About Us

e-Cottage [e = electronic) was launched in October 1995 as a Desktop Publishing Service. Our portfolio has grown since and now comprises editorial services, business solutions and promotional marketing to clients worldwide. The company is well positioned to adapt to the dynamic changes in market conditions due to its core competencies in areas of writing, commerce and publishing. Editorial Services include creative writing, editing and research; business writing, ghost writing; web design and editorial content; e-zines; magazine articles; newsletters; product and press releases; writing business proposals and presentations; speeches; and script writing. Business solutions include business and marketing plans; writing training manuals; product development, advertising, and e-commerce development. Promotional Marketing comprises direct-mail campaigns, promotional clothing, promotional items, corporate gifts; printed literature (brochures, post cards, posters); and multimedia advertising.

How we got our name
The book The Third Wave by Alvin Toffler played a decisive role in the founding of the company. An extract from the book that most impressed: "A powerful tide is surging across much of the world today, creating a new, often bizarre, environment in which to work, play, marry, raise children, or retire. In this bewildering context, businessmen swim against highly erratic economic currents, politicians see their ratings bob wildly up and down; universities, hospitals, and other institutions battle desperately against inflation. Value systems splinter and crash, while the lifeboats of family, church, and state are hurled madly about." There is a section about the Electronic Cottage. "Hidden inside our advance to a new production system is a potential for social change so breathtaking in scope that few among us have been willing to face its meaning. For we are about to revolutionize our homes as well." Toffler describes that three hundred years ago only a madman would have dreamed that the time would come when the masses of peasants working in the fields, would crowd into urban factories to earn their daily bread. 

"Today it takes an act of courage to suggest that our biggest factories and office towers may, within our lifetimes, stand half-empty, reduced to use as ghostly warehouses or converted into living space." Yet this is precisely what Information Technology makes possible - a return to cottage industry on a new, higher, electronic basis, and with it a new emphasis on the home as the centre of society. Already many companies are letting their employees work from home, or outsourcing work to freelance home entrepreneurs. An appreciable amount of work is already being done at home by a burgeoning pool of specialized consultants in diverse industries, including:

• Art Dealers
• Architects
• Publishers
• Graphic Designers
• Dental Surgeons
• Psychologists
• Investment Counselors
• Insurance Agents
• Lawyers
• Bookkeepers
• Academic Researchers
• Writers/Editors/Researchers
• Business Practitioners

The South African Writers' Network (SAWN) was launched in 2000 and serves as a platform for both established and aspirant writers.