BOOKWORM.PH

Description:
More women than men start new businesses annually, since women enjoy the flexibility and ease of child care that working at home provides. Huff, a business journalist and author (Home-Based Business Ideas for Women, Pilot, 1993), enumerates 101 business opportunities to women found in traditional areas. Each listing includes information on start-up costs and financing sources, pricing guidelines, marketing methods, equipment, necessary education/training or experience, income potential, and information sources. Huff begins the book with short sections on selecting a business, developing a business plan, and understanding franchises and distributorship. While this title is informative, numerous recent books are available on this topic, from Lionel Fisher's On Your Own (LJ 1/95) to Daryl Allen's 1101 Businesses You Can Start from Home (Wiley, 1995). A marginal purchase for those public libraries with an adequate collection in this area.
Kathy Shimpock-Vieweg, O'Connor-Cavanagh Lib., Phoenix, Ariz.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
Praise for 101 Best Home-Based Businesses for Women, 3rd Edition:
"A phenomenal resource for any woman with an entrepreneurial spirit! Priscilla has made it easier than ever for women to find their ideal home-based career. If you're interested in launching a successful business from home, this book is a must!" ? Debra M.Cohen, founder, Homeowner Referral Network (HRN) Business, and president, Home Remedies of NY, Inc.
"Six years ago I was scared I would never be able to be with my baby. I bought one of Priscilla Huff's books. Now I have my own successful home business. I cannot believe I now offer advice to others who want their own home businesses. If you want to be successful, buying this book is very important." ? Jennifer Dugan, Dugan's Travels
"If you are looking to start a home business, you won't be disappointed in the abundance of information Priscilla has compiled. This book covers everything a woman needs to know about what types of home businesses are available and how to get a home business started. Starting a home business can be a tremendous amount of work, but with Priscilla's book, you can be on your way to home-based success in no time at all." ? Lesley A. Spencer, founder, Home-Based Working Moms
"The unlimited resources provided literally take you through the process step by step and make obtaining the home biz dream a possible reality." ? Kim Essenmacher, independent telecom agent, Cognigen -- Review

Amazon.com Review
At its core, Amazon.com is a great big database concerned with lots of stuff--books, of course, but also tools, clothing, films on DVD, kitchen equipment, and lots and lots (and lots) of Harry Potter paraphernalia. Want to wear an Anna Kournikova exercise brassiere while juicing celery (presumably with considerable vigor)? Amazon can help. Need a cricket bat, radar gun, dietary fiber supplement, or vibrasonic molechaser? Amazon has what you need. Which is all great, but the real value of Amazon.com isn't that these things are in the database. The real value of this site lies in the information about all that stuff--reviews, sales rankings, recommendations, and the like--and the large number of ways to access it. Amazon Hacks explains how to get the most out of Amazon.com as an ordinary customer with a Web browser and as a software developer interested in the site's considerable collection of Web Services.

In Amazon Hacks, Paul Bausch documents most of the avenues Amazon.com has opened up for exploration of the database. A lot of his coverage borders on the obvious: Sections on how to "Power-Search for Books" and "Put an Item Up for Bid at Amazon Auctions" aren't too different from Amazon's own explanatory articles. Coverage of how to add an Amazon search box to your own site, and add Amazon Associates item links to various kinds of Weblogs (including Blosxom and Moveable Type) are much handier. Bausch really shines when explaining Amazon.com's Web Services (AWS), the remotely accessible software interfaces that enables programs to search the database. He includes AWS-enabled programs in PHP, Python, and Perl. --David Wall

Topics covered: How to use Amazon.com as a Web surfer, Web site publisher, and software developer. Detailed coverage goes to advanced product search techniques, managing the characteristics associated with your Amazon login, selling through Amazon Auctions and zShops, and the Amazon Web Services (AWS) API for Perl, PHP, and Python.

Review
"The ultimate guide for searching for, and selling goods on Amazon." PC Plus, April

Review
“Simply brilliant! Is there anything left to say about superior customer service? The answer is obviously a resounding ‘yes.’ This book proves it!” –Tom Peters

