Here’s a great list of ten tips for starting and running a small business that also apply to freelance creators. Remember, freelancers are small business people. No matter how iconoclastic you are in your art, it doesn’t hurt to exercise some discipline when it comes to your studio.

At the top of the list, is Set Work hours and Stick to Them. I used to be a lot more disciplined about time management myself. Nowadays, I’ve been working 6 hours one day, and 14 hours the next. Not so good. I pulled out all of my time management training tapes and motivational tapes, and have been a lot more disciplined since January. But last year was a very disruptive one and I eroded my time management and personal discipline skills. So, it’s back to boot camp for me!

A rule I used to break all the time: Even when you really need the money, don’t take just any assignment. While I thoroughly reject the psuedo-mystical explanation provided in the article that “…the universe will take cues from your behavior and provide for you accordingly”, the Occam’s Razor explanation is simply that taking any old job for a buck is depressing, demoralizing, and likely to lead to more bad jobs simply because you won’t do your best work, and the best clients won’t see the work of which you are capable. If people only see second-rate work from you, then you will get second-rate jobs.

The longer you can keep your expenses low, you will be able to afford to take jobs that inspire you until you are on your feet and self supporting. Moving out on your own or getting a nice studio is great, but hold off on acquiring the trappings of success as long as you can. Keep your surroundings modest and try to only take work that allows you to do your best.

This is a REALLY important one: Communicate with clients to keep them happy, even when you mess up. When you are running behind schedule, or overbooked, or your cat died, it’s important to let your clients know if you are going to screw the pooch. They need to know where the project stands, so they can make other arrangements. Editors aren’t ogres. Many of them can squeeze a few extra days (or even weeks) out of a deadline, if you really need it.

What they can’t stand is the freelancer who simply drops out of sight, or, worse yet, the freelancer who treats them as if they are some kind of confession booth. Your editor is not your friend, they are not a psychiatrist. Don’t share every problem and setback. Just let them know you need more time.

If you are too open with your personal problems, the editor will begin to see YOU as the problem. Don’t run to your editor with every little thing: your annoying neighbor, the flu, the car had a flat, etc. These are things that happen in the normal course of everyone’s life, but when that is ALL the editor ever hears from you, they will eventually hear your name and think, “What is up with that loser, now?”

I used to be a lot more chatty about minor personal problems with my editors (and even online) but people have long memories, and they often remember only the bad stuff.

For example, sometime in 1994 or so, I had an accident and got chemical burns in my eyes. I am blind as a bat and picked up swimmers ear medication thinking it was my contact lens drops. The problem cleared up in about three months and there was no lasting damage. However, last year, an editor with whom I have never worked inquired about it, wondering if a twelve-year-old injury might impede my ability to get a job done! I had almost forgotten about it, but 12 years later, that editor had not.

And last year when I postponed a meeting with an editor by one day so I could get over a migraine, the editor’s first question was “Do you get those a lot?” Well, actually, no, but an editor is going to want to know if you have a lot of health problems or personal problems that will make meeting deadlines difficult.

Don’t tell your editor anything about yourself they don’t really need to know. If it’s not relevant to the job, it probably isn’t any of their business.

Editors can be great people, they may even be friends, but in the end, they are talking to you on company time on company matters. Behave accordingly.

Reposted and updated from the old blog. Hope it’s of use.

c

Reposted from the old blog. I double checked most of these links, and ditched a few, but I may have missed some. Hope they are of use.

My Money has numerous articles, downloadable PDF’s, website links, and other resources, all providing you with FREE access to a huge database of important information for saving and investing, buying a home, saving for your kids, retirement, starting and running a small business, and just about anything else you can think of.

There’s also a FREE My Money Tool Kit you can get that will provide you with publications and pamphlets on investing, saving and protecting your money. You can click the link to fill out the form, or just call this toll free number: 1 (888) Mymoney. That’s 1 (888) 696-6639, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. eastern time (except Federal holidays).

Here’s a look at the articles and links available under the heading “Starting A Small Business”. All of these links should work directly from this site, but don’t forget to check out the other valuable resources at My Money. Some of these links include online classes, downloadable instruction, and podcasts. Please take advantage of these resources! Your tax dollars paid for them and they belong to YOU.

