HOME, INC.: How to Start and Operate a Successful Business from Your Home

A browser's delight of hearthside occupational fare--plus sound guidance on how to make your enterprise pay. Feldstein, a Business Week editor, reviews: organizational possibilities, market research, budgeting, promotion, regulatory pitfalls (local zoning ordinances as well as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act), taxation, and insurance (notably, for product liability). But if he's systematic and thorough, he's not cut-and-dried: the two biggest obstacles to profitable pricing for do-it-yourselfers, he observes, ""are ego and naivete."" In the second, longer section (based on cross-country research), come the ""practitioners,"" who fall into ten broad categories: Food and Feeding; Caring for People; Creative Products (crafts and such); Information Processing (mainly, ventures built on so-called personal computers); Writing and Art; Collectors; Animals and Plants; Garments; Repairing and Restoring; and Professionals. The offbeat standouts include a Colorado jazz musician who raises wolf cubs for sale as pets; Any Thyme Catering service of Norton, Ohio, which specializes in stir-fried vegetable dishes; and a nostalgic rebel with a thriving mail-order trade in Confederate cash. More conventional avocations--translation, public relations, sewing, manuscript typing, telephone answering--are covered too. For each division of labor, Feldstein spells out the profit potential, prospective hazards, and, endearingly, the possibilities of enjoyment. Special--and practical.