From Publishers Weekly
The Beardstown Ladies-16 older women from a small town in Illinois-present the investment secrets that have allowed their club to substantially outperform professional money managers.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

n this sequel ot Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive , Mackay, a Minneapolis envelope-maker, issues a flood of no-nonsense business advice in the form of original aphorisms and short, germane examples, all delivered with high spirits and ever-bubbling humor. "The sale begins when the customer says yes," he declares. "ASTONISH them . . . get it there before you said you would . . . " Mackay offers detailed programs to motivate customers and employees, and tells success stories of consumer needs perceived and fulfilled--pantyhose shops, walk-in medical clinics. He also stresses the importance of entrepreneurial courage, such as his own insistence on lengthy titles for his books. First serial to Success magazine; BOMC and Fortune Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Like Mackay's previous best seller, How To Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive ( LJ 4/15/88), this work is filled with anecdotes and typical Mackay tips. Beginning with how to get a job, he uses hints and stories to show how to get ahead in the business world. The work is composed of 85 lessons broken into seven groupings, with each lesson usually only a couple of pages in length. Each grouping relates to specific aspects of a business career, e.g. "Harvey Mackay's Short Course on Getting Started" or "Working Your Way Up" or "Running the Show." In addition there are 35 "Quickies," usually a page or less in length, that explicate a point, e.g. "Find One Good Idea, and You Can Use It Forever." Sure to be a best seller. Recommended for all business collections that include popular works. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/89.
- -- Michael D. Kathman, St. John's Univ., Collegeville, Minn.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc

From School Library Journal
Grade 3-5–This basic book for young entrepreneurs is full of ideas. The six chapters include Build Your Own Business Model and Managing Your Money. In the section on sample businesses, Rancic provides pros and cons as well as tips for getting started. He shares his philosophy of honesty and the lessons he has learned in his ventures. Kids 7 through 12 also present their experiences. Black-and-white family photographs appear throughout.–Kathleen A. Nester, Downingtown High Ninth Grade Center, PA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review
May well provide aspiring entrepreneurs with everything they need to climb to the top. -- Publishers Weekly

Product Description
Candid about his failures, overflowing with a wealth of practical advice, and always colorful, Norm shares what he's learned along the way in three exciting and successful decades at Interstate.

Product Description:

What keeps great companies winning, year after year, even as yesterday's most hyped businesses fall by the wayside? It's not what you think -- or what you've read. To find the real answers, strategic management expert Alfred Marcus systematically reviewed detailed performance metrics for the 1,000 largest U.S. corporations, identifying 3% who've consistently outperform their industry's averages for a full decade. Many of these firms get little publicity: firms like Amphenol, Ball, Family Dollar, Brown and Brown, Activision, Dreyer's, Forest Labs, and Fiserv. But their success is no accident: they've discovered patterns of success that have largely gone unnoticed elsewhere. Marcus also identified patterns associated with consistently inferior performance: patterns reflected in many of the world's most well-known companies. Drawing on this unprecedented research, Big Winners and Big Losers shows you what really matters most. You'll learn how consistent winners build the strategies that drive their success; how they move towards market spaces offering superior opportunity; and how they successfully manage the tensions between agility, discipline, and focus.You'll learn how to identify the right patterns of success for your company, build on the strengths you already have, realistically assess your weaknesses, and build sustainable advantage one step at a time, in a planned and logical way.

"Blog" is short for "Web log"-an online site with time-dated postings, maintained by one or more posters, that features links and commentary. But that is like saying a car is a means of transportation featuring four wheels. Millions are changing their habits when it comes to information acquisition, and the blogosphere has appeared so suddenly as to surprise even the most sophisticated of analysts. In Blog, best-selling author Hugh Hewitt helps you catch up with and get ahead of this phenomenon.

Up until now no influential blogger has written a definitive book about this phenomenon. Since Hugh Hewitt's blog site-HughHewitt-was launched in early 2002, more than 18 million people have visited this site. Why does this visitor traffic matter? People's attentions are up for grabs. If you depend upon the steady trust of others, suddenly you have an audience waiting to hear from you. The race is underway, though, to gain mindspace and to be part of the blogosphere readers' habits and to position yourself as well as your business or organization at the forefront of this information movement.
About the Author
Hugh Hewitt is the host of a nationally syndicated radio show heard in more than seventy cities nationwide, and a professor of law at Chapman University Law School. He is the New York Times best-selling author of If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat. Hewitt received three Emmys during his decade of work as cohost of the PBS Los Angeles affiliate KCET's nightly news and public affairs show Life & Times. He also writes for The Daily Standard and WorldNetDaily.com.

Product Description
The key to understanding men is in understanding how they relate to their gadgets. Just because they may seem to show more interest in their computers...or their remote controls...or their fancy watches or their power mowers or their stereos... doesn't mean that their toys are really the most important things in their life. In Boys and Their Toys, bestselling author Bill Adler, Jr. explains how men use toys to assert their independence and freedom, relieve stress, connect to their lost childhood, and even express their nurturing side (without having to admit it). Written in Adler's fun, humorous style, the book reveals how women can:

* learn how a man's interest in particular "toys" can be used to predict his behavior
* know when a guy's passion for gadgets crosses the line into obsession and what to do about it
* take advantage of the human-gadget relationship to improve the human-human relationship

Smart and funny, Boys and Their Toys helps readers understand what makes their men tick...and grow closer with them in the process.

