaks" are better. With profiles of 10 successful professionals from a variety of specialties and a list of 60 key assignments for home-based writers. --Jane Steinberg Have you ever dreamed of starting your own home-based writing business? Have you been hesitant to put your plans into action? This comprehensive guide contains all the necessary tools and strategies you need to successfully launch and grow your own business. Author Lucy Parker, a successful home-based writer, shares her experiences and down-to-earth advice on every aspect of setting up and running a thriving home-based business. She shows you how to develop a business plan, estimate your start-up costs, price your services, and stay profitable once you're in business. From painless record keeping to savvy marketing techniques, her step-by-step methods are realistic, innovative, and easy to understand. Whether you want to earn your living writing advertising copy, producing flyers and brochures, or ghostwriting, with this guide at your side (or next to your computer) you may soon experience the satisfaction of building your own home-based business. Learn all about: Honing your writing skills; buying the right computer equipment; getting clients and referrals; effective networking; using the internet as a resource; bidding competitively; outshining the competition; controlling start-up costs; establishing a daily schedule; getting paid. Other special features include business-success worksheets, prospect-information forms, estimating forms, job-log and job-control forms, assignment checklist, guidelines for software selection and more. (7 x 10, 336 pages, worksheets)