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MONEY FROM YOUR MICRO
BY
MARK J HAMER
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THE DATA BUSINESS
In my experience there are two types of users in the computer world.
There are those, maybe like yourself who own a computer, possibly at
home and who use it as their main tool, and who are interested in its
potential as a financial resource. And there are those who have purchased
a computer to help their business, probably knowing little about it and
not thinking about it as long as it does what it is supposed to, which
is usually looking after accounts and invoices.
The first group are often enthusiasts, often having a mass of
technical information at their fingertips, in fact, their hobby is just
that, information. If you know where to look, you can supply that
information, for a profit.
The second group do not know what their machines are capable
of, and often, they are not really interested unless it can make
them more profit. In many cases they just have not the time to find
out what their machines can do, and even if they are aware, they
have not the time to put their knowledge into practice. You have
that time - and time, as you know, is money.
Here we have a number of ideas that you can use. Obviously you
don't have to use them as they are written, nor must you limit
yourself to a single idea. Research your area, look at what other
people are doing.
This collection of ideas comes from years of experience with
computers and running my own businesses. I have personally
run most of the businesses outlined here and those what I have not
run, I either know people who do it, or I plan to do it when I get
the time.
R U N N I N G A B U S I N E S S
PLAN FOR THE FUTURE
When you have got off the ground with one of the projects, you
need to start looking forward to a years time. How much spare
cash will you have, what direction are you going to take your
business in. The obvious thing to do is to expand your services to
your present customer base. Many businesses go wrong by
diversifying too soon and thus losing momentum.
Spare cash should go back into you plant, i.e. your computer
system, the tools of your trade. We all have a wish list when it
comes to our computers, but for business purposes some needs
are greater than others.
Here is a sound businesslike wish list:
1. A hard disk drive of at the very least 20 megabytes
2. A laser printer
3. A desktop Publishing package.
In that order.
Once you have your laser printer, you can really start to expand
your business. I am not going to go into the details of the services
you can offer in any great length. Instead I will give a quick
rundown of the sort of things that have proved profitable for me.
1. Typesetting services to local printers.
2. Leaflet design for mail order companies, junk mail etc.
3. Stationary design.
4. Creating master forms for local businesses to photocopy.
5. Design and typesetting of magazines, books and newsletters.
TIP:
Don't be afraid of looking at bigger businesses. My regular clients
include an international motor part dealer, a branch of the
National Health Service and a University department. All these
operations need forms, leaflets, stationary, newsletters and
occasionally books.
S E L L I N G Y O U R S E R V I C E S
TELESALES
The first rule of telephone sales is to have a script. Yes I know it
might sound silly to sit there by your telephone reading a script
down the line to some stranger. But not as silly as you will sound
to your prospective client when you cannot answer a query or
when you run out of steam and start mumbling. And if you don't
have a good script, you will.
The script needs to be very well worked out in advance. Write
down everything from the first 'Hello my name is' ... to the last
'goodbye and thanks very much.' Include in your script the
answer to any questions you think a prospective customer might
possibly ask you, anything that you can possible think of.
The script has two purposes. The first is to get your message
across in the most efficient way possible, no mumblings, no
awkward silences, no unanswerable questions. The second
purpose is to save your time and your telephone bills, you know
exactly what you are going to say and how long it should take,
you don't waste time chattering, unless of course the client gets
interested in using your service, then you stay on the line until he
starts sounding bored. As soon as you detect this, get off the
phone, ask your prospect if he would like further details in the
mail or something, anything to get away. It is absolutely fatal to
bore a prospect. True you may make a sale, but only once or twice.
If the prospect tries to keep you chatting beyond reasonable
limits, beware. 1. He is wasting your selling time. 2. He may be the
sort of client who tries to persuade you that he is a friend of yours.
Usually so that they can owe you money and ask you for work in
a hurry because silly man has got stuck somewhere. Sounds
cynical? Listen, I used to be a nice friendly guy until I was ripped
off by people like this. Business is business, friends are friends.
Mix them at your peril. 3. It is your 'phone bill.
Telephone selling is a skill that not all of us have. It takes a business
ness like air with a touch of friendliness. Far better to be too
businesslike than too friendly. What follows is a sample script for
somebody selling data entry services.
"Hello. could I speak to your data manager please .... Hello my
name is ... and I represent Data , we run a data input service
for businesses involved in ... Did you receive our Information
pack recently
(yes) Good, well I am ringing to follow up that information. Do
you ever use outside agencies for data entry?
(if yes) "Good, perhaps you would be interested in using our
services.
(if No) Is that because there hasn't been such a service?
And on it goes. The idea is to try and think of any possible
objections the target might have, before you ring him up, that
way, whenever he comes up with an objection as to why he
doesn't need your service, you've got an answer. Of course you
cannot sell to somebody who really has no use for what you are
offering.
