Just the job for journalists
Home Handbook was started in Preston by a senior regional newspaper journalist facing the threat of redundancy in 2010.
It has prospered beyond all expectations and offers journalists in any town, city or country the hope of transferring their skills to their own business and making a decent living from both print and web.
Home Handbook is novel and different, a cross between a local newspaper and Yellow Pages. It works brilliantly for many advertisers who get a return over many months for their money, and also for householders who value it so much they are happy to buy a copy if they do not live within the free distribution area.
Now Home Handbook is offering low-cost franchises to experienced journalists who can replicate its high standards - the secret of its success.
What we offer
- • Prospect of a good income – at least £30,000 P/A after two years, rising with subsequent years. In wealthier areas, those figures will be higher
- • Templates, libraries and spreadsheets for doing Home Handbook
- • Operating manual for setting up your own business
- • Your own section on the website
- • Accountancy and book-keeping help
- • Cheap, high-quality printer
- • Training and support setting up in business
What you need
- • Solid journalistic experience, preferably with sub-editing skills. May suit reporter in collaboration with production journalist
- • Outgoing personality who is willing to learn how to sell, though the handbook tends to sell itself when people see it
- • Tenacity and determination to succeed
- • Willingness to work hard in the early years
- • Knowledge of Adobe In Design and Photoshop
- • Decent computer/printer/camera
- • Enough capital to live off for four to five months after a low franchise fee
What you can expect
- • Hard but interesting work using primarily journalistic skills
- • Rewarding relationships with appreciative clients who repeat issue after issue
- • An income, as the business grows, which is better than most journalists earn in regional journalism - achievable despite the worst recession in living memory.
- • Flexible working, which fits in with childcare and other arrangements
- • Satisfaction of offering a useful service – and more positive feedback from the public and advertisers than you’ll ever have received in journalism.
Home Handbook is well aware of the anxieties surrounding redundancy. Interested journalists can be confident that we are in business to make a living, not a killing, and that we approach the business of selling franchises with honesty and transparency. We are driven - like many journalists- by the creation of a good product rather than by making money itself.
A franchise with us will have you up and running within weeks, avoiding the pitfalls and expense of starting up in business. Have a look round the website, download this pdf and contact us if you wish to learn more. We also welcome enquiries from abroad.