Publishing Team Writes the Book(s) on Success

When Jerry Jinnett and Linda Pinson were writing their first book, “Anatomy of a Business Plan,” in 1985, they made a conscious decision to leave Jinnett’s middle name off the cover.

“I normally go by Jerry Ann,” Jinnett said. They were afraid that a business book written by two women would not be taken seriously.”

In fact, people who read the name Jerry often assumed Jinnett is a man. And Pinson and Jinnett, owners of a Tustin-based publishing company, think that opened some doors for them in the beginning.

That was only six years ago. It is a measure of how much attitudes have changed that the two are about to publish a collection of profiles about successful female entrepreneurs. It is their sixth book, and they hope that it can become their first bestseller.

“If I were starting again now, I might put both names on,” Jinnett said. “It’s easier than it was six years ago.” For consistency, however, she will still forgo her middle name.

The book, “The Woman Entrepreneur,” is due out in January. In it, more than 35 women--including four from Orange County--tell in their own words how they succeeded in business. Their companies have all been operating for more than five years and many are grossing several million dollars a year.

One woman built and manages a lumber mill in Yuba City, near Sacramento. Another builds heliports. A third began a typing and shorthand service in her kitchen and that business has mushroomed into the Alaska Business College in Anchorage.

Pinson and Jinnette said they did not have a feminist motive in compiling these stories. Rather, they chose a topic that they think will generate sales.

They pin their hopes, in part, on the sheer numbers: Women are starting businesses five times faster than men and succeed 75% of the time compared to a national failure rate of eight businesses in 10, according to the National Assn. of Women Business Owners in Washington.

By the year 2000, half of all small businesses are expected to be owned by women, according to the federal Small Business Administration.

By comparison, women owned 4.3 million, or 26.6%, of all businesses in the country in 1987, according to census figures.

Pinson and Jinnett also discovered that few books have been written about women entrepreneurs.

“A book like this is timely,” Jinnett said. “Women have now been out in the work force long enough to have learned about a particular type of business and have developed the skills that allow them to start their own businesses.”

The author-publishers did not include their own success story in the book, but they could have.

Their publishing house grew out of a class they began teaching jointly in 1985 at Irvine Valley and Orange Coast colleges called “Out of Your Mind . . . and Into the Marketplace,” about starting a business. The loose-leaf manual for that class was their first publishing project. Other classes, and more manuals, followed, but this time as books: “The Home-Based Entrepreneur,” “Recordkeeping: The Secret to Growth & Profit,” “Marketing: Researching and Reaching Your Target Market.”

They sell the books through their community college classes, at trade conventions and through business book directories.

They said the company became profitable after its third year. They sold about 30,000 books last year and were recently asked to rewrite “Anatomy of a Business Plan” to replace the federal SBA’s official guide, “How to Write a Business Plan.”

Because the publishing company is privately held, Pinson and Jinnett declined to release financial figures on earnings or revenue.

“Their business is a success,” said Jan Nathan, executive director of the Publishers’ Marketing Assn., a trade association based in Redondo Beach. “They’ve been around for six years, their (early) books are still in print, and they are putting out one or two new books each year.”

Also, Nathan added, “they have what a lot of smaller presses would give their right arm for. They have a built-in marketplace in their classes.”

Pinson and Jinnett have been friends for 34 years. They went to high schools, 72 miles apart, in Winnemucca and Lovelock, Nev., but met in Reno at a youth convention in 1957. Jinnett became a registered nurse and Pinson, a schoolteacher. They kept in touch over the years as they each married, raised children and started home-based businesses: Jinnett made stained glass for homes and Pinson repaired antique clocks and music boxes, a business her husband continues to run from their Tustin residence.

Their families moved around quite a bit, and the two never lived near each other until they found themselves in Orange County in 1985. Once together, the two small-business owners decided to teach a class on the subject of entrepreneurship. Jinnett, in Fullerton until recently, now lives in Camarillo and works from her home there.

“The reason we still get along is we have a definite separation of duties,” said Pinson, noting that business partnerships have ruined many friendships. She handles the finances and graphics; Jinnette does the marketing.

The friends even agree on the worst business decision they ever made: the name they selected for the publishing company. It’s the same as the first class they taught, “Out of Your Mind . . . and Into the Marketplace.”

“Our husbands said we were out of our minds to be starting something new, so the name had a double meaning,” Pinson said.