How This Mom Ended Up With a Career in Self-Publishing on the Internet
Catherine R. Pedigo
WinningEdge@win-edge.com


I've been a mother and homemaker for over 27 years and I've enjoyed staying home to raise my two children. My husband Tom had been the sole financial provider for our family until eight years ago when he lost his job and our steady income. (He didn't want me to have to go outside of our home to find employment and I didn't relish the idea either.) After months of him not being able to find other work, we began to frantically consider alternative ways to bring in money.

Tom started developing a passion for reading books about "Home Businesses" and how to start them. One home business that attracted us the most was writing and self-publishing various "how-to" booklets. As Tom shared the nuggets from these different authors with me, he began to write a booklet on "How to Win a Pinewood Car Derby", since he was able to speak out of the experience of four years of consistent wins with our son!

As a result of his motivation, I then came out with my own individual booklet. This is the KEY to producing moneymaking material - knowing what ideas, experience, and knowledge you have that others would desperately want to have for themselves.

My how-to booklet, also came out of personal experience. I'd been having successful garage sales for over 12 years, so I decided to write a booklet on: "How to Have Big Money Garage Sales". My friends had always been astonished and unbelieving when I would tell them how much I had earned for the days of my garage sales. Some of them begged me to tell them my "secrets" which is what gave me the idea of actually putting them into print. It was from these friends and my husband's prodding that finally got me to put some of my experience into writing as well.

The next big step was figuring out how to publish our booklets and then how to market them. We LIVED in the library, bringing home armloads of books every few days. As a result of all this newfound knowledge, my husband and I established a successful self-publishing business through the mail. We used magazine ads and direct mail in the beginning, but lost more money than we made! It wasn't until we discovered the Internet, about 5 years ago, that we began to see some fruit from our labors. Learning how to make my own web pages and market them well myself, has been the key to our Internet success.

The items we sell through our web pages have brought in so much needed income over the last few years, that it's become our main income. . I never would have believed that this would blossom into a full-time job for us! Because of that, we definitely plan to keep writing and marketing our books…it's going to put our 2 children through college!

Our latest self-published manual, "How to Self-Publish and Market a Winning How-To Booklet!" is a complete (honest) course in writing, self publishing, and selling informational how-to booklets. We wrote this manual to share with you what has worked for us AND what hasn't! We don't want to give you "hype" or try to give you exaggerated claims. For us, self publishing was a long labor process before we gave birth to profit. Also, we firmly believe we are the "norm" and those who are an instant success are the "exception."

I also believe there's another key to our success, other than just plain dogged determination and hard work. We sell a variety of different products. That way when one product is having a low sales week, another product is selling like hotcakes, so we never have to worry about no orders coming in.

As I look back, I'm amazed at how far we've come. It took a lot of studying and long, LONG hours, but there is nothing so satisfying as finally seeing the fruit of all our hard work and persistence finally paying off. Best of all, I still get to stay home and be with my kids and make my work hours revolve around my home life, versus having my home life revolve around my work life!

I love computers and throughout these last seven years I've learned much to help us in this self-publishing business. Not only do I continue to sell our booklets through the Internet, but also I've learned a lot about desktop publishing and have designed ads and flyers and web pages for other people, as well. I've learned how to database and keep financial records…I could go on and on. So, if you're a mom (or dad) that loves learning, and loves computers, and you have an area in your life that you excel at…go for it! Other people might just want to know YOUR secrets!

Cathy Pedigo is a homemaker and President of Winning Edge, a self-publishing business in Colorado Springs. You can find her website at: http://win-edge.com/

Winning Edge
4115 Cougar Place
Colorado Springs, CO 80918-5677
(719) 598-9761
WinningEdge@win-edge.com