As of the end of December, Home Biz Notes will be closing as b5media discontinues Bizzia and the business blogs.  I’ve been writing this blog for more than 4 years, except for a short period when Jean Murray was the blogger.  For a year, Yvonne Russell was my co-blogger. I hope I’ve brought you helpful information about establishing and operating a home business.  It has been enjoyable blogging here and getting to know so many of my readers.  As with  many opportunities in life, there comes a time to go on to something else. I shall be activating two business blogs I established at Blogger some time ago and will publish future business tips there so that my readers will have information to refer to.  These are Baby Boomer... [Read more]

Many of us, with home businesses, must coordinate our family schedules and needs along with our business commitments.  Hope Clark, writer, editor and newsletter publisher, writes about meeting the deadlines of her writing business while family gather around her for the holidays. As I read Hope’s Editor’s Piece of Mind, Ho-Ho-Ho,  in her current issue of FFW Small Markets, I related.  I, too, have had to write with family around for the past 13 years, in our multi-generational household.  I’ve even written at the computer with toddlers on my lap. Hope does have some good suggestions about getting your work done and still enjoying your family during the holidays. How do you juggle family, home business and holidays? (Incidentally,... [Read more]

Winter image: sxc.hu At the end of each month, I post a round-up of 5 Home Biz Notes posts from the month which seem to be favorites and/or have gained attention. Here are five for December: Branding – The Elm Creek Way Can I Brand – The Trails End Quilters Way? Author Kristie Leigh Maguire Reflects on Self-Publishing Susan Gunelius on Branding Your Business – The Playboy Way Janet Elaine Smith’s “Brazen Hussy” Rules of Promotion Did you have any favorites? [Read more]

As I consider how to create my business, with the tentative name of MEA’s Memory Potpourri, incorporating my various family history and memorabilia interests under one brand (as suggested by a branding expert), I’ve written about these possibilities on various blogs.  Some can be undertaken as a single home business.  Others might be incorporated  under a single brand or umbrella. These appear at my Small Business Boomers blog: Develop a Business of Remembering Those Who Will Be Forgotten Christmas Cookie Journal – A Business Idea? Preserving Family Memories as a Business [Read more]

This I Accomplish by Kyra E. Hicks Finding a unique niche and/or developing a brand reflecting this niche enables you to become better known in your field.  Kyra E.  Hicks, author and quilt researcher, has become an experi in the area of “Black Threads” (the name of her blog) and is a font of information about African American quilters. Her most recent book, This I Accomplish about Harriet Powers and her quilts, also reflects Kyra’s expertise as a researcher.  She sought information about Harriet Powers’ Bible Quilt and other pieces, discovering little known and totally unknown details about this quilter’s life and her work. Harriet Powers was a former Georgia slave , who lived from 1837 – 1910 and stitched... [Read more]