The Book

Start & Run an Internet Research Business by Gerhardt W. Kautz goes over starting a business providing research services primarily carried out on the Internet. There is information on general aspects of setting up a business with an Internet research angle.

The Review

I was particularly interested in this book because Internet research is something that I’ve been doing since peons were allowed onto the Internet around 1994 so I was interested in finding out how this skill could be used in a business. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this book particularly helpful as it focused more on general business start-up.

This book has good information on writing a business proposal, what needs to be addressed in client negotiations, how to document your work process so that you account for all your hours, and how to write a business report. There are also plenty of sample documents to work from.

Unfortunately if you don’t already know the tricks to Internet research that go beyond simply Googling keywords, you won’t learn much more of them in this book. Out of 140 pages, a scant 5 are specifically dedicated to finding information on the Internet. Information sources beyond search engines are mentioned, but they are fairly common ones that many people will already have found. It’s possible that I’m wrong on this because I’m just so used to doing research, but I’m assuming–again, perhaps wrongly–that if you’re contemplating Internet research as a business that you have already explored beyond Google. I wanted to see more time spent on how to find niche information sites that are off the beaten track.

The case study followed through the book is of someone who has worked in a specific industry and decides to offer industry-specific research by providing research on military contract opportunities. While there are certainly readers out there who are in a position to adapt this model to a different industry, I would guess that there are many interested in this type of book who aren’t. A few more case studies or alternate scenarios would make this book useful to a much larger audience that isn’t quite sure how to go about making Internet research a business that isn’t so narrowly focused.

I didn’t get a chance to look at the CD that comes with this book–my PC is currently sitting in disconnected bits in the living room and with a functional Mac I have little incentive to put it back together–but it appears that, unlike the Dan Furman books, many (all?) of the forms and letters are reproduced in the appendix of the book. That’s good for those of us working on a Mac who can’t open the files (or those who have a tendency to lose CDs).

On the whole, this book is good but not quite what I was expecting. I wanted to see information on Internet research as a business set this book apart from a general home-business book and, for me, it just didn’t go far enough to accomplish that.

You can buy this and another Self-Counsel Press titles from Self-Counsel Press (US or Canada) and Amazon (US, Canada, UK).

This giveaway is a little different than the ones I’ve had recently: there will be three winners and each winner will get to choose one book they’d like to snag out of the following titles:

I’ve reviewed Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business and Do the Web Write: Writing and Marketing Your Website already (click links to see reviews). I’ll be reviewing Start & Run an Internet Research Business, Writing for the Web (4th Edition) and Marketing in the New Media (2nd Edition) in the coming weeks. So far I’ve found the books easy to read and full of practical advice, so if you’re trying to set up a home business or market a business online you’ll find some help here.

Giveaway Details

Eligibility

1. Open to residents of the United States and Canada. Shipping courtesy of Self Counsel Press.

The Book

The winners will each receive their choice of one of the following five books from Self-Counsel Press:

• Start & Run a Real Home-Based Business (Dan Furman),
• Do the Web Write: Writing and Marketing Your Website (Dan Furman),
• Start & Run an Internet Research Business (Gerhard W. Kautz),
• Marketing in the New Media 2nd Edition (Holly Berkley), or
• Writing for the Web 4th Edition (Crawford Kilian).

Deadlines

There will be three winners (one per drawing) so there are several closing dates (ALL entries count for ALL draws):

I will pick a winner on July 28, 2009, another on August 4, 2009 and one on August 11, 2009.

The winner will be announced and e-mailed the day of the drawings (unless I’m swamped, but I’ll try not to be). If the winner doesn’t reply to the e-mail notification within 72 hours, a new winner will be drawn.

More Free Stuff.

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