Since I quit my job this summer to start writing professionally, one of the coolest things I’ve landed is a gig as a columnist for a local San Diego monthly newspaper.
The Espresso is distributed for free in coffee houses and the like in San Diego. I’m not getting paid, but it’s got a circulation of 36,000 each month, and my column (and my name and web address) will be in it each month.
When I called the publisher, I told him I wanted to write on how to start up one’s own business, since I was going through the process myself. He has a passion to help his readers, he said, many of whom sit in coffee shops and dream of striking out on their own. I sent him to this blog as an indication of my writing style and the topics I would cover, and his next email included my monthly deadline and word limit.
[Permit me to whisper a tiny "YEA!" here, please.]
This blog flips around a lot to many new business issues, from healthcare, watching the budget, working from home, proposals and estimating, time management. But I want to develop 4-6 concrete topics that will logically flow from one month to the next for people who really want to make this happen.
Here are my first ideas:
- How to plan your own business while you still have your day job (and how to keep your day job when all you can think about is your new business)
- A trip to the Small Business Administration and other free aids — what will help and what will just annoy you
- Taxes, accountants and banks, or who gets your money once you make it
- The best laid business plans — yeah, you really have to write one and why
- Marketing table for one
- Cheap tricks and frugal living, or making ends meet after the taxes, accountants and banks
Ok, I need to work on the headlines. But I’d love to know what others would want to know. Chime in if you have other ideas.
You are one smart cookie, Miss Beth.
Cookies? Did someone say Cookies?
Damn Diet.
I mean… thanks, Wendy.
Excellent, Beth. Congratulations!