In my house, we have a wire basket where all the mail goes. This practice was established when the children started wanting to bring in the mail, but would just drop it wherever they happened to be instead of putting it in a specific spot, which resulted in lost mail, late fees, occasionally credit collection agencies getting involved.....
In short, putting a wire basket just inside the door that ALL the mail gets put into until I have a chance to sort it has been a life saver for our credit ratings. (I've had people tell me that I should stop doing all my paper bills and go the paperless route, but since I live in a state where one of the primary jobs available has been, since Maine became a state, the lumbering and paper making industry, I see no reason at all to take the jobs away from the lumbermen whom I meet out in the woods every summer. I also prefer to have paper backup, as several companies over the years have tried to claim "no payment" when I've been able to go into my file cabinet and prove that we not only paid the bill, we did it with a check and the check was processed before the bill was due. (This hasn't happened in several years, but I'm a creature of habit, and despite the extra work, I'll continue to keep my file cabinets busy until I can no longer keep my own books.)
The down side of this "wire basket" system is that, particularly around the holidays, I don't always go through the mail like I should, so it will pile up - and sometimes, my husband opts to "help" by going through the basket for me. Unlike when our daughter was still in the house, he doesn't just put the bills in one stack and toss the junk mail. He feels the need to open every envelope and see how current it is. (He also doesn't understand the filing system upstairs, so if a bill was due last month and has been paid, he'll destroy it instead of sending it upstairs for me to file with the printed off "proof of payment".)
Now, if you go back to when this blog was started, even you will know that I started my own publishing company in October of 2013, when I had "paid" a friend with books for doing a cover for me that then got "fixed" by the publisher to the point that it looked cheap and less eye-catching than what I had "paid" for. Therefore, knowing there would be some costs involved in a business start up, I took a PayPal account that I had opened in my own name some time ago, did what I needed to do to make it my business account, and all the costs involved in the covers, the ISBN's and marketing things I've tried have all gone onto this one credit card.
Unfortunately, the things I've done to "boost sales" haven't panned out, so right now, the credit card is being paid out of my pocket, because the other two who are helping me to run Northern Bard Publications are doing so as a favor and aren't being paid for their services. Until the credit card balance is zero and we start making enough in sales to support my support staff, Northern Bard is being run about the same way as a non-profit.
My husband, who has known from Day One that I was doing my own publishing, but got that "blank stare" whenever I tried to talk to him about finances, suddenly realized when opening the bill from PayPal that there has been a fairly good sized amount spent on this business venture, but until it starts showing a profit, the small business loans I've applied for have been denied....
So either I have to find another means of advertising that doesn't cost money or keep trying to explain to him that the money I've sunk into Northern Bard is sort of like gambling - and at this current moment, I'm losing.
Welcome to the wonderful world of starting your own business. *smile*
All that said, and with the Powerball Jackpot now at $1.3 billion in the US, I'm gambling in another way, playing four different lotteries with a set of numbers that mean something to me on the off chance that, even if I never win the jackpot prize, I may be just lucky enough to win enough to pay off some of the smaller debts.
Of course, if any of my faithful readers is a marketing expert who can advise us as to the best marketing strategy to actually boost the book sales - or get us into the bookstores, which seems to be as difficult for an indie publisher as breaking into Fort Knox - I would LOVE to hear your advice. Should I get truly lucky and win that Powerball Jackpot, we can talk reasonable payment for your advice.....
In the meantime, I'm begging all the powers that be to let me win a lottery and prove that I won't be spoiled should I ever get rich. To be brutally honest, I'd probably end up giving massive amounts of such a windfall to the charities that I support with my measly donations each year. Instead of just the $20 that I can spare, how much cancer research, or cystic fibrosis research, or multiple sclerosis research could get done if I was able to give them $200,000?
For those who are reading my blogs to get suggestions as to how to start your own business, I strongly recommend telling your significant other everything you're doing, even if they get that blank stare and don't remember the conversations when they open your credit card account for your business and blow a gasket. I also suggest keeping up with the sorting of your mail bin so that they WON'T get the shock of a lifetime by opening your mail for you.
Blessed be, my lovelies, and thank you to all who give my my thrill of a lifetime by coming and visiting to the tune of 25 hits in a single day from Russia - or Germany - or China. Now if I can just find the right way to advertise so that those visits become book sales, I'll be the happiest author in the world.....