Product Description
Are you taking long lunches? Ignoring sexual harassment? Do you keep your desk neat to the point of looking like you don't have enough to do? The answer to all three should be yes, if you want to succeed in your career on your own terms. Penelope Trunk, expert business advice columnist for the Boston Globe, gives anything but standard advice to help members of the X and Y generations succeed on their own terms in any industry. Trunk asserts that a take-charge attitude and thinking outside the box are the only ways to make it in today's job market. With 45 tips that will get you thinking bigger, acting bolder, and blazing trails you never thought possible, BRAZEN CAREERIST will forever change your career outlook.

Take everything you think you "know" about career strategies, throw them away, and read this book because the rules have changed. "Brazen," "counter-intuitive," and "radical" are the best three descriptions of Trunk's work. Life is too short to be stuck in a rat hole... --Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start

It is a delightful book, with some edgy advice that made me squirm a bit at times. I agreed with 90% of it, found myself arguing with the other 10%, and was completely engaged from start to finish. --Robert I. Sutton, Ph.D, author of the New York Times bestseller The No Asshole Rule

BRAZEN CAREERIST has the street-smarts you need to make your career and life work for you from the start. Read it now, or you'll wish you had when you're 40! --Keith Ferrazzi, bestselling author of Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time

Penelope Trunk brings considerable savvy and a fresh new perspective to the business of career success. Bold and sometimes unconventional, Brazen Careerist gives readers much to think about as well as concrete, practical suggestions that will help them know what they want, and know how to get it. --Paul D. Tieger, author of Do What You Are and CEO of SpeedReading People, LLC

BRAZEN CAREERIST provides a road map specifically for Gen Xers and Gen Yers to help them navigate corporate life and handle the unique characteristics of a twenty-first century career. Trunk's style is direct, practical and anecdotal and most important incredibly helpful. --Julie Jansen, author of I Don't Know What I Want, But I Know it's Not This

Product Description

In Built to Serve, Dan Sanders, CEO of the award-winning, service-oriented United Supermarkets, makes this bold claim: the prevailing business culture is broken and a radical transformation is required-a paradigm shift that reshapes our understanding of the true purpose of work.

Leaders have a choice-continue to chase a broken price-profit model and suffer the consequences or build a culture committed to servanthood and discover the fulfillment evident when people see their work as a ministry. The choice leaders make will not only determine economic success and failure but also will determine their organization's long term impact on humanity.

The time is now. Sanders reveals how your people can adopt United's mission of “Ultimate Service, Superior Performance, Positive Impact.” He distills valuable lessons from nine decades of a people-centered culture that consistently delivers outstanding customer service and reveals how you can develop a fully engaged, productive workforce.

* Treat your customers like partners
* Create a people-centered culture in a numbers-focused world
* Communicate your organization's vision
* Focus on strengths, not weaknesses
* Tie performance to the success of your mission
* Reduce your employee turnover
* Build communities connected by an emotional bond
* Ensure sustainability and growth-with an eye on the principles that allowed your success in the first place

When you're built to serve, employees come to work because they want to, not just because they have to. Built to Serve is your hands-on guide to seeking this higher purpose.

Amazon.com Review
One night, at a Los Angeles dinner gala, Walt Disney gave a rare public statement about his older brother, Roy: "We started the business here in 1923, and if it hadn't been for my big brother, I swear I'd've been in jail several times for checks bouncing. I never knew what was in the bank. He kept me on the straight and narrow."

Although Walt wasn't quite that ignorant of the numbers, it's true that Roy handled most of the finances for the Disney empire. It was Roy who kept the studio running in the early years, Roy who put together the financing deals for Disneyland, Roy who oversaw the completion of Walt Disney World in Florida after his brother's death in 1966.