ADVERTISING
Advertising in the press is a minefield for the inexperienced. If
you are not very cautious you can lose hundreds and hundreds
of pounds. There are two types of advertising, classified and
display. Just in case you don't know the difference, classified
consists of a few lines of type which the publication will set for
you. Display consists of an area of space displaying your artwork,
which generally is provided by yourself.
Your type of service or product and your potential clients usually
tell you what type of advertising to buy. A general rule of thumb
for the newcomer is to only advertise in places where other
businesses similar to your own are advertising. If you are advertising
a local service, then of course you must advertise locally, freesheets
and local newspapers can work. But a leaflet drop can work better.
A small leaflet is much more likely to be retained by an interested
party than a newspaper ad.
MAILSHOTS
A mailshot is a circular or leaflet posted to possible clients. Get the
addresses from your local yellow pages or buy a mailing list. If you
are offering a service to business, the yellow pages will sell you a
mailing list in any category you want, see their ad in the back of the
phone book.
If you are interested in desktop publishing and producing leaflets
etc., then buy a list from one of the advertisers in the Exchange &
Mart, from the publisher who sold you this book or from Icon Graphics.
You can buy or rent a list of people who are involved in direct mail.
Expect to pay about œ50 to œ75 per thousand names and addresses.
Pay much less and you are probably getting an old list.
WHAT TO CHARGE
Base your fees on an hourly rate. No business can survive on less
than £7.00 per hour. Double it to be safe and double again for
profit. That's £28.00 per hour. If you charge less you are ripping
yourself off.
ESTIMATING
Never give a client a quote, always an estimate. There is a
difference. A quote is fixed, you cannot change your mind if the
job turns out to be more difficult than expected. An estimate is
just that, an educated guess and can be altered to fit the practical
circumstances.
GETTING PAID
Try to get at least 30% up front on a big job. This makes sure that
the client does not change his mind and cancel the job without
telling you. It does happen. It also means that you have some cash
in hand while you work.
Invoice with the job. When you send a job out, enclose an invoice.
When I send proof copies of work out to a new client I usually
send the invoice with the proofs. This means he has to pay before
I send the finished material. To stop him using the proofs as
finished material and not paying me, I have a big rubber stamp
that says PROOF that goes over the material preventing him from
using it.
COLLECTING DEBTS
If you are in mail order, you have no problem, you get paid in
advance. If you are selling services to businesses, then there is a
problem. Every business has a simple rule which says 'collect early,
pay late'. Expect businesses to 'try in on'. They will nearly
always try to pay you as late as possible. I know of one businessman
who NEVER pays a bill until the court summons arrives. If you get
one of these characters, forget him, take him to the small claims
court if you have to but don't work for him again. It doesn't
matter how big the job is and how attractive the fee, don't do it
because you will get ulcers just trying to collect your money, not
to mention the bank charges you'll collect.
Having said that, it should also be your aim to collect early and
pay late. That is what cash flow is all about. There are certain very
big businesses that I have heard about who actually have a policy of
not paying at all. They prey on small businesses who cannot afford
the time or hassle of a court case. Tip: if they don't pay in
three months, take them to court. Don't waste time sending them
letters or offering them extra time. Just take a walk down to your
local county court and tell them that you want to sue somebody
for non payment, they will tell you How to do it and what it costs.
It is a cheap and usually effective. It doesn't matter if the bill
is small, sue anyway.
P R O J E C T O N E
KEYBOARDING
An old chestnut. A wordprocessing agency. In two words, FORGET IT.
It doesn't work. The time involved, unless you are a trained typist,
it just not worth the money you will make. Undoubtedly you will make
a few pounds here and there, but this cash will be more than offset
by the number of small businesses that will pay you late, giving you
cashflow problems, or not pay at all. Believe me, this was one of my
mistakes. A trained typist, in my area charges 75p per page. How
many pages can you type in a day? How long can you type for non-stop?
How much can you hope to make at these rates even if you manage to get
enough work to keep you busy all day every day? And finally who goes
into business to slog their guts out for between 8 and 14 hours a day
for pittance. Believe me, I have done it. Oh, and don't think that
you can get rich on wordprocsssing student thesis, they mess you about,
ask the impossible and pay very little, and the work all comes in at
the end of the college year.
Having said this, there are at present two potentially lucrative
areas. The problem with wordprocessing is that jobs are usually
small and irregular. It takes time to set up your system and doing
small jobs takes too long. Ideally you need large, long term projects.
THE SERVICE
Typesetters & Printers. Many typesetters & printers are these days
going over to desktop publishing systems. Computers that produce
high resolution typesetting through a laser printer, just like this.
Despite the fact that software is available that will enable these
systems to actually read text from a printed page and avoid keying
in, at present the available software is not very good. Most DTP
systems will accept a variety of floppy disks. Your service depends
on your hardware. If you don't have a laser printer, you offer to
input text and deliver it on floppy disk or via modem.
