Award-winning author Clare Mulley won the hearts of the nation with her debut biography of Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb. It was awarded the Daily Mail Biographers Club prize and was described as a ‘truly brilliant book’ by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. But in an exclusive article with Motivating Mum, the mum-of-three reveals the difficulties she faced juggling life as a writer and a parent.

Motherhood - in all its wonderful complexities - seems to be the story of my life. When I had my first child I decided I wanted to work part-time from home, so I left my job as a fundraiser at the charity Save the Children and started researching the life of the charity’s founder, the wonderfully named Eglantyne Jebb. The plan was to quickly produce a best-selling biography. I had no idea what I was taking on. 

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Talk about the mother of great ideas...

Eight of Britain's most respected female entrepreneurs have thrown their weight behind a groundbreaking new initiative that supports mums in business.

Rachel Elnaugh, Sally Preston, Laura Tenison, Antonia Chitty, Wendy Shand, Leila Wilcox, Mel McGee and Rachel Jones are backing Mentoring Mum, a unique mentoring scheme for self-employed women.

They will draw on their extensive experience to offer help and guidance about all aspects of business - from law and tax to marketing and public relations.

In the three years I have been running Motivating Mum, I have come across so many mums with many great ideas, be they product or service.  They say 'necessity is the mother of all invention' and it seems they were right on many fronts; having babies seems to highlight areas lacking in just the right product or service and it is the mother doing the inventing.

I asked Cally to contribute this article as I know that although you have the ideas and the passion, the know-how is an area that many of you could use a little help and who better than the founder of She's Ingenious herself?  Cheers!  Alli 

An article by Cally Robson, personal business coach and Founder of She's Ingenious! www.ShesIngenious.org

While grant funding gets harder to win, organized awards and showcases are on the up. Here are some pointers to help you find the pick of the bunch for your idea and stay on top of deadlines.

Article by Sarah Steel, Managing Director, The Old Station Nursery Ltd

After 7 years of running my children’s nursery company, I took the plunge last year and published my first book. Over the years I have enjoyed writing a newsletter for parents at the various nurseries and have often included a recipe we have made at nursery, or details of an activity that we have carried out that the children have particularly enjoyed. We produced an in-house booklet of nursery songs for parents, who couldn’t remember, or didn’t know all the words to some songs and wanted to be able to join in with their child.

So, slowly the idea formed that it would be really nice to produce a book which brought together lots of these ideas and activities and which parents, grandparents and carers could use to give them some inspiration when they were at home with an energetic child.

Identifying the pros and cons of drop-shipping – what is it and is it the right business model for you?

An article by Mindy Emsley, Founder and Managing Director of www.merababy.co.uk

According to Wikipedia “Drop-shipping is a supply chain management technique in which the retailer does not keep goods in stock, but instead transfers customer orders and shipment details to either the manufacturer or a wholesaler, who then ships the goods directly to the customer. As in all retail businesses, the retailers make their profit on the difference between the wholesale and retail price”.

Put simply, it means you advertise and sell Product X on your site for a retail price of Y££. When the customer buys Product X, they pay you the Y££ advertised. You then place an identical order with the supplier of Product X, who charges you a Wholesale (drop-ship) price of Z££. You give the supplier the customer’s details and the supplier packs and ships Product X directly to your customer.   The customer receives their goods, the supplier receives the wholesale (drop-ship) price for their product and as with all retail, you have made your profit on the difference between the price you paid the supplier and the price the customer paid you.

Four, three, two, one!! The room erupts into cheers and, caught up in the excitement, you decide to stop smoking, go to the gym, stop spending, insert your own New Years resolution here...

Sound familiar? The next part probably does too. The part where, within a week your determination has been whittled away and you're indulging in cake, smoking a pack a day, shopping up a storm, insert your own personal demon here.

Guilt-free 'me time'. It ranks right up there with non fattening ice cream and a man that puts the toilet seat down, ideal but impossible in the real world. But is it really? Some things are out of our control, like getting hubby to drop the lid, but as fantastic as it sounds guilt-free 'me time' can be yours. Read on for tips on how you can take a little time back for you.

You've just given birth and come home with your new baby. You're getting up in the night, you're sterilising and washing, you're feeding and bathing and you're getting used to a new and very different life. So, what do you do? You start a business!

Growing up, Christmas was a magical time, great feasts of turkey and pudding, presents spilling out from under the tree and tinsel and lights sparkling through the lounge window. You never questioned how it all came together, you just ate, drank and played until you went to bed and it was time to look forward to Christmas next year.

I have never been fussed about having kids. I have never clucked over my friends' babies, chased kids at weddings or cooed over infants in strollers. I am what you call non-maternal, and I've never been bothered by it...until I became pregnant.

I had finally made it through the 9th month. I was ready to reduce my girth, deflate my ankles and stop dressing in clothes with stretchy panels. Most of all, I was ready to meet Amelie. There was only one catch; my baby was nowhere to be seen.