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How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business, 3rd (Home-Based Business Series)
vBulletin Book Store > vBulletin books beginning with H
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How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business, 3rd (Home-Based Business Series) |
Author: Jim Smith
Published: 2007-01-01 |
List price: $18.95
Our price: $12.89
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Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: September 06th, 2008 12:59:07 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Sample Contract is Worth the Price of the Book
This is a good book for someone who may know more about web design than they know about business. Like others have said, the example web designs aren't very good and look dated. This book is definetly a business book, and a wordy one at that. I found myself skimming some of the paragraphs for just the major points.
The author relates some of his best practices in his approach to running the business. The sample contract alone is worth the cost of the book and is the reason I gave it 4 stars. The contract seemingly covers all the bases. Because there is no CD, the FAQ in the book gives you the location of the link to download the contract for your own use. The author cautions you to seek an attorney's help before leveraging the contract for you own use though.
Overall, it is a good business resource with a few technical pointers as well.
 Easy to read, good hard facts
The first time I even casually flipped through the book I was pulled in by good hard practical business advice. I was fascinated because it broke my delusion about what having a business would be like and presented me with real world issues I would face. Given today's competition of automated web building tools and the power of blogs and social sites for the little guys, I don't see web design as making anyone rich, but if you're ok with that, this book might point a business in a more realistic direction. Most of the book's content is relevant to any small start up, not just web design. In fact the only reason this book probably references web design is for marketing value. There are obviously a lot of people thinking they can be home based web designers. The web design tips are too basic, but the business advice is awesome.
Great for ideas to get started with - business minds!
This is an excellent book. I borrowed v2 from the Library and thought it was well written, an easy read, and packed with great ideas. In fact, so much that I purchased v3 from Amazon the day I finished reading it. There were many places I wanted to highlight and obviously could not with the Library's book! NOTE - This is not a book to learn how to build great sites for people!!! It is to give you good business ideas and for me it definitely has. In fact, I was a little weary about starting a web design business but now that I have read this book (twice!) I definitely plan to!
 Some good business advice, Terrible examples of good web design
Of the thousands of people who design websites and run their own business doing it, I simply do not understand why this author, Jim Smith, was asked to write this book.
There is some good business advice here, but most of it can be gotten elsewhere and more completely. I suppose most readers will appreciate his sample contract the most.
But the biggest problem I have with this book is that its subject is Web Design, yet the author is FAR from being the expert. The author's own website is amateur at best. His portfolio boasts the same, amateur and unprofessional "designs" as his website. His designs are stuck in the late 1980's and, quite frankly, embarrassing. I am hard pressed to understand how the author could even be running a web design business. His designs are just not very good.
So, does it matter that the author isn't very good at web design? Well...yes, I think so. The author talks about the elements that make for good design and while he hits on things that are valid (web safe colors, fast loading time) he apparently hasn't figured out how to accomplish these good design practices in an aesthetically pleasing way.
One design practice the author cautions against is using lots of tables in the layout of a site. Tables were originally designed to display data, but were used excessively for layout in the past. Now, CSS and divs are used and make the code much less bloated. However, most of the web sites in the author's examples in the book, which are from his portfolio, are table layouts.
This book isn't really that specific to the web design business. Most business things you need to learn can be gotten elsewhere, like Nolo Press.
I'm sorry, but I DO consider the source of my information. While I realize this isn't a design book, the author is addressing this toward people who want to have web design businesses.
Thank You For Writing This Book!
I bought this book a few weeks ago. I was in the "how to" section for graphic software. This book stood out. I read a few pages and put all the other books back. This book has so much information for starting a business. I am modeling my home based business with the ideas from Mr. Smith's book. this book has everything. Now that I know there is an updated version, I will buy that as well. This book is a necessity for anyone starting their business. It is a blessing! Thank you so much and may you continue to have many blessings!!!
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