Your job is to key in text from a typewritten or sometime handwritten
copy and send a disk off to the typesetters or squirt the data down
the telephone line via a modem.
MARKETING
Most typesetters & printers are small outfits, some are large. The way
to sell to these people is to use the telephone or pay a visit with
some samples. Adverts won't work because they won't bother to contact
you, small businesses always manage somehow until somebody comes along
and offers them an alternative. A mailshot will probably not work
because small business people have not the time or inclination to find
yet another way to spend their money, as I said, they always seem to
get by. What you have to do is to sell. Ring the guy up and sell him
your time and services. Get to know the potential customer.
YOUR CUSTOMER
Find your customer first of all locally. Don't forget that many
printers have in house typesetting equipment. Most are one man operations.
If somebody wants them to produce a booklet, often they can't do it
because they haven't the time. You help them to make more money. Your
services will give them more time to sell their services, more time to
produce more work and the opportunity to expand their customer base.
Sure, some of the profits go to you, but not all of them. The customer
will tell you how he likes the work presented and in what format.
AUTHORS
As a writer, I know lots of other writers, I also read the writers
papers and magazines. About 50% (educated guess) of authors and
budding authors do not type their own work. All authors need multiple
copies of their manuscripts. More and more publishers of books are
beginning to accept manuscripts on floppy disk. Take a look at the ads
in writers magazines. You will find quite a few advertising wordprocessing
or typing services. Advertise here, usually the ads are very cheap, don't
pay for display ads, if somebody needs a wordprocessing service they
will take the bother to read the ads, buy lineage. Your unique selling
point is that you will supply two or three copies, along with a floppy
disk. Nearly everybody else will do this not nobody says so. The
readers don't know this.
Design, or get a professional to design a leaflet for you. Then advertise
in the writers press. The best way to find out current magazines is to
look in the 'Writers & Artists Yearbook' there will be a copy in your
library. In your ad, write something like the following: "Authors
services. Wordprocessing, proofreading etc. Send first class stamp for
free details." Simple as that. Plus of course your address. Don't ask
for an SAE because most of them will be too small to put your leaflet
into.
Most books come in at around 500 typed pages. At even as low as 75p
per page that is a healthy income and will keep you in work for some
time. Add on to that the cost of extra copies and your mark up on the
floppy disk and things start looking interesting.
FORMAT
Manuscripts always follow definite guidelines as to layout. Here it is.
Everything is always at least double line space, wide margins, 2" on the
left an inch on the right, 1.5" top and bottom. Each page needs
numbering. That is it.
PROBLEMS
You will get manuscripts written in biro, with handwriting that you
cannot read, you will find pages missing. Telephone the client. These
things will hold you up so charge for them.
If you have a laser printer you can offer publishing services. You
keyboard, design, typeset and produce camera ready copy. Find a
competitive printer and have the clients book printed and bound in as
many copies as he wants. Offer a self-publishing package. Don't forget
to supply your client with proofs before going to press. It should be
his responsibility to make sure that everything is just as he wants it.
Make him sign an acceptance agreement so that he cannot refuse to pay if
he finds a spelling mistake.
You can also do this without a laser printer, send your disk off to one
of the computerised typesetters or laser bureaus who will send you a
bromide or laser print. This costs you more but it goes on the clients
bill in the end.
P R O J E C T T W O
This project is DATA INPUT. This is still keyboard work, but you will
be working for large organisations, most pay on delivery, sometimes
in advance. No cashflow problems.
THE SERVICE
You offer certain types of business a service which consists of typing
in names and addresses, sometimes including ordering details or subscription
details. You put this information on your database and send the client a
disk containing that information.
THE CLIENTS
Very wide ranging. Basically businesses who use mail lists, magazine
subscriptions, mail order companies etc. Anybody who sells anything and
needs to keep a list of customers. The market for this is very specialised
but international. One US company uses freelance operators in Ireland for
all its data input. Reply coupons arrive by air mail every day and the
data is sent down the telephone line via modem back to the USA every night.
Of course at first you will be looking for small magazines and dealers,
perhaps locally, but who knows. Personally I don't like keyboard work and
I don't like to work all day but for someone with determination and
imagination this market is growing at the same rate as direct mail,
obviously really as the two operations co-exist.
WHAT TO CHARGE
The market is so fresh that this is a difficult subject. Personally I
would charge in the region of ten to fifteen pence per name, that is a
very conservative estimate. 1,000 names is £150, easily done in an eight
hour day.
FINDING CLIENTS
1. Firstly, look through your yellow pages for mail order dealers,
publishers of books, magazines, records. Big businesses use freelancers,
it pays them to use freelancers to get the job done because they are self
employed and don't have time to mess about and talk to the secretaries
all day. Freelancers pay their own Tax and National Insurance, their own
pension schemes and don't take up expensive office space.
