Chicken Soup for a Rainy Day, or a Shameless Plug

So it’s a cold, rainy day, the third consecutive such day, and the children have been going a little stir crazy. It seems like the sunny days, they don’t want to play outside (not that they have a choice) and on the rainy days, all they want to do is play outside. Ah, the fickleness of children.

But all this rain has made me crave a cup of hot tea, a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup, and a good book to curl up with, perferrably with one of my cats to warm my lap. Currently, I’m reading Charlotte Bronte’s The Professor for my next book club meeting.

If you’re looking for a little light reading, the Chicken Soup for the Soul series has two new books coming out this fall that feature a story from yours truly. Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family (Oct. 20 release date) has heartwarming and humorous stories about families, while Chicken Soup for the Soul: Count Your Blessings (Nov. 3 release date) has stories about thankfulness in the face of adversity.

My family story centered around my experiences as a foster sister to the many foster children my parents took in over the years. I also shared our thankfulness for God’s provision after a huge tree nearly bisected our house during Hurricane Isabel.

So pull up a chair, pick up your favorite book, and sit back to enjoy a nice rainy day.

Read More

Death of a Book

I just received news from my publisher that they will not be reprinting Hired @ Home, which essentially means the book will officially go out of print and not be available for purchasing online or in bookstores.

Naturally, this news is very distressing to me, as writing a book is akin to giving birth. We plant the words on the page and water them sometimes with our tears, sometimes with our sweat. We carefully craft the flow of the book and send it off to the publisher to be transformed into something magical. We await with eager expectation the arrival of the book in printed form with high hopes that it will find its place in the world, that it will make many friends and find a good home in many lives. We follow its progress through the outside world. Will it find an audience? Will it succeed? Will those who read it find it inspiring and worthwhile?

Then the crushing news that, a mere 15 months after its arrival into the published world, the book is dead, a victim of rapid changes in Christian publishing and the retail world (according to the publisher). And you as the author are left with a choice: purchase the inventory and hope to somehow sell the copies yourself or let it pass into obscurity.

As of this post, I have no answers. I cherish the readers who have contacted me to say the book has made a difference in their lives. I still believe in Hired @ Home, but am mourning its death, at least as far as my publisher is concerned.

So I'm left with passing along the sad news to family and friends.

Until next time,

Sarah

Read More

How to Know When to Move Your Business Out of Your House

An recent article in Entrepreneur magazine tackles the question “Have You Outgrown Your Home Based Business?” Some of you might think that day will never come, but some might already be looking around and realizing that space constraints are making it harder to run your business.

The article outlines key indicators that let you know it’s time to find a new place to do business: product-based businesses that are filling your home to capacity and beyond; increased customer or vendor flow into your house; trouble separating work from home; and the need to hire employees.

Developing an “exit” strategy for your business before you need to move can help you make the transition from home office to an outside location. A commercial real estate agent can help you find the perfect office space for your former home-based business.

Until next time,

Sarah

Read More

Picking the Right Time

An interesting article in Inc Magazine talks about how for entrepreneurs, it’s never the “right” time to start a business. Juggling work and home life can be a struggle, especially when building a business.

“Balancing Acts: If Not Now, When?” discusses how running your own business can become a series of “not right” times or about postponing (fill in the blank). Check it out for inspiration to move beyond the “not right” into the “right now.”

Until next time,


Sarah

Read More

Russia Ball anyone?

Today, I taught my oldest child and one of her friends one of my favorite childhood games, Russia Ball. Why it’s called that, I have no idea, as there’s nothing inherently Russian about it. Basically, the game involves tossing the ball into the air and catching, with variations. It can be played with one or more people, which makes it a great solitary game as well as a fun group game.

I practiced Russia Ball for hours on my own as a kid. And, years later, I can still do it very well, if I do say so myself. So I got to thinking, does working from home and my childhood experience with Russia Ball have anything in common?

First, Russia Ball and working from home takes practice. Sometimes we catch the ball right away and sometimes we have to lunge to make the catch, only to miss the ball completely. Don’t be discouraged when you make a mistake related to your at-home work. Maybe you lost a client or maybe you had to put in extra hours on a project because something went wrong. You can do it, you might just have to go about it a different way than you had originally thought.

Second, Russia Ball and working from home takes patience. I had to develop patience with myself as I learned how to perform the routines necessary to perfect Russia Ball. Sometimes, we need a lot of patience when performing our at-home jobs. Be persistence and patient, especially when starting your business.

Third, Russia Ball and working from home takes persistence. Doing the same routines over and over again until I had mastered the skills necessary to play the game well took persistence. I spent many a summer’s eve outside banging the ball against the sidewalk in an attempt to “win” the game. That persistence is what’s necessary to be successful with your at-home work, too.

So when you’re feeling discouraged with your home-based business, take a minute to recall your favorite childhood game and the practice, patience and persistence you needed to perfect that game. Then use that memory as a way to encourage you to get right back into the swing of things.

Until next time,


Sarah

PS: If you're interested in finding out how to play Russia Ball, send me an e-mail through my contacts page and I'll send the instructions.

Read More

25 Million Freelancers and Counting

As a freelance writer and editor, I’m always interested in reading about how freelancing is growing in the United States. For instance, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that there are around 25 million freelancers in the country. Another recent survey finds that approximately 20 percent of employed Americans (one in five) work as freelancers or for themselves.

A recent blog on The New Entrepreneur (on Business Week’s Web site) talks about the “rise of the freelancer,” and how “freelancing is a permanent condition of our economy, not a temporary condition caused by the most recent economic crisis. … Freelancing has been on the rise for decades.”

The blogger writes that “these new freelancers have been celebrated for their independence and entrepreneurial spirit. They are the living example of Adam Smith’s economic actor. They live in the neo-liberal land of our new economy, beholden to no one and rising only by pluck and luck. There is no safety net, most labor laws do not cover them, and they have no benefits--only opportunities. They survive and thrive by their own wits.

“But freelancing is risky. The average freelancer takes no vacations, is scared of the future, and is always frantic to find the next gig. Freelancers do not balance work and family, instead they blend the two into a hybrid lifestyle. Much of the economic risk has been shifted to them and they feel it.”

I can personally attest to the difficulty in keeping my work life separate from my home life—and being a stay-at-home mother of four young children makes that a feat worthy of any circus some days! There’s the inevitable business calls around the lunch or dinner hour, especially since I often talk with article sources who live in different time zones. Nothing like a screaming toddler in the background to make you feel like a not-so-professional person!

But I’ve found most people have been very understanding of my work-from-home limitations, that sometimes there is that childish laughter or screaming when I pick up the phone (usually that starts after I answer, otherwise, I let the voice-mail pick up for me!). To me, this type of article is very encouraging, as it seems to point out the many opportunities there are for freelancers of every ilk and also how commonplace it is for a freelancer to call his office home, too.

Until next time,

Sarah

Read More

Health Care and Self-Employed Taxes

Recently, I came across this Business Week article ("The New EntrepreneurThe Self-Employment Tax: Into the Swamp") that talked about how the current health-care reform bills would impact self-employed workers who purchase health care. While I am covered under my husband's employer-provided plan, it was enlightening to read about the percentage the self-employed are taxed on healthcare premiums.

The article is also a very lucid description of how the self-employed (those who receive 1099 forms as contract workers) pay taxes. I highly recommend reading it--it certainly opened my eyes to exactly how my taxes are figured out and at what rate they are paid.

Check it out at http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/archives/2009/08/the_self-employ.html.

Read More