by Judy Ryder, 1995, Peterson's/Pacesetter Books, $14.95, ISBN 1-56079-462-3

The author, Judy Ryder, is a successful inventor and businesswoman. She has launched a dozen of her own products and advised hundreds of clients on getting their inventions off the ground.

In addition to covering the basics (making prototypes, licensing, etc.) that many other books for inventors cover, she comes to grips with the problems of manufacturing overseas. When a product has a high labor content, you may be forced to deal with this despite your patriotic desire to manufacture in the U.S.A. She tells how to maintain quality control and how letters of credit are arranged.

How do you arrange for getting UPC barcodes for your product? She gives you the address and phone number for the people that assign these codes.

How do you price your product? How do you price your product when a distributor is needed? When should you go the direct mail route or the catalog route? Her answers are based on her actual experiences.

Obviously getting the orders are your number one objective, but how do you handle accounts that don't pay? She gives examples of actual collection letters.

The book also contains other material that many books fail to give you. Samples of a distributor agreement, sales representative agreement and sample press releases are included.

To her credit, she has seven pages covering the "big idea" swindlers that prey on inventors. She describes how she contacted the TV show "Inside Edition" which then exposed one of these scams by using a hidden camera.

For $14.95, this book is worth more than every penny.