2. Devise a mailshot outlining your services, you need to stress two
things on this leaflet, firstly that you are professional and reliable,
the second thing is your telephone number. See the section on mailshots
later on.
3. After posting this mail shot, wait for about two days, then give the
recipient a telephone call. See the section on tele sales later on.
4. Look out for cheap or free advertising. Your target is business so
get hold of the business oriented trade papers. 'In Business Now' is a
free paper with cheap advertising rates.
Most small businesses, even one man operations, have some form of computer
these days. So don't try to sell them letter writing services, they can
write their own. What you can offer them is time. Writing and mailing
a letter does not take long to do so few will buy.
DATA PROTECTION ACT
If you are keeping any kind of customer information on computer, you may
need to register with the Data Protection Registrar. Details from:
The Data Protection Registrar, Springfield House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AX.
P R O J E C T T H R E E
YOUR OWN BULLETIN BOARD
This is an idea that I have been toying with for a while. Perhaps
someday I will do it, if you don't beat me to it. Just in case you
don't know, a bulletin board is a system run on a computer. A user
uses his computer wherever he may be and via a modem (yet again!) he
dials up another computer, this computer, called the Host, is running
a programme called a bulletin board system or BBS. A BBS is like an
electronic mailbox, you can leave messages, read messages left by others,
buy goods or services, download Public Domain Software to run on your own
computer. Most BBS's are run by enthusiasts and are free to users. Some
are commercial and some are very large commercial enterprises which
charge you membership and sometimes connection time depending on the
service.
BBS software is readily available so you can start your own system that
other computer users can dial in to. You can either charge a membership
fee or, and this is only speculative, perhaps you could obtain an 0898
telephone number. These telephone numbers are the ones you see advertised
in various newspapers and magazines. The caller pays a higher rate for the
call than usual and the owner of the line is paid a percentage by British
Telecom. Now whether this is possible, I don't know, whether it is
financially viable or not I don't know. It's just an idea, and it's yours
to find out because I know that I am never going to have the time to look
at it. If you set one up, let me know, I'd be very interested to log on
and see what's happening.
P R O J E C T F O U R
DESKTOP PUBLISHING
Anybody can be a publisher, poets and writers have been doing it since
presses were invented. The facilities for desktop publishing have been
around for many years. All you really need is a typewriter. Many books
and magazines are published each year from purely typewritten copies.
Some printed at a print shop, others, particularly 'Fanzines' being
photocopied. However, with the new technology, it is now possible to
typeset and design pages from your desktop. Using all the typefaces all
the illustrations and graphics that have traditionally involved design
studios & typesetters.
The term Desktop Publishing means designing, typesetting and laying out
pages on a screen on your desktop. You can now produce a full colour
magazine with an expenditure so small that it would have been unthinkable
just a few years ago.
Whether you have a typewriter, a wordprocessor a personal computer or a
dedicated graphics workstation you can be a publisher. The difference
between these machines concerns quality, speed, flexibility and obviously
cost.
The equipment you decide to use will not necessarily dictate how professional
your work will appear. A talented artist with just a photocopier a pencil
and a typewriter will produce a more eyecatching, visually interesting
and readable magazine than an averagely talented person using œ50,000
worth of cutting edge technology. I have seen examples of both extremes
and would prefer to read the former production every time.
Desktop publishing is first of all about publishing, designing and
producing a publication. This can be done with a pencil and a sheet of
paper. Publishing is about designing and producing a publication that
will be printed and sold or otherwise distributed to the public. Desktop
Publishing is about having as much control over this process as possible,
producing artwork from your desktop using whatever technology is available.
As far as computers are concerned, Desktop Publishing is about assembling
pages on screen.
What you are willing to spend on equipment will not dictate the final
quality of your work, what it will do is give you more tools and flexibility
to complete the job of publishing. What equipment you use will be
determined by two factors, (a) what you really need for your purposes and
(b) how much money you want to spend. Machines and software are developing
all the time so there is no point me giving you any information on specific
machines. The machine itself doesn't matter anyway, what does matter is
what facilities you have.
You can break into publishing using a typewriter, rub down lettering a felt
pen and a photocopier. There are numerous magazines all over the country
producing work in this way, mainly Fanzines, very small circulation
newsletters and magazines aimed at fan clubs or special interest groups.
There is a lot of very good design talent and enthusiasm at work on many
of these magazines.
A typical Fanzine uses all the traditional skills of the graphic designer.
Design, Layout, Paste up etc. The tools required are some means of creating
type, a typewriter or wordprocessor. A desk to work on, access to a
photocopier for copying and re-sizing pictures and illustrations etc. to fit
the space. A tin of Spray Mount or a waxer (this is a machine which coats
the back of the work to be pasted with hot wax), a bit more expensive to
buy but cheaper to use and a lot more environmentally friendly than an
aerosol. A scalpel for cutting copy. A board to cut it on. A steel ruler
for measuring and as a cutting edge. A plastic set square for ruling base
lines. A supply of rub down lettering and a felt pen and pencil for
headlines and roughing out. That's all you need to make a magazine.
