Home Business Idea – Typing Service

If you are proficient on the computer and you want a great home business job, consider operating a typing service.  Now, the word “typing service” is kind of a misnomer these days, since no one uses a typewriter any more.  So a typing service is really a service that produces documents on a computer.

I had a home typing service when my children were young, and it was a good way to combine family and work.  I could work when I wanted (and when my children were sleeping) and get a lot done.  None of my clients came to the house; I delivered documents to them (no email back in those days).

What kind of documents? A home typing service can produce many different kinds of documents:

• Theses, term papers, dissertations for students
• Turning handwritten manuscripts into book drafts
• Translation services
• Business documents like manuals, proposals, and business plans
• Transcripts of meetings, labels, forms
• Legal documents like leases, agreements, contracts, business start-up documents

What do you need to get started? All you really need is a computer with word processing software and Internet capability so you can communicate with customers.  You should also get an external backup for the documents you produce, and back up every day, so you don’t have to re-do anything. Oh, and a place to put your computer.

Excellent sentence skills necessary. In addition to being a fast, accurate typist, you must also have good sentence skills.  You need to know the difference between they’re, their, and there (when spoken), when to use it’s and its, and all the other little quirks of English. Clients will not accept sloppy work. If you don’t do well with grammar, punctuation, and spelling, don’t attempt this work.  Please.

What kind of rates can you charge? You can probably charge between $15 and $30 an hour, depending on the type of document and the complexity (less for simple term papers; more for more complex legal documents).  You can also charge a premium price for faster turn-around. Handwritten documents and audio transcripts are the most difficult to deal with, so charge more for this work.

How do you get customers? Your customers will tend to be local, so go where they are.  For example, if you want to work for students, go to the local college or university and put flyers on bulletin boards.  Find out what new professionals are opening in the area (particularly attorneys) and offer to work for them so they don’t have to hire a document typist.  Put an advertisement on Craigslist or the local newspaper.  Go to office buildings and hand out your cards to all the small businesses.

Benefits outweigh drawbacks.  If you are an excellent, fast typist with good sentence skills, you can do well financially running a typing service.  Once you get a few people talking about you, you’ll find you have more work than you want.

The image (an old Olivetti typewriter): Plindberg @ Flickr