Turn Your Talents into Profits [Paperback]

Darcie Sanders (Author), Martha Bullen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

Millions of Americans have done it -- now you too can enjoy the extra income, flexible hours and low start-up costs of your own part-time, home-based microbusiness. All you need is passion for something you love to do! If you have a hobby you enjoy, a skill you've cultivated (but put aside because it's not "practical"), or the desire to try something new, you have what it takes to join the microbusiness revolution and Turn Your Talents Into Profits

This unique guide describes more than one hundred powerful business ideas that real-life people have turned into local services and growing companies. You'll learn how to

* Obtain business loans, expert advice, and tax help
* Identify your market and build a client list
* Know what to charge and how to stay in demand
* Tap into national small-business organizations and support networks
* Get started -- with hot tips from the owners of today's top microbusinesses

Do you grow a garden, bake great cakes, or make an outrageous sandwich? You can create your own specialty foods line. Are you the most organized person you know? Become a "clean-desk expert" or a party planner. Do you love to shop? There's cash out there for car buyers' consultants or personal shoppers. Are you skilled in accounting, woodworking, painting, sewing, or surfing the Internet? You can make these and many other talents pay with your own microbusiness....

It's the new way to work!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

There seems to be no dearth of suggestions for making money at home, as the growing number of books devoted to the topic proves. But how many of these ideas are practical and creative at the same time? The experienced team of Sanders and Bullen not only describes more than 100 of the more unusual business vocations, but also interviews quite a few practitioners and lists specific resources to consult. Each entry includes a lengthy explanation of the job, and its duties and responsibilities, along with a top tip (e.g., for aspiring dog or cat breeders, it's suggested as an adjunct to other pet-related businesses, not as a solo venture), getting started, and the going rate. Sure to provoke chuckles are some of the recommendations, albeit all bona fide, such as a garden goose^-wear designer (yes, for concrete birds) and a beekeeper (no stings in this thought). Good information, well presented. Barbara Jacobs

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Pocket; Ex-Library edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067101529X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671015299
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inspiring and encouraging book about starting a home bus., May 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Turn Your Talents into Profits (Paperback)

If you've been dabbling in a home business or dreaming about starting one, this is a book you've got to have. Turn Your Talents Into Profits will inspire you and encourage you. It's easy to read, gives you lots of great ideas, and has an amazingly complete bibliography.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good beginning for the hopeful entrepreneur, December 22, 2003

By 

Anthony D Ravenscroft (Santa Fe, NM United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Turn Your Talents into Profits (Paperback)

I should be more disappointed with this book than I am. It's helpful in its own way, but suggestions to seek out further details using suggested Prodigy & CompuServe keywords seem, to be polite, a little quaint, & the publication date of 1998 makes it fairly clear that this is an "updated" version of an older (self-published?) book. One suggested business, for instance, is to start a BBS, a phenomenon that pretty much had gone the way of the mastodon by then.

The book is also lacking in serious instruction on how to run a business. Since this book is aimed at people who are enough adrift to need these ideas in the first place, the target audience probably needs more than a whirlwind 9-page overview of practical & critical business skills.

If that's all there is, I would've struggled to give this book a bare 3 stars. However, the majority of the suggested 100+ microbusinesses aren't too bad. Keep in mind that many of them require some sort of preexisting skills; you probably don't want to leap into a mural-painting business if you have absolutely no sense of form or color, for instance.

More important than the ideas themselves, though, is their range. If you read this book cover-to-cover, or even just flip through it & glean a few ideas that appeal to you, you will definitely be motivated to start concocting your own small-small business. It might be a variant of an idea from the authors, or wholly your own creation, but you'll have been bitten by the bug -- I guarantee it.

And if you already have an idea, read it anyway! One of the most crushing weights to the entrepreneurial spirit is the feeling that you're the only one crazy enough to try. Reading this book will make you feel a little less lonely. With that to brace you, you'll be a little more encouraged to follow your dream in a sensible & ultimately rewarding manner.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recent publicity on Turn Your Talents into Profits, April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Turn Your Talents into Profits (Paperback)

Turn Your Talents into Profits has been in the news quite a bit lately. It was featured on the Montel Williams show in late March, in the March issue of American Baby, and in the May 11th issue of Woman's Day. I think this book has been getting so much attention because it focuses on microbusinesses (very small, part-time, home-based businesses), and microbusinesses are the fastest-growing type of small business in America.