How do you actually turn a million-dollar idea into a million dollars? From scribble-on-the-napkin to product-on-the market, The Independent Inventor's Handbook explains everything a potential inventor needs to know and the tools he or she needs to use to take a raw concept and turn it into reality.

Written by Louis J. Foreman, creator of the PBS series Everyday Edisons and a holder of multiple patents, together with patent attorney Jill Gilbert Welytok, here's a book that speaks directly to the inventive American—the entrepreneur, the tinkerer, the dreamer, the basement scientist, the stay-at-home mom who figures out how to do it better. (over one million of them file patents each year.) Here is everything a future inventor needs: Understanding the difference between a good idea and a marketable idea. Why investing too much money at the outset can sink you. The downside of design patents, and how best to file an application for a utility patent. Surveys, online test runs, and other strategies for market research on a tight budget. Plus the effective pitch (hint: never say your target audience is "everyone"), questions to ask a prospective manufacturer, 14 licensing land mines to avoid, "looks-like" versus "works-like" prototypes, Ten Things Not to Tell a Venture Capitalist, and how to protect your invention once it's on the market. Appendices include a glossary of legal, manufacturing, and marketing terms, a sample nondisclosure agreement, and a patent application, deconstructed.

In Exotic Betting, the horseplayer takes a colorful wagering ride by learning to maximize profits by betting on a multitude of exotic wagers including the daily double, exacta, trifecta, quinella, superfecta, pick 3, 4, and 6.

A NOTE FROM DELIA BLANCHARD

So many things have been happening here at our family's mansion, I can't go home to Hawaii: I've met my long-lost grandparents; learned the woman shot to death in the library was my aunt, not my mother; and been threatened by a blackmailing loan shark! And Shaun Murphy is back in my life--he was hired to repair the damage after the shooting. He's been rather distant with me, but I think, with God's help, I can convince him to help me track down my missing mother--and perhaps give our love another chance, too.

Strategic Planning for Success offers you a pragmatic guide to the design and development of practical and pragmatic strategic thinking and organizational alignment that will yield high-impact results and measurably add value to you, your organization, your clients, and society. Unlike other books on the topic, this volume goes beyond simply detailing the tools and techniques of design and development by clearly showing how to align what you do with what will be most valuable to all stakeholders. Using this unique approach will yield extraordinary results adding measurable value that flows from individual performance accomplishment to organizational and societal contributions.

* Presents the actual jobs and earnings of college graduates in 60 majors!
* The ONLY book based on a U.S. Census Bureau study of 150,000 college graduates.

This terrific handbook offers the most accurate and helpful information available for making decisions on a college major—or what to do with a degree you have. Readers learn which majors are the best investment, the job and salary prospects for specific majors, the employment growth rates for particular majors, and how many graduates go on to additional education.

The new second edition includes substantial new information, including the important steps to take before college to ensure future career success, the rising earnings premiums related to a college education, and the misinformation that exists about college costs and the belief that the "sticker price" of college is the final price. Each chapter describes the major and the courses it requires; discusses jobs that graduates actually obtain; and gives information on employers, tasks, and salaries.

Does technology really add value? If so, when? What's the best way to quantify and maximize technology ROI? The IT Payoff gives you powerful new tools for answering critical technology investment questions. Discover where technology can add the greatest value; when to adopt new technologies; how to coordinate process and technology change, and more. Includes new metrics, hands-on templates, and a complete action plan for making smarter funding decisions!

One of the 5 Best Technology Books as cited by About.com

Eddie may be seventy-seven years old, but he's still a tough guy, a former heist man who packs a pistol in his pocket. But Eddie's no killer. Then a young woman in a bar makes him an offer he can't refuse.

This hard-boiled short story, which originally appeared in the anthology "Damn Near Dead," is veteran author Steve Brewer at his best.

"Like Elmore Leonard, the writer whose work his most resembles, Brewer writes with a light and deft touch, bringing style and wit to the crime genre." --David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

Eddie may be seventy-seven years old, but he's still a tough guy, a former heist man who packs a pistol in his pocket. But Eddie's no killer. Then a young woman in a bar makes him an offer he can't refuse.

This hard-boiled short story, which originally appeared in the anthology "Damn Near Dead," is veteran author Steve Brewer at his best.

"Like Elmore Leonard, the writer whose work his most resembles, Brewer writes with a light and deft touch, bringing style and wit to the crime genre." --David Montgomery, Chicago Sun-Times

Tracking a woman who marries rich men and then disappears with their money lands Longarm in hot water with a vengeful undertaker.