The first thing to do is to rough out your design on paper, at the same
size as the finished job. Divide the page into the number of columns you
wish to use so that you know how wide to type your columns of text for
pasting down. There are usually 2, 3 or 4 columns to an A4 sized page.
Draw a grid using these columns and make plenty of copies of it. Your
typed strips of paper (called Galleys) are then pasted down onto the grids
along with any illustrations.
Some books are also created in this way, particularly low profit or
specialised books with a very small circulation, perhaps to Professionals
in a particular field, academic books etc.
Using this method you can produce a very exciting and visually interesting
magazine. You can reproduce your artwork either by a traditional offset
litho printer or on a photocopier for short runs. You could even
introduce colour to such a magazine if you have access to a two colour
copier.
WORD-PROCESSORS
For our purposes there are two types of wordprocessor, those that are
dedicated to the task of wordprocessing and those that are personal
computers with a bias toward wordprocessing. Dedicated word-processors,
those that can do nothing but process words are spectacularly expensive.
Happily your chances of being the owner of one of these strange machines
is not very likely. They are usually used by very large organisations and
have not found their way into the domestic market. Machines such as the
Amstrad PCW range, although sold as word-processors, are in effect personal
computers, software and peripherals are available that will allow them
to perform a number of tasks including accounting, graphics and Desktop
Publishing although in a limited way, still a massive step up from a
typewriter.
If you use a dot matrix printer, a number of typestyles are at your
disposal although they are not usually up to the quality of that on a
good typewriter. Typestyles and sizes can be changed, stretched
and manipulated. A dot matrix printer uses a print head which
contains usually nine but sometimes up to twenty four tiny needles
to punch into a ribbon in vaiouse combinations and thus form a
character on the paper behind the ribbon. The clarity of the characters
can be variable depending on how good the ribbon is, how old the
print head is etc. But copy can be improved slightly by photocopying.
The print out from a dot matrix printer can look very 'computery' due
to the matrix of dots. However there are some very good DTP packages
around for the Amstrad PCW particularly. One of them uses just one
pin of the print head to form all the characters, this pin is very finely
controlled and actually overlaps to give a much greater resolution
than usual. Usually extra typefaces are included in the package of
software that you buy and so much greater flexibility is obtained.
A DTP package will allow you to design on screen give you a number
of columns, page sizes, type styles and sizes and perhaps some basic
tools for drawing grids, boxes, rules and maybe even create illustrations.
A DTP package should also allow you to place 'clip-art' on the page and
be able to import text from your usual wordprocessing programme.
One of the best I have come across for the PCW is Microdesign II from
Creative technology of Uttoxeter. This package comes complete with
a selection of clip-art and will drive a Dot matrix, Daisy wheel or even
a laser printer, though spending more on the printer than on the computer
may seem a little strange.
If using a Dot matrix printer to produce your artwork, one tip is to reduce
the A4 page to A5 on photocopier, this can yield impressive results,
blacks will be blacker and print will be a lot sharper and less 'bitty'.
One problem with using a PCW with a DTP package is that usually you
are limited to single pages and even fractions of pages. A page design
on screen takes up a lot of computer memory, particularly if there are
a number of typefaces and graphics on the page. Also printing from such
a programme can take a long time due to the fact that every single dot on
the page has to be remembered and processed by the computer.
A daisywheel or golf ball printer uses a plastic or metal wheel or ball
with characters preformed on its surface. The printer punches these
characters against the ribbon thus forming characters on the paper behind.
Using one of these printers you are restricted to the typefaces, sizes and
styles available but there is a limited range of alternative typefaces.
A wordprocessor obviously has a number of improvements on the
typewriter. Corrections are very easy to make on screen, so that if a
mistake should be made the whole page does not need to be re-typed.
Also work can be saved to disk for later printing. A number of typefaces
and sizes are available.
Apple Macintosh computers are THE computers for DTP, but they are
very expensive, a bottom of the range model starts at around œ2000 new.
Secondhand prices are not much lower, they hold their price very well.
Bearing in mind that you will also need software, a printer and a hard
disk you are looking at spending about œ5000 before you start to feed
paper into your machine. Not only is the machine itself very expensive
and something of an enthusiasts computer, add-ons, peripherals and
software are also generally more expensive than similar items for other
makes of machine.
Having given you the bad news about the Mac, the good news is that
basically a child could use it. It is well known as the most user friendly
computer in the world. It is designed for people to use and you don't
have to be a computer boffin to understand it. I personally used one to
design, Illustrate and typeset this book.
