I didn't know what to expect when I bought this book but I was pleasantly surprised! It offers so much great advice for dealing with a variety of life's situations. The advice is simple & easy to read. There are so many topics covered, I liked the section on personal finance the most. Although the parts dealing with family situations are very useful, direct and to the point, like tracing a family tree, dealing with problem neighbors, etc...I recommend this book. It a good home reference book.

What an amazing achievement. Antoniak takes life's most problematic tasks and turns them into easily followed step by step processes. From the monumental -- buying a home -- to the mundane -- shopping for a used car -- Lifemaps offers solutions. Buy this book and you won't need to fill up your shelves with lots of other how-to books. Since I bought it I've used it dozens of times...and I've bought copies for all my kids too.

If you've never owned a business and don't know the first thing about mail order, this book is for you. It is a very basic primer, written for people who have little money but want to start a mail order business. Most of the guidelines and suggestions target the small business venture, selling items for less than $10.00. The author uses the example of someone who imprints golf balls and sells them, presumably for a small price.

There are valid suggestions concerning all of the details you must consider when launching a business. These, however are best covered in a book which addresses items in detail. For example, a short section mentions the pros and cons of selecting various business entities, partnerships, corporations and the like. But the author is not an expert in law, nor in many of the other sections he ventures into, so the end result is a lot of information that is better covered in other sources.

The crux of the book, are twelve steps one should use to start a mail order venture. All are valid and useful. But they are only a few pages. My reservation begins in the financial section (since one of the books premises is that this business can be started for about 10k). In the financial section, all of the numbers are out of date and some are ridiculous. For example, software is listed as $100.00. That wouldn't buy a word processing program today. The author also continues the poor illustration of the golf ball printer and add these example costs to a sample financial plan.

Overall, if you're looking to break into the mail order business and have no experience at all, this book might help. Or it might not. In any case, the reader and author would have gained more from sticking to mail order only and leaving legal, and the rest to experts. I would have liked to see a section for example on how to save costs ( printing, set-up and graphics). Instead, I got advice on advertising my products on matchboxes. Sure, it's fine for some products. But, unless you're selling those golfballs this may not be the book for you.