Priya is a housewife with a three year old son. Her husband is a doctor. Generally doctors spend most of their time in clinics and hospitals. Priya’s husband is no exception. So, she has got a lot of free time and she uses her free time to earn more than Rs.20,000/- a month by working from home.

“Many people find it difficult to believe that a housewife can actually make money working from home,” I said to her. “That’s understandable. I too had not believed it before I started making money,” said Priya with a smile.

“What is the nature of your business?” I asked her. “I do typesetting for medical magazines that are published from the United Kingdom,” Priya replied.

“How did you get into this service business?” I asked her. “One of my friends is working in a big typesetting company. Her company receives content for professional magazines and trade journals for typesetting by email from overseas publishers, the employees produce magazines using the content, and send the magazines in Adobe Acrobat PDF format to the publishers. The company earns in millions every month with the help of hundreds of low paid employees. Each employee or a group of employees actually do the entire work. Most of these employees are not professionals and they are able to do the work after getting training from the company for a few weeks. These facts made me realize that if I could get such assignments from 2 or 3 publishers, I would be able to work from home and earn well,” said Priya.

“That was resourceful thinking. What did you do next?” I said to her. “I did not know anything about typesetting even though I knew how to use Microsoft Word and other common software programs. So, I learnt how to use Adobe PageMaker, Adobe InDesign and Quark Xpress. Most publishing houses use these programs for typesetting and layout. I became an expert in these programs in a matter of three months because I spent almost twelve hours a day in learning how to use them,” she said.

“That is real hard work. How did you get orders?” I asked her. “My husband used to receive dozens of medical journals. I asked him whether it would be possible for him to contact the publishers and market my services. He told me that there would be no solid reason for these Indian publishers to give the work to me. He suggested that it would be a good idea to contact overseas publishers,” said Priya.

“Your husband was right. In developed countries, the cost of labor is very high. They will happily outsource the work to India because they can save truckloads of money,” I said. Priya said, “My sister is working as a gynecologist in the United Kingdom. I sought her help in marketing my services. She spoke to a few small publishers and one of them agreed to give some work to me on trial basis. The publisher sent copies of the old issues and content for the new issue. I worked hard and my work made the publisher happy. Then they started to give me work regularly.”

“On what basis do you work for them?” I asked her. “The Publisher pays me on project basis. Depending on the complexity of the typesetting work, they set the fees for each issue of the magazine. My average earnings are $8 an hour and I get work for 70 hours a month. I get the work regularly without any ongoing marketing efforts,” replied Priya.

“That is wonderful. Do you have plans for expansion?” I asked her. “My son will start going to school from this June. So, I am planning to expand my activities from June to increase my income. I have plans to buy two new computers, hire two or three women, train them well and develop my business,” said Priya.

“What is your advice to housewives that want to take up similar self-employment projects?” I asked her. “First, they must acquire the required skills and develop confidence that they can render professional services. Then they must market their services professionally through their friends and relatives that are working in developed countries. Getting the first order is the most difficult thing. Things will move smoothly and swiftly if these friends and relatives are doctors, lawyers, educators or professionals. Every aspirant must realize that working from home as a self-employed person is more difficult and challenging than working from an office as an employee,” she said.

I replied, “I hope your words inspire hundreds of readers and make them prosperous.”