Having said that the 'Mac' (as it is universally known), is the best, things
are changing very quickly. Machines are getting easier to use, faster
better and cheaper all the time, there are many viable alternatives to the
Mac, particularly for the smaller user.
I also use an Amstrad PC 1512 that cost me about £500. It's plasticky and
creaks, the screen is in Black and White, the disk drives make a plodding
noise (hence my machine is called 'Plod') I've had it for about five years,
it was my first ever computer, I bought it before I even knew what a
computer did and I use it daily (yes I use two computers at the same time).
In that five years it has never given me a minutes trouble and has paid for
itself probably 100 times over. Sure, it was a risk, I thought it was
expensive and it was at the time, but I have a great regard for that machine
it brought me to a point where I now make between £20 and £40 an hour.
Just using the machines for other people. I'm a desktop publisher. I
turn other peoples work into something ready for the printing press. I
make leaflets, posters, books, magazines and so on. I work for publishers
across the country, big and small. From freesheets to great volumes of
academic books.
But I digress. What I'm saying here is that you don't need to spend vast
amounts of cash. Spend what you can afford and grow, just like I did.
What I as a businessman recommend is to go for a middle range machine,
then when you come up against a problem that your machine cannot
handle, put the job out to somebody who can do it, and put a mark up
when you deliver the finished job to a client. I do this all the time. I
personally never type a word, I have a chap down the road who has got
a wordprocessor and isn't as enterprising as me. He types all my stuff
onto disk for me, I pay him 75p per page of typing. Then I take his disk,
lay all his hard work out to the clients specifications and charge the client
£12.50 per page. This takes on average around fifteen to twenty minutes.
That means for a page of text I get paid between £37.50 and £50 per hour.
Now if my chap down the road were to invest just £500 in his enterprise,
he would be a competitor, but he hasn't and he won't because he has no
imagination. You obviously have because you have invested time, energy
and hard cash in ordering and reading this book.
REPEAT SALES
Important. Keep everything you ever produce for anybody on disk for
six months. Most clients will want more leaflets, or they will want a
change of coding on an old leaflet, or they will want a leaflet that is
similar but not quite the same as one you did for him before. If you can
grab his old leaflet from disk you can spend five minutes on it and charge
him again at your latest rate. This saves time, typing and costs just the
price of a floppy disk, about 50p if you buy from the right place.
If a client wants a leaflet designing and typesetting he is usually willing
to pay œ12.50 for a well produced piece of work. He photocopies it and
makes god knows how much return on his investment.
A vital piece of equipment for any DTP Publisher is a fax machine. I
leased mine, when business was looking slow, it costs me œ28 per month
and pays for its next month every Monday morning. The Fax means that
I can have clients all over the country, from Inverness to Portsmouth.
Work comes down the line, proof copies go back and when approved the
finished artwork goes out in the post. A client can have a completed job
by the very next day.
I ran out of fax paper once halfway through a fax that was coming in from
London. It was a fifty page booklet and a Sunday. Monday I couldn't
get to the shop until 4pm because the phone kept ringing. So that job
didn't get done until Tuesday. A day is a long time in the computer
business. And I pride myself on getting any job out, no matter how big,
within two days. Even if I have to pay someone else to do it. This attitude
keeps my customers coming back.
MORAL: Keep a good supply on consumeables.
P R O J E C T F I V E
YOUR OWN PUBLISHING BUSINESS
This can be a goldmine. I love it. There are two ways you can go with
this. You can either buy the reproduction rights for books which already
exist, usually business guides and manuals like this one, or you can write
your own. I usually write my own but then I started off my business life
as a writer.
WRITING YOUR OWN BOOK
If you have a skill or talent that you know more about than the average
person, then you have the basis for a saleable look. You don't need to
be great, just better than average. Obviously 50% of the population are
average and below average in any particular area.
If you don't have a particular skill or hobby, learn one. Years ago I was
a Buddhist, I eventually learned quite a lot about hypnosis, a subject
which fascinated me for years, I began to teach a local evening class
then I made and sold some cassette tapes a finally wrote a book. It was
the first book I published "Teach Yourself Hypnosis" It is still selling
steadily and costs œ10.00 including postage from Alter Ego Dept CB,
Everton House, Cliff Terrace, Aberystwyth, Dyfed SY23 2DN. If you
would like a copy.
If you can bake a good load of bread, install double glazing, mend a
burst pipe or know some funny stories, then you can write you own book
too. It doesn't matter what your skill is.
BUYING REPRODUCTION RIGHTS
If you take a look in the Exchange and Mart, Business Opportunities
section, you will see pages of adverts which state something like this
"Start Your Own Home Publishing Business". Most of these adverts are
selling the reproduction rights to "Business Manuals" Often costing from
œ3.00 to œ30.00. Beware. Whilst researching this book, I bought a great
number of manuals from these sources, all offering me the opportunity to
make cash from my computer. I wanted to look at the competition. I
remember paying œ12.00 for a "Business Manual" which consisted of TEN
yes JUST TEN pages of dot matrix printed information, photocopied on one
side only and stapled down the edge. This "Manual" told me nothing.
