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Writing and Publishing, Part 23:
Becoming your own publisher:
The Money:
Publishing can be expensive. Don't let anyone kid you about that.
I have well over $60,000 invested in Wesoomi Publishing. About
half of it is because of errors I have made. The rest is invested
in unsold inventory. With what I know now, I could have held this
to $20,000. That's about $5,000 per year of operation. That's
still a lot of money.
One very important thing you will want to do is to keep track of the money. The IRS is kind of picky about that. Speaking of which, you will definitely want to have a tax accountant to figure out your taxes. It is important to use your time wisely. You will want to concentrate on writing and publishing, not on the business details.
You will also want a bookkeeping program. A bookkeeping program will let you keep the money items organized. This will make it relatively painless to provide the information your accountant will want. Without this organization of details, April can be a month in hell. I use Quicken for this. Quicken can print the year end report out in a nice readable format. The point is, the easier you make it for your tax accountant, the less expensive it will be.
Another thing I have is a check list which I use at tax time to make sure I have everything I need for my accountant. I update it each year for any changes which have occurred. Here is what it looks like now.
Tax items for 2000 taxes.
For the business.
Sales tax collected report from Quicken:
Copy of State Sales Tax license:
Business expenses listed by category from Quicken:
Personal vehicle mileage for the business:
Inventory Summary sheet:
Personal tax items
Wife's 1099R forms:
My 1099R forms:
My SSA1099 from Social security:
Wife's SSA1099 from Social security:
All 1099int forms:
All 1099div forms:
Amount of State refund check from last year:
Property tax statement:
In Michigan, we must pay sales tax on any sales in Michigan. To
do that we must have a license to collect taxes for the State
of Michigan. Their address is in W&P 22. We must also pay
the sales tax on any books we give away, such as promotional copies.
I keep very careful track of the books I give away and of the
taxes I collect. It becomes a pain because Michigan likes to screw
us up by making the sales tax due on February 28 instead of April
15 like all of our other taxes. It's just another little crappy
thing the brain dead bureaucrats do.
For my business expenses, here is what I keep track of:
Income
Book sales
Refund credits
Expenses
Business
Insurance
Computer
Hardware
Computer
Software
Computer
supplies (Ink, paper, etcetera)
Educational
costs (Books, Magazines, seminars)
Fees (bank
charges, PO Box, Membership dues, etcetera)
Refunds
to customers
Website
and internet costs
Office supplies
Postage
Telephone
Travel
As I said, Quicken can print these items out by category.
For my personal vehicle mileage I use two simple forms which I created with WordPerfect tables. One is a per-month day-by-day report which I fill in whenever I use my vehicle for business. It's important to do this immediately so I don't forget the details. I keep these forms in a notebook on my desk. The other form is a year end summary of the monthly totals. that's the one which goes to the tax accountant. I keep the others in case of an audit. While I'm on audits, that is another darn good reason for using a licensed tax accountant. You are a lot less likely to be audited. I know, "it ain't fair," but it is reality. Live with it.
Here is what my inventory summary for 2000 looks like.
|
1999 Year end remaining inventory Year 2000 Sales Year 2000 Complementary promotional books Gardening Journals @ $1.79 Gaffer's Shorts @ $2.07 Siege of Acheron @ $2.40 Supreme Commander @ $2.60 Anatomy of a PC @ $5.10 Total Complementary promotional books Year 2000 remaining inventory |
$$$,$$$.$$ |
If I had published a new book in 2000, it would be listed as "Inventory acquired".
Another thing I do is compute and keep track of the manufacturing
cost of my books.
This is it to date.
Wesoomi Gardening Journal
2053 books costing $3672.50 = $1.79 per book.
Gaffer's Shorts
6591 books costing $13615.00 = $2.07 per book.
Siege of Acheron
2016 books costing $4829.15 = $2.40 per book.
Supreme Commander George
1636 books costing $4251.86 = $2.60 per book.
Anatomy of a PC
1629 books costing $8271.82 = $5.10 per book.
As you can see, the cost of a book will vary greatly. It depends on the number of copies printed, the kind of book it is, and the manufacturer. Page count is much less important than you might think. With manufacturers, it's important to get bids. The variation in bids is astounding.
Next time I will finish up with this discussion of money and
cost.
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