Valuable opiions

["Julie A. Zagorski" <juliez -at- NIGHTOWL -dot- NET>]

 Hello!
 I have been lurking out here in cyberspace for a few weeks noting all of the
topics here on this thread.  You all seem to be very knowledagable so I
thought it was time I introduced myself and asked for your help...

I'm Julie Zagorski, a Contract Technical Writer working out of my home under
my business name "Creative Computing" here in DeSoto, MO.  My business has
been going on for almost a year and I'm a little dissappointed to say that
while barely keeping my head afloat with DTP jobs, I can't seem to concrete a
contract with some of the programming corps. locally here.  Whenever I think a
contract is going to sign, their contract for whomever they are writing
softeware for bombs...

Thus comes my request for your help:
 Please send some advice for locking down contracts, or maybe point me
somewhere for information on more aggressive marketing strategies?  I have a 2
year old daughter that I am fortunate enough to be able to stay home with, so
I have been mostly marketing myself locally because of the lack of capable or
trustworthy babysitters here.

I am also looking for a software package to write my homepage with as well as
something that allows expansion into the on-line help area.

Thank you all in advance for your suggestions! :)

Juliez -at- nightowl -dot- net