Modern Simplicity
Our Modern
Simplicity series suggests
ways to incorporate appropriate technology into your life, giving you
time to pursue your passions.
Microbusiness Independence --- by Anna Hess and Mark
Hamilton
Available for 99 cents on Amazon
"WOW! This little ebook ROCKS! It is filled with real examples of them building their invention business from the ground up. I have read many years of business books, and never in any of them have I seen the actual practical applications that I saw here."
--- Mac
Invent your way out of the rat race!
With less than a thousand dollars in startup costs, we built a small, home-based business that started paying all of our bills in just six months. I'm here to tell you that you can make money from home too, and in a way that fits a simple, homesteading lifestyle. In fact, using all of the tips in this book, I'll bet we could have reached our current work at home income level in half the time.
Microbusiness Independence is not a get rich quick book. Instead, it gives you tried and true, up-to-date information on how to make a comfortable living in just a few hours per week by marketing your invention. (Don't worry, we'll help you figure out what your invention is too.)
We start with basics and walk you through developing your product, selling it to the world, and living the dream with a modern perspective. Don't fall for the many work from home scams out there --- create your own business and attain true independence!
"This eBook offers loads of good information about starting a small business, and is worth alot more than the micro-price. The advice is genuine and realistic unlike many similar books I've read, focusing primarily on a business built around creating a niche product sold online. The book hits all the important aspects of starting a small business and more, while getting to the point without alot of fluff. If you are looking for a way to quit the rat race without working yourself to death, give this book a shot." --- Independent Grouse
Trailersteading: Voluntary Simplicity in a
Mobile Home
--- by Anna Hess
All the
advantages of a tiny house at a fraction of the cost!
Available for $1.99 on Amazon.
Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in with traditional house-dwellers after a few years.
Trailersteading profiles nine mobile-home-dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash they saved by renovating their trailer with extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the extra money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders.
In addition to the case studies, the book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life and accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-filled trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.
124 photos and diagrams.
Available for $1.99 on Amazon.
Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in with traditional house-dwellers after a few years.
Trailersteading profiles nine mobile-home-dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash they saved by renovating their trailer with extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the extra money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders.
In addition to the case studies, the book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life and accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-filled trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.
124 photos and diagrams.
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Hi Anna and Mark,
My husband and I have been fans since buying our first DIY chicken waterer kit a year or two ago, we now own four. We've been building our own urban homestead and I started sharing our misadventures on a website (as a way to engage my son in home school writing assignments) in May of 2010, http://www.germainesolutions.com. This past August, I took the leap and started a service oriented edible landscape biz which is still pretty slow. Although the website draws between 300 and 500 visitors a month, it hasn't translated into much business yet. On the other hand, the money saving website we started last year is drawing nearly 2,000 unique visitors a month.
I tried unsuccessfully to use an online resource to produce an e-newsletter for my clients when I discovered and purchased your microbusiness e-book and one of your monthly e-newsletters. Not only was the content of the microbusiness e-book and Volume 6 of your Weekend Homesteader e-newsletter valuable in helping improve our homestead operations and define our financial independence goals but I also loved the simplicity with which they were written.
I have a similar nonprofit background and produced monthly brochures for 3 1/2 years. Between the two sites I have enough content to create a series of newsletters and e-books that can be downloaded for a nominal fee. While I have no intention of duplicating your content, I wanted to know if it's okay to replicate the copyright language and overall format of your Weekend Homesteader e-newsletter (and somehow credit you both with giving us the idea). Having some form of income would be great while we use your tips to develop a unique product that we could sell.
Thanks again, first for our chicken waterers and now for helping us edge our way out of the rat race. Ready to fend for ourselves in 2012!
Sorry to be so slow to respond --- I don't get many non-spam comments over here, so I only check the comment moderation about once a week.
You're very welcome to snag the copyright language, format, etc --- I know that I stole (and slightly edited) the copyright language from some book or other. No need to credit me (although I certainly don't mind.
) I think that wording is fairly similar from book to book.
After playing around with ebooks on Amazon for a bit less than a year, I highly recommend them as a way of bringing in some spare change, especially if you already have a website to drive their initial sales. You might want to check out this site's blog since I've been giving tips once or twice a month as I notice how things work or don't. Probably the most important points are the importance of reviews, of getting several sales immediately to drive you up in the rankings, and of choosing categories wisely. Good luck!
Not many people are aware of the USPS newsletter service. If you put your newsletter into PDF format you can upload it to their site (https://click2mail.com/by-product/booklets/booklet-8-5-x-11#&slider1=2) - they'll print it and mail it with the database of customers you upload.
It's currently $2.35 for a black and white, 16-page booklet (including postage and printing).
It's a very quick and easy process - and relatively inexpensive too. I used to sell an Internet marketing newsletter and that's how we handled it ($97 per month for 32 pages).