EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS AN ANGEL: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Business Grow

While it's not hard to understand the concept of an entrepreneur, too small to attract the attention of venture capitalists, seeking financing from private individuals after his or her own resources have been exhausted, this disorganized manual does not clearly convey how to do it. For example, only near the end do the authors (founders of a Washington, D.C, investment club called the Diners Club) suggest that potential investors should be told from day one how they will receive a return on their investment. While the authors cover such basics as finding the right angel, forming relationships with investors and building a business plan, and they provide checklists of materials for wooing angels as well as typical angel exit strategies, their strategies aren't vividly illustrated with examples or coherently presented. Entrepreneurs seeking capital, and would-be angels themselves, would be better off reading Winning Angels, by David Amis and Howard Stevenson. (Sept.)

Forecast:Entrepreneurship doesn't look as attractive as it did a year ago. Still, advance praise from a range of notables (from the former president of MCI to the editor-in-chief of iVillage.com), along with author interviews in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., may attract some media interest in this flawed effort.