Three of those ten pages were trying to sell me mailing lists of other
people who have allegedly bought the same "Manual" Three more pages
told me such useful things as "You will probably need an accountant" and
"Should you decide to purchase an answering machine, make sure it has
the green spot for approval". The four actual business ideas were the
popular but unprofitable of unworkable ones such as: a wordprocessor
agency, Computer graphics for video titling, and so on. Does computer
graphics for video titling sound interesting? Further reading gives no idea
of how you are supposed to get the words off your monitor and onto video
tape. This is an extremely complex subject, worth far more than the four
paragraphs it was given.
So, Be Very Aware of what you are buying. If you buy reproduction
rights, find out how many pages the book or manual consists of. I
recommend however that you do answer some of these ads, if only to
find out more about the business. Most of them will send you free
catalogues and leaflets explaining the business of publishing business
guides and manuals. These will help you to find out more about the
marketing techniques and what's on offer.
PUBLISHING
The first thing you need is a business name, one you like and which has
a potential for growth. Remember that you are going to have to live with
it. Test it out on people you know, it may have some adverse connotations
which you didn't notice. For example, I run a business called Icon
Graphics. I had been running this business for some months when
somebody said to me, "I'm not sure about the name, sounds a bit on a
con, I con". Well I don't but it was too late to change the name, clients
were getting used to it. Even simple things like that can have an effect
on a business. So think carefully, it still worries me that my business name
might be putting people off, but, it is now so established that changing it
might do more harm than good.
The next thing is a separate business bank account. Don't use your
personal account, keep it at a different bank, that way, if you get into
financial difficulties and the bank is being unhelpful, you can still eat.
Whether you need an ISBN number or not is up to you. It depends on
what you are publishing. If I think a book would do well in the bookshops
I get one, otherwise I don't bother. They don't cost anything but they do
get your book on all the databases that are used by libraries and bookshops
for ordering books. A few orders will drift in from this without it costing
you a penny. Bookshops expect 30% off the cover price of your book.
Send them an invoice with the copies and expect them to take two months
at least to pay up. Send reminders.
You can either typeset the book yourself, or use a typesetter/designer,
such as Icon Graphics. Of course I'm plugging my own business, why on
earth shouldn't I? Talk to your printer about how he would like it
presented, use a standard paper size such as A5 or A4, this will keep
costs down, use a mail order printer, preferably a specialist book or booklet
printer. Get plenty of Quotes because prices vary enormously.
If you are doing it yourself, think about your output, do you use a laser
printer, dot matrix or daisywheel printer. A laser is fine, no problems,
a daisywheel works okay too. If you are using a Dot Matrix printer,
print to your highest quality output, larger than the finished page and ask
your printer to reduce the pages. He won't charge you any extra for this
and the reduction in size will mean that the dots from your printer are
closer together and not as noticeable.
MAIL ORDER PRICING
If you are selling anything by mail order, you need a good mark up.
80% is minimum. You need it to pay for your advertising. Advertising
is hellishly expensive. Sometimes you can spend £300 and not get a
single order. I did just that. It was my own fault, I was experimenting
with an idea that turned out to be spectacularly stupid.
MARKETING YOUR BOOKS
As a mail order publisher, you need to advertise. There are two methods
of doing this. Press advertising and direct mail. Again answer some of
the ads in Exchange & Mart to see how it's done. Your first book should
perhaps be something on how to run a mail order business, check out the
publisher you bought this from or write to us at Icon Graphics.
WRITING SERVICES
This one is not quite computer related but I thought that I would put it in
anyway as it follows a theme. I offer writing services to publishers
of all sizes. I will write a book on any subject to any length and will even
typeset it. If you can write, why not do the same. There are thousands
and thousands of writers in the country but very few of them actually
make any money at it, even the published novelists apart from the golden
handful. But, there is a massive market. I wrote this book, I have written
dozens of others like it and sold every single one apart from my three
novels which are still unpublished.
Of course you have to start somewhere. Write your book on what you
know and advertise it to the people who offer to set you up in your own
publishing business. Get their details from Exchange & Mart and send
them a circular.
When you have a list of buyers, mailshot them again offering your
services. You will write a book to their specifications on any subject
they want. Of course that means research time and it means they have to
pay more than usual, but some companies will be willing to pay extra
just to have a title that nobody else offers. When I was writing my
hypnosis book I told a few people about it and was inundated with offers,
ranging from £500 to £2000.
If writing to commission, ask for 50% up front (as long as you are capable
of completing the job of course). That ties you both into a contract. Get
the full details and estimate how long it would take you. Don't offer
a price, ask the buyer how much he expects to pay. That way you know
just how much effort to put in. The buyer gets full copyright, you get a
lump sum and your name on the cover.
