in this product when reproduced for personal use.     For information on bulk purchases or corporate premium sales, please contact the Special Sales Department. For academic sales or textbook adoptions, ask for Academic Sales. Call 800-955- 4775 or write to Nolo.com, Inc., 950 Parker Street, Berkeley, CA 94710.     Dedication     This book is dedicated to the memory of my late grandmother, Elizabeth Eudora Woodall Darby, whose influence I acknowledged only recently. Acknowledgments     After more than a decade of working with various revisions and editions of this book, I am amazed at the uniform spirit of goodwill and cooperation given me by many people. Without that spirit, this book would not have seen the light of day or continued helping people. My first editor, Ralph "Jake" Warner, showed infinite patience in working with a first-time author. My second editor, Lisa Goldoftas, challenged every punctuation mark and sentence structure while gracefully deferring to my knowledge about the subject.     Also at Nolo: Steve Elias designed many of the helpful charts and made a number of editorial suggestions; Adam Stanhope educated me about computers; Mark Stuhr lent his expertise by fine tuning and updating computer-related material; Stephanie Harolde worked her word processing wonders on the manuscript; Terri Hearsh designed the book and lent her vast experience to enhance the quality of the book and financial forms; Eddie Warner gave helpful suggestions on online information; and many more helpful and professional folks at Nolo improved the book greatly.     A special thanks to a number of generous individuals, each of whom knows a great deal about starting and operating a small business. Peg Moran, author of Invest in Yourself: A Womans Guide to Starting Her Own Business and Surviving the First Two Years: A Womans Guide to Running Her Business Successfully, made several suggestions that helped the book greatly and has been a good and support friend from the first. Terri Hearsh, a former Vice President for Bank of America, made a number of suggestions from the bank officers point of view. Roger Pritchard, a Berkeley, California small business consultant who has counseled hundreds of small business owners, reminded me that small is often beautiful. Also, thanks to two people who took the time to read the book carefully and offer suggestions. Their input was extremely useful-but I am responsible for any information that is incorrect: Jason Wallach is a friend and a CPA in Santa Rosa; his input was very helpful. Harry Keller of the Santa Rosa SBA office was kind enough to explain several intricacies of that system to me.     Dan Peters took time from starting his new manufacturing business to read the manuscript and offer valuable suggestions. Sharyn Simmons kindly allowed me to use her business concept as an example of a service business. Larry Healy let me modify his business plan as an example of a manufacturing business. Hugh Codding and Leroy Knibb of Codding Investments shared details of retail operations.     Finally, I want to thank all my readers, clients and students who have shared their hopes, dreams and problems with me over the years. Many of their stories and suggestions appear here in disguised form. I hope you will profit from their experiences as I have.     Mike P. McKeever