• Choosing a Retirement Solution for Your Small Business It helps small business owners understand the various retirement savings vehicles available to them and encourages them to start a plan for themselves and their employees.
• 401(k) Plans for Small Business – It highlights a 401(k) plan’s advantages, some of the options and responsibilities of an employer in setting up and operating a 401(k), and the different types of 401(k) plans.
• Applying for a Loan
• Business Plan Basics
• Checklist for Starting a Business
• Crossing the Bridge to Self-Employment A Federal Microenterprise Resource Guide
• Financing Basics
• Guide for Retirement Plan Management for Small Business SBA’s interactive website to help small business owners understand roles, responsibilities and resources for retirement plans. Business owners who seek out information about retirement plans help protect themselves from risk. The information on this site can help small business owners understand roles, responsibilities and resources for retirement plans.
• Information and Resources for Employers Instructions and forms that will make the life of an employer easier.
• Information for the Self Employed Information that will help the self-employed run his/her own business.
• Is Entrepreneurship for You?
• Marketing Basics
• Multilevel Marketing Plans Explains how MLMs work to sell goods or services through distributors. Cautions consumers to watch out for “pyramiding”- the illegal practice of paying commissions for recruiting distributors.
• SBA Financing Programs
• Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource
• Small Business Startup Guide
• Training How to Start a Small Business
• Writing the Business Plan

Over at MSN.com, check out these nifty, easy to use money calculators that can help you suss out your debt ratio.

Then look at the links on the left of the same page and try the savings calculator, and the spending quiz.

My favorite? The Time Valuator. What is your time actually worth in dollars and cents? Better yet, how much are you REALLY making as an artist? How much does your leisure time cost you? And would it be better to hire help? Are you wasting your more valuable earning time doing chores you can pay someone else to do for you for less than you would be earning in that time yourself?

Since I basically work 1 1/2 -2 times the normal work hours a week, I earn a lot more money than the average person, but in terms of hourly rate, the earnings are actually quite modest. Essentially, I am making money because I am producing the equivalent of two people. But in pure cash, I could earn this kind of money working almost any middle class job (while working fewer hours). After years as an artist, in pure money terms, I would be better off working a government job.

I gave myself a thrill by calculating my hourly earnings from my bad, sad artist days: roughly $1 per hour.

While a government job will feed you better than art will, the perks of not working a government job are obvious: no commute, low daily stress, and doing art you love.

Even though I work far longer hours than most, I can work in my comfortable home and putter in the garden when I need a break. I am not driving two hours a day five days a week. In the ten hours most people spend commuting, I can be earning income drawing.

When I was living in the city, I eventually made enough money to hire part time help. I hired a personal organizer service, and a maid service. This seems like an extravagance, but it wasn’t. The time I was spending sorting papers and scrubbing the bathtub was time I wasn’t drawing. The maid service and organizer got chores done in less time than I did. So, I made more money by hiring help than I did by doing the same tasks myself.

Obviously, I’d also make more money if I didn’t putter in the garden, but I consider that both leisure and exercise time. And I don’t do most household chores, so my time is free to draw and paint. And blog.

My debt ratio wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be.

c

PS: Winter storms have made communication problematic. If you have had trouble contacting me, please try again. The power went out while I was on the computer and blew the mail program. It had to be reinstalled.

On the whole, I avoid picking on celebrities, because they are cheap targets and no one can possibly get paid enough to put up with the fame crap.

That said, there’s Michael Jackson.

I thought you’d enjoy seeing this link to the auction of his worldly goods, including this memorable work which proves that money can’t buy good taste:

I admire the technical proficiency of the painting, but WHO THE HELL BUYS SOMETHING LIKE THIS!?!?!

And you know he paid through the nose for it, so to speak.

My guess is he paid at least $50,000 to a portrait painter for it, so with an auction estimate of $8,000, no bargain there.

Then again, Jackson was notorious for not paying clients. Science fiction artist Michael Whelan said in interviews that he had a devil of a time getting Jackson’s people to pay up on the big bill for the art to a cover painting Whelan had created for one of Jackson’s albums. I’d love to link, but the interview is in an old fanzine: Interzone, I believe.

Jackson’s money people declared that Whelan should be flattered to do art for Jackson, and that the publicity would be good for Whelan’s career. Why should he expect to get paid?

Whelan did eventually collect on the debt.

Great pics of Jackson’s goodies at that article. I know someone who would love that Superman figure.

Here’s another article about lifestyles of the rich and stupid, saved from the old message board, “Mark Twain’s Quest for Bling”:

America’s most beloved writer, the man who brought us Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, spent most of his life on a wild quest for big bucks, investing in schemes, and oddball inventions. While writing satires that sneered at the Gilded Age uber rich, Mark Twain gave every indication that he would very much like to be one of them, and his harebrained plots usually left him broke. (EDIT: The original link to the quotes here have disappeared, but I’ve found another great article to replace it. Enjoy!)