P R O J E C T S I X
DATA RECOVERY
I recently crashed the hard disk on my Apple Macintosh. It put me out
of business for four days. I knew it was going to happen one day, it was
inevitable. Hard disk crashes are inevitable. It will happen to practically
everybody sooner or later. Guess what? I have worked with computers
for over fie years, I know the risks and I did not have a collection of
backup copies.
But, I do have a 'First Aid Kit'. I spent four days breaking into my Hard
Disk and copying everything off it onto floppies, re-formatting the disk
and copying everything back on again.
If I didn't have my 'First Aid Kit' I would have had to call out a specialist
in data recovery. Being a specialist is nothing other than having the right
tools and the right knowledge and information. If you know a fair bit
about computers you can charge around £40.00 per hour going on call out
with your recovery software and preferably an external hard disk and
cables. I live in a tiny town by the sea, population, about 30,000 in the
surrounding town and villages. But I know of literally dozens and dozens
of business computers in the area. If you live in a large town, how many
computers do you think there are around you? Probably thousands.
True, you won't work every day, but when you do work you will probably
be working through the night, weekends, holidays and so on. One crashed
hard disk over a weekend can be a real earner. Say it takes you eight
hours at £40.00, plus a call out charge of £50.00, plus double time for
weekends and night work. That comes to £690.00 for eight hours work.
While you are at it your clients will be delighted to buy file protection
software from you to prevent it happening again. They will be ripe for a
sale, believe me.
Offer them your services on a weekly basis, offer to visit after office
hours, or at weekends, one day per week to back up their data for them.
Charge £40.0 per hour again. All businesses buy insurance, it is stupid
not to, but nobody offers insurance against lost data. You can, if they have
another crash, you have the ability to back up, to restore their files and
so on.
Software is readily available and for the most part is relatively inexpensive.
Of course you need a suit, a padded briefcase for your disks, software and
manuals, transport and possibly a mobile phone or pager. When people
need you, they usually need you desperately.
VIRUS PROTECTION
Along with your data recovery service, you should offer a virus protection
service. It amounts to the same thing really. Basically insuring people
against data loss but you also sell the client a package of virus protection
utilities. Try marketing your business by making some telephone calls
on Wednesday the 11th reminding people about the Friday the 13th virus.
P R O J E C T S E V E N
ILLUSTRATION
Can you draw with a computer? Do you have a scanner? If you can
answer yes to either or both of these questions, then you have the basis
of what could be a very profitable business.
Every print shop has a collection of clip art. Stock images that are used
to add interest to a page, a leaflet of price list. I do a good line in art for
plastic carrier bags. Build up a collection and you can either print it out
at your highest resolution to offer through mailshots to printers or people
who send out circulars. Or, more profitable, advertise clip art collections
through the computer mags. Sell the disks over and over again. You can
even offer custom made clip art on any subject, charge by the hour for
this and give the purchases full copyright.
P R O J E C T E I G H T
SHAREWARE MARKETING
If you are setting up a bulletin board you should do this anyway. What you
need is a computer and modem, a dark disk and lots and lots of floppies.
Call the bulletin boards you can find, especially in America where they
proliferate. Download their Public Domain and Shareware software and
sell it. You cannot charge for the actual software but you can charge a fee
to cover the media and your expenses. That means your time, phone bills,
computer time etc.
Advertise in the computer press or offer specific packages to targetted
buyers. For instance, mailing list programmes to small mail order
companies. You can progress on to advising small businesses, clubs and
societies etc., on setting up complete computer systems in this way.
P R O J E C T N I N E
INDEPENDENT ADVISOR
If you know a fair bit about computers. Set yourself up as an independant
advisor. I spend a fair amount of time on the phone to people just helping
them with computer problems. Sometimes they are friends or clients of
one of my other businesses. Sometimes they have called me because
somebody has told them that I know a thing or two. When I get one of
these calls I start by discussing the fee. I end up paying a visit and can
earn quite a bit of money just by talking to people. You need a
collection of recent catalogues, a business card and contacts in the trade.
Your contacts mean that you can offer to set up complete systems for
people and in effect work as a freelance salesman for the computer
dealers. Expect a commission from your contacts, that's what they are
for. Pass some of it on to your customer so that they are getting the
system at below list price and will automatically come back to you when
they need help.
Your main job is to be a trouble shooter, solving problems, setting up
systems, customising software, advising on hardware and software
purchases and so on. Possibly not a full time job but it fits in easily with
Data Protection and Virus Protection. Your selling point is that you are
independant. You are not trying to push any articular piece of equipment
or software because it doesn't matter to you what they buy. Whatever
they want, you supply it. Your first stop when buying anything for a client
is to contact an American exporter and get his price. USA prices are often
far below UK prices and you can save a lot of money.