How To Start A Cake Business From Home: How To Make Money from your Handmade Cakes, Cupcakes, Cake Pops and more! Paperback – February 5, 2013

This book is very helpful if anyone wants to start their own cake business. It gives you all the information you will need and the some.

Taught me some new things I hadn't been aware of - or perhaps thought of approaching from a certain angle since I under-estimate myself as a small home business... definitely use it as a guide book! I'd reccomend this book to all new/ small business folks in the dessert industry.

Some alternate titles for this book could have been: 1) Visualize yourself on Ritalin, 2) So many words, so little information, or 3) How to say yes to everything - unless you don't want to. Thankfully, I bought the Kindle edition which was less expensive. However, it was still too much money. If there was anything of value in this book, it was lost among all the pointless rambling.Visualize yourself on Ritalin:The first thing I will point out is that the editor of this book should be fired. If there wasn't an editor, then I would fire the author. This book reads like the internal dialogue of someone who was incredibly bored and quite fond of the sound of her own voice. It was incoherent and therefore incredibly difficult to follow. There were many typographical errors which made reading it even more difficult. By the end of the first chapter (which you can completely skip, by the way) I felt myself resisting the urge to request a prescription for Ritalin. The author asks you to "visualize" everything short of what underwear you will wear to work when you have this fabulous business. When I'm looking for information in a "How To" book, I'm looking for practical information. What tips/tricks/assistance can you offer the reader about practical things. The only "How To" I got from this author was how to waste your time daydreaming. Although, to be fair, I also learned how to waste my money.So many words, so little information:I didn't find anything in this book that I would consider potentially helpful information that I couldn't find pretty quickly in a Google search. A good "How To" book should offer something insightful and unique. This book doesn't. And some of the information is outdated, in spite of it's being "Updated for 2013." I also find it very amusing that the statement "No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher." appears within the book. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd be surprised if you can copyright information that is freely available to the public.How to say yes to everything - unless you don't want to:Since author contributed nothing to this book to add any value to the practicalities of getting a cake business started from home, my next thought was that the author must be contributing advice or experience. But I was sorely disappointed. The author did not offer a single perspective on any front. There was no first hand experience to guide you. There was no advice on how to deal with specific situations or advice on business strategies. The small amount of advice that she did pretend to give was immediately reversed by subsequent statements. It read very much like "You should do x. Unless you want to do y." This is not advice, and it's not helpful. To anyone. At least if you take a stand and offer advice you'll be helpful to someone - not everyone, but someone.Overall, this book was a waste of my money and my time - two things I'll never get back. It is my opinion that this author has a little knowledgeable about a lot of things, thanks to Google, but has no first hand experience - and certainly not an expert - in building a cake business.

love it

Good information

I've been thinking of setting up my own wedding cake company for some time now, but was slightly nervous about the transition from home baker to actually charging people and selling to members of the public , and this book has been a great help. Lots of excellent information on registering and working out of my home, and some invaluable advise on marketing and promoting my business - the author really seems to know how to reach customers and get the word out. I'm now buzzing with excitement and can't wait to get started. great book!

Our Daughter really likes the book.

In my review on the previous version of this book (which was unceremoniously yanked off Amazon.com, likely due to large sections of it having been plagiarized from free web sites), I said it was difficult to review the book on its merits. Now that it has been re-issued, I'll try.It's important to note that, as another reviewer said, sections of the book have been taken out, and replaced with other freely available material on the web.Ms. McNicol has mastered the art of using 1000 words when 10 will do. This book is full of rambling, flowery passages of little to no value. Example: "Call It Quits, or Push On Through? - Whatever challenges you are currently facing in your business, rest assured that for every problem there is a solution, and what you are currently going through has been experienced by thousands of entrepreneurs, and cake bakers, before you. You will get through this. If you want to, that is." Is this a self-help book or a book on running a cake business?Is this the book for you? Do you need to be told to close your eyes for 5 minutes and visualize your cake business? Do you need to be told that you should have a professional looking web site with a gallery that's easy to navigate? I might add that the section on web sites actually includes screen prints from popular web sites like the Magnolia Bakery. Do you need to buy a book to show you pictures of bakery web sites? Given the history, I also question whether the Magnolia Bakery and other web sites were asked for permission before their web sites were used as content in this book.This book reflects zero first-hand knowledge of running a cake business. The author tells you to make a business plan, and then lists web sites that offer free business plan templates, like SCORE and the Small Business Administration. Wouldn't you expect a book on starting a cake business to actually contain a sample business plan for running a cake business, rather than simply pointing you at free, generic information already on the web?The author gives a list of every state's government web site, which is good for a few pages of content, in large font. Here they are: Alabama.gov. Alaska.gov. Arizona.gov. Arkansas.gov. Oh, I'm sure you can see where I'm headed with this. Hilariously, there is also a section on the importance of copyrights and trademarks, as well as every page of the book being stamped as "copyrighted material".The book is replete with typos and grammatical errors. The photo on the cover is a stock photo that anyone can purchase, rather than an example of the author's work (google "rainbow on a cake stand stock photo"). I will eat my hat if she has ever sold a cake.As the other reviewer said, better information than this is already out there for free, on cake discussion forums and Facebook groups, from actual professionals in the industry who generously donate their time and expertise to help others.I can't say it any better than The Bard: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

I love the book...gave great incite with tips and tricks....just wish i would have checked better since i"m Canadian....this issue if for the US so the rules are different,

Bought as a gift for a friend, they found it useful :)

It wasn't clear in the listings that there were 2 versions of this book and unfortunately I chose the USA version. Having said that, I had started to read it and found the text unhelpful as it was full of sweeping generalisations. When I went to check out the reviews on amazon I was amazed to find many of the other comments echoing my own findings. Disappointing.