New Publishers Serve At-Home Workers

Peter Anderson knows it’s just a matter of time before the next interruption.

The phone rings. UPS makes a delivery. His 10-year-old son bursts in looking for a snack.

One of an estimated 30 million Americans working at home, Anderson has grown accustomed to the many stops and starts in his day.

“It’s just part of working at home. You don’t have the inane meetings to go to, but you do have other interruptions,” said Anderson, who recently decided to put his work-at-home experience into a free monthly newspaper for homebound workers in Connecticut.

A growing number of stay-at-home workers nationwide has spawned a cottage industry of its own, with magazines, newspapers and newsletters designed to help make home work easier and more productive.

Barbara Brabec, who publishes the National Home Business Report in Naperville, Ill., estimates there are at least 50 small publications that target the at-home market.

Brabec, who also authored “Homemade Money,” a how-to guide for at-home workers, says working at home has gained new respectability over the last five years. Many executives laid off during the recession have decided to start over with careers at home, and new technology has boosted their professional image, she said.

“People used to be afraid to say they worked at home because you were made to feel like you didn’t really work, but now that stigma is gone,” Brabec said.

Anderson, 44, began working from his Ridgefield home about two years ago, after he lost his job as vice president of advertising for Gannett Suburban Newspapers in a corporate reorganization.

He refurbished an office above his garage and started MallWorks Inc., a business that publishes advertising catalogues and brochures for shopping malls.

Anderson said the Connecticut Home Office newspaper idea came to him as he struggled with everything from getting credit to doing taxes. “I sat down and said, ‘How do other people do this?’ . . . I decided there was probably a niche for something like this.”

Launched in September, the publication offers tips like how to buy the right computer, how to set up an office budget and how to keep postage costs down. It also contains a calendar of business seminars and meetings.