In short, putting a wire basket just inside the door that ALL the mail gets put into until I have a chance to sort it has been a life saver for our credit ratings. (I've had people tell me that I should stop doing all my paper bills and go the paperless route, but since I live in a state where one of the primary jobs available has been, since Maine became a state, the lumbering and paper making industry, I see no reason at all to take the jobs away from the lumbermen whom I meet out in the woods every summer. I also prefer to have paper backup, as several companies over the years have tried to claim "no payment" when I've been able to go into my file cabinet and prove that we not only paid the bill, we did it with a check and the check was processed before the bill was due. (This hasn't happened in several years, but I'm a creature of habit, and despite the extra work, I'll continue to keep my file cabinets busy until I can no longer keep my own books.)
The down side of this "wire basket" system is that, particularly around the holidays, I don't always go through the mail like I should, so it will pile up - and sometimes, my husband opts to "help" by going through the basket for me. Unlike when our daughter was still in the house, he doesn't just put the bills in one stack and toss the junk mail. He feels the need to open every envelope and see how current it is. (He also doesn't understand the filing system upstairs, so if a bill was due last month and has been paid, he'll destroy it instead of sending it upstairs for me to file with the printed off "proof of payment".)
Now, if you go back to when this blog was started, even you will know that I started my own publishing company in October of 2013, when I had "paid" a friend with books for doing a cover for me that then got "fixed" by the publisher to the point that it looked cheap and less eye-catching than what I had "paid" for. Therefore, knowing there would be some costs involved in a business start up, I took a PayPal account that I had opened in my own name some time ago, did what I needed to do to make it my business account, and all the costs involved in the covers, the ISBN's and marketing things I've tried have all gone onto this one credit card.
Unfortunately, the things I've done to "boost sales" haven't panned out, so right now, the credit card is being paid out of my pocket, because the other two who are helping me to run Northern Bard Publications are doing so as a favor and aren't being paid for their services. Until the credit card balance is zero and we start making enough in sales to support my support staff, Northern Bard is being run about the same way as a non-profit.
My husband, who has known from Day One that I was doing my own publishing, but got that "blank stare" whenever I tried to talk to him about finances, suddenly realized when opening the bill from PayPal that there has been a fairly good sized amount spent on this business venture, but until it starts showing a profit, the small business loans I've applied for have been denied....
So either I have to find another means of advertising that doesn't cost money or keep trying to explain to him that the money I've sunk into Northern Bard is sort of like gambling - and at this current moment, I'm losing.
Welcome to the wonderful world of starting your own business. *smile*
All that said, and with the Powerball Jackpot now at $1.3 billion in the US, I'm gambling in another way, playing four different lotteries with a set of numbers that mean something to me on the off chance that, even if I never win the jackpot prize, I may be just lucky enough to win enough to pay off some of the smaller debts.
Of course, if any of my faithful readers is a marketing expert who can advise us as to the best marketing strategy to actually boost the book sales - or get us into the bookstores, which seems to be as difficult for an indie publisher as breaking into Fort Knox - I would LOVE to hear your advice. Should I get truly lucky and win that Powerball Jackpot, we can talk reasonable payment for your advice.....
In the meantime, I'm begging all the powers that be to let me win a lottery and prove that I won't be spoiled should I ever get rich. To be brutally honest, I'd probably end up giving massive amounts of such a windfall to the charities that I support with my measly donations each year. Instead of just the $20 that I can spare, how much cancer research, or cystic fibrosis research, or multiple sclerosis research could get done if I was able to give them $200,000?
For those who are reading my blogs to get suggestions as to how to start your own business, I strongly recommend telling your significant other everything you're doing, even if they get that blank stare and don't remember the conversations when they open your credit card account for your business and blow a gasket. I also suggest keeping up with the sorting of your mail bin so that they WON'T get the shock of a lifetime by opening your mail for you.
Blessed be, my lovelies, and thank you to all who give my my thrill of a lifetime by coming and visiting to the tune of 25 hits in a single day from Russia - or Germany - or China. Now if I can just find the right way to advertise so that those visits become book sales, I'll be the happiest author in the world.....
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