“While Clemens expressed satisfaction with his writing and tended to crack himself up with his own humor, he measured his success by his personal production and income,” Krass writes…

“It would be fair to say that he probably would not have necessarily decided to earn his living as a writer unless he had failed as a silver miner,” Fishkin said, but “he learned things from all of his experiences and adventures that came in handy when he wrote.”

Perhaps the uncertain nature of the writer’s life helps to exacerbate this problem. Or maybe Mark Twain was just a little too much Tom Sawyer.

Get-rich-quick delusional behavior gets even worse if one actually has had some measure of success in one’s career. Some seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to chase down that magic formula that will repeat that success. The minute money comes in, they blow it. They live beyond their means, trying to impress their friends with how successful they are.

When income was sparse, one acquaintance (not in comics) lied his way into getting a wholesaler account with a manufacturing company, and then began selling the goods online for tidy profits. The requirement was that the account go to retailers with storefronts: he had no store, he was simply reselling on ebay.

This went well for a time, and he earned thousands of dollars in a matter of months, every single penny of which he blew in 120 days by indulging in high living. Dining out alone accounted for $6,000 of expenditures. Someone who earns $1,000 a month as a writer has no business spending $6,000 on food.

To make matters worse, he went on to lose a small fortune on those goods he was selling, because by then everyone had gotten into the online sales scheme he was running and suddenly he had huge competition. He was stuck with loads of inventory, much of which he had to sell at a loss.

This was just one in a series of bad moves. Financial planning? Retirement accounts? Mutual funds? Forget it. Some people are entitled to be rich. Smart people shouldn’t have to work hard!

What happened to the guy? We dunno. This was years ago, and while he generously shared his cautionary tale for my blog, he seems to have disappeared off the radar since.

This sense of entitlement is usually accompanied by utter contempt for people who actually do have money as well as an inordinate fondness of celebrity proximity. Duck and run when these people get anywhere near an actor. They whip out their cameras with such speed you can hear a sonic boom.

c

PS: This may or may not be related: Steve Geppi, Diamond Comic Distributor boss, experiencing financial woes, including unpaid back rent on his pop culture museum.

This article was originally written several years ago on the old blog, and has been moved here complete with most of the comments. The material is still timely!

Following up on our jolly article about Mark Twain’s get rich quick schemes, the sad truth is there is no surer way to get poor quickly and permanently than by becoming a writer.

While a very small percentage of writers rake in the cash, the low income echelons increase as the internet and book pirating cut into writer’s profits. According to this survey, the average writer in Britain makes no more than 4,000 pounds per year (about $6,000)! Of course, many of them continue to believe they will break that exclusive club of top ten percent of income earning phenoms, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Jane”…is now on her fourth book, in her forties, with a devoted band of readers. They see her on stage at literary festivals, elegant and eloquent and just a little bohemian, and think: “There is a writer who’s made it.” They don’t know that the advances have dwindled down to £10,000 a time (from which the agent and taxman take their share; and for a book that usually takes about two years to write). They don’t see the bills threatening to make her sell her house.

Jane doesn’t want me to use her real name in case it upsets her publisher or fans. Neither does she want them to know that she works in the local Waitrose for cash, as well as teaching and tutoring.

“People come and see me all bright-eyed, dreaming of being a writer,” she said.

“They’ve got the idea that anyone can do it. That’s what people think: that it’s so easy. I wish! I tell them I’ve been training since I was seven.” Others do have talent. “They tell me it’s their calling. I say it will have to be. I don’t want to crush them, but the best advice if you want to eat is: ‘Do something else.’”

Copyright pirating, especially online, is a major problem for writers (and artists) whose work can be downloaded for free at any time. Writers are desperate to come up with ways to make the internet pay, but many consumers who use the internet are accustomed to getting their entertainment for free. They see no reason to buy a book or piece of art when they can have it from websites around the world.

A…crisis meeting (was) called by the ALCS at the British Library on Thursday, but some of the most distinguished names in British literature were there to discuss the plummeting income of authors and the copyright issues that threaten to make it worse. Some raged against Google’s plans to make whole books available online for free. The poet Wendy Cope lamented the ease with which you can download her own works and those of other poets for free.

“With every new technological development, our copyright becomes more precious,” said Maureen Duffy, writer and honorary president of the ALCS, “and yet seemingly less understood by those who want to use our work.”

As for artists, a professional’s income averages about $15,000 per annum, and some must now compete with websites offering high quality, downloadable images for sale, or cheap, hand painted knockoffs with no royalties paid to the artists, to say nothing of the large numbers of scanned comics now available. (more…)