Building a Company provides plenty of anecdotal details about the Disney entertainment empire's rise to power. Don't look for juicy scandal, though: Bob Thomas's fully authorized (and, ultimately, Disney-financed) biography steers clear of any controversies, such as Disney's attempts to get out of a contract with ABC in the late '50s, before they can cause a blight on the success story. Useful primarily to those interested in the details of business and entertainment history.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Ever walk into a Starbucks and wonder: why didn't I think of this? But, honestly, do you really understand the merchandising mechanics of getting a million people to line up for a tall vanilla latte, or of matching up a dark green mug and a Norah Jones CD with a drink order? Rubinfeld, Starbucks's former executive vice president of store development and an advisor to other well-known brands, has given it all quite a bit of thought, and with a writing assist from Hemingway-who also co-authored Bill Gates's book Business @ the Speed of Thought-he painstakingly shares his blueprint for creating financial and cultural retailing success. This is by no means a relaxing corporate history on the rise of a global coffeehouse. It's an intense examination of what goes into conceptualizing a viable retail plan. Whether it involves serving sushi on a conveyor belt or selling sunglasses, he explains how to grow a franchise into a powerful marketing presence. From the initial "ideation" and differentiation of the concept, to choosing the right location for the first store, making the design and merchandising decisions, and attracting venture capital-Rubinfeld walks anyone who wants, or needs, to understand retailing through the thought process at every decision-making opportunity. He does so while continuously drawing examples from the local mall, explaining concepts in terms of what retailers like Oakley, Chico, Potbelly Sandwiches and, of course, Starbucks have done right. He also shares his insights on what others, like the bankrupt candle company Illuminations, did wrong. Rubinfeld sidesteps jargon and avoids cute or memorable phrases... save one: "retail is detail." The phrase aptly summarizes the contents of this book-which in its latter chapters even delves into the minutia of real estate management. This is an intricately detailed game plan for becoming the retailing world's next Starbucks.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Online sales and the big-box stores have knocked down prices for consumer goods, essentially squeezing out the "general retailer"--everybody else. So is it crazy to open a bricks-and-mortar retail store now? Rubinfeld, who helped transform Starbucks into one of the world's most recognized retail brands, and Hemingway, best known as the coauthor with Bill Gates on the number-one best-seller Business @ the Speed of Thought (1999), present solid concepts for keeping a brand fresh and innovative. Their book is based on four fundamental principles of retail strategy but built on a holistic, integrative approach to designing and implementing a retail business plan. All national brands, they tell us, started out as small, family-owned enterprises. Borrowing from the football phrase "go long," they talk about how to plan big and prepare to expand quickly. The specifics they provide--such as merchandising, licensing, and actual site plans--are valuable tools to both existing retailers and start-ups. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

For office workers fearful of the next headcount reduction, Viscusi offers a sound strategy for surviving to work another day. A workplace and career specialist and executive headhunter, Viscusi explains with authority how executives facing staff reductions make their decisions. The 50 tactics he offers are intended to bulletproof a job, but they are also the same tactics that make one a valuable employee and enhance one's attractiveness to prospective headhunters and new employers-keeping resumes current, stashing away cash and knowing how to interview well. Viscusi groups his strategies into four categories: being more visible, being easy to work with, being useful and being ready, and his tips stick close to the tried-and-true (dress for success, spell-check emails, keep friends close and enemies closer). While those new to the working world will benefit the most from the advice, office veterans will receive a useful reminder that the little things-like body language and elevator pleasantries-go a long way to generating well-regard from higher ups intent on cutting staff.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Who could write the manual of life better than the Creator of Life? In Business Buy the Bible, Wade Cook shows readers exactly what God says about running everyday aspects of life. Readers will learn how to apply God's principles to saving, spending, and investing and to apply Biblical methods to their lives every day.

Amazon.com Review
Smart, direct, precise. These are adjectives viewers of NBC's hit reality show, The Apprentice might use to describe Donald Trump's left-hand woman, Carolyn Kepcher. Kepcher is a tough judge who can make or break hopeful contestants vying to get hired by Trump. In Carolyn 101, readers find a respected business executive and familial leading lady. Kepcher's personal stories draw an entertaining and inspiring picture of a scrappy, former waitress and restaurant manager, with a no-holds-barred approach to getting hired and succeeding in a mostly male-dominated environment in New Jersey--and, eventually, in The Trump Organization.

In Carolyn 101, Kepcher describes how she successfully synthesized her learned-on-the-job business acumen and motherhood duties to become a respected leader in the Trump empire. Plus, readers will love the snippets Kepcher shows of her famous boss, including his empathy to her personal life and foresight in choosing Kepcher for a management role at the age of 25: "I was twenty-five, a woman, and had never run a golf club in my life. But since Donald Trump trusted that I could handle it, I trusted myself to handle it."

It's clear from Carolyn 101 that Kepcher is a renaissance woman through and through. She balances the demands of the show, her job, and home-life, making her success that much more impressive. Those joining the workforce or already in the trenches will appreciate the firm advice she offers through personal stories and short blurbs dotting the pages, like this gem: "When someone hands you an opportunity, don't be afraid to take it." Case in point: Carolyn Kepcher, EVP and COO, The Trump Organization. --E. Brooke Gilbert --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.