Business

Self-Employment in the United States

Great books to read

Growing Lavender for Profit by Aaron Martinez - sound business practices for any microbusiness, not just lavender. I highly, highly recommend this, especially if you're just dipping your toes into selling very small amounts of stuff at craft fairs, farmer's markets, or what have you.
Silver Spoon manga series; surprisingly informative while being entertaining. Does not even mention the Ainu in Hokkaido, which is a minus, so to make up for that loss of good info it's worth it to learn about Ainu lifestyle and traditions yourself, with whatever resources you have available to you

Pitfalls/deprogramming

Supply and demand has been used for years to justify jacking up prices. When demand is high and supply is low, the prices rise, said economics fan-people and some among the older generations. Problem. Just because you can raise the price doesn't mean you should. It will make your customers, quite justifiably, resent you. And also possibly try to DIY everything you are making with the raw ingredients themselves. So supply a quality product with good consistency and keep the price fair. Business without fairness always has a cost. Maybe not short term, and maybe not even long term if you hop from scam to scam with new sheep to fleece. But after a while you get tired and this kind of business model will wear you out. Plus, greed and seeking shortcuts has a long history of causing a large assortment of disasters. Probably not wise.
Scale up slowly! I've seen a lot of start-ups and corporations that just IPA'd totally eat it because they wanted too much too fast and had no idea how to handle it. Grow your business slowly over a long period of time. You will need to fund the thing from outside sources, so don't quit your day job just yet and definitely don't have some poor family member suckered into footing the bill. It's business. It's about as reliable as gardening or farming - namely, it's subjected to all kinds of things that could easily make it fail.
Nothing ever stays the same in the world of business. Keep learning about business as you are running a business. Or, well, your business will probably fold. And I don't care how many business degrees you have.
Now is probably the best time to start a business, or in the next few years. This is because captive consumerism and planned obsolescence and other shady business practices have made legions of people absolutely fed up. People are used to garbage peddlers and being forced to buy stuff they don't like at a too-high cost which barely meets their needs, or even hurts them. They want something new. I do also. So consider this: if your life's passion is in one area but your actual job is in another and you would like to make a living doing what you love, or at least something that you're already good at and do not hate, there is no time like the present. Do not listen to the Boomers who want you to not even give it a try, or throw in the towel when you meet minor or major setbacks. Your greatest asset here is tenacity.
Whether you are working for someone else or your own boss, professionalism matters. If you think it doesn't, think back to the last time someone didn't do their job right and you suffered as a result. Heck, look at the pandemic and its chain reaction of unprofessionalism all over the place. It didn't have to be like this. That endless passing of the buck to someone else and then blaming them for the job badly done... that was one's own responsibility? It's gotta stop. And customers will flock to businesses that provide an alternative to that.
Your customers are the ones who are voting for you. Consider every dollar they've given you a vote of confidence and don't let them down.

General information

Here is how to write a home business plan The Balance SMB. Even if you're starting a super tiny business and have no intentions of getting a business loan or doing anything big with it, this is actually a make-or-break deal for most businesses. You have to know what you're going to do before you do it. An informal business plan is better than none at all, and a formal one is best. At least sketch something down on a napkin and keep it in a folder you can refer back to!
Here's some personal experience speaking: it's usually best to start a business once you already have an excellent product or service that you can consistently provide. Businesses are expensive and difficult to set up and to run, and the last thing you'd want to do is still be ironing out kinks with what you're selling when what you should be doing is courting customers. Also, running your own business can eat up way more of your time and money than a 9 to 5 dead-end job; be sure you love (or at least don't mind) what you're doing or you'll regret it.
More experience speaking: try to be patient, consistent, and enduring with regards to what you do. Build on your previous endeavors slowly, deliberately, and with clear thought at each step. Scaling up too fast is bad. And oh, yes: believe in yourself. It's not likely anyone else will. Until you're up and running, then they'll still not believe in you. And when you're raking in dough hand over fist? They'll still not believe in you. It's only after like years of being successful the same jerks will say "I was there for them all along!" Heh.
Apply for an EIN This is the IRS's official website. Has a lot of information on the site for starting and running a business legally.
Recommendations for starting and running a business: 1. Have a decent tax company and professional. Go there before starting a business for advice. Or, wait til your next tax filing and talk to them about it then. Most businesses in the US afaik need to file and pay estimated taxes 4x a year if you make more than $400 that year. If I understand the IRS's website right. 2. Have a separate bank account for the business! Helps you keep the finances organized, which is incredibly important. A couple years sorting out your own finances in an organized manner is probably a good idea in order to learn how to do this for a business, as it's similar. 3. Sort out all business names, the business structure (you'll probably be considered self-employed, but if you want to get fancier, consider other options), copyright your stuff if it's original, and potential legal stuff before you set up the business. For original stuff that doesn't violate anyone else's copyright, such as original art, writing, or whatever, you're probably fine there. But try selling food and you're in for a world of hurt, legally speaking. Think it through, and do your best to know the laws.
Check your state's Secretary of State website for business starting information. They all have it. You'll want to know it also because this is where you'll find out how much sales tax to charge. Royal PITA but eh.
SBA Local Assistance Some assistance, locally, from the federal government. Good luck if you use this, I never have, I don't know if it's that helpful.
To start a business in your area, check your state and county’s legal requirements first. Use a search engine to find these. Some states have excellent websites for getting started but most do not. Your local chamber of commerce may be helpful, as can relatives or friends who have started or run businesses in your local area.
Free open-source accounting software Gnucash This has been around for a while. It's intended for microbusinesses and small businesses but apparently the learning curve is steep. The alternatives are: use Excel spreadsheets to track your cash flows (yikes!), try something like Moneydance (if it has software for business as well as personal finance), or pay a yearly subscription fee for software like Quicken. Or go for Zoho accounting. If you aren't familiar with tracking your own personal cash flow, then it's best to get acquainted with personal finance and budgeting before you complicate everything with business accounting. Keep track of business and personal cash flows separately! Personally I prefer keeping track of finances using hardcopy; aka paper and pen, but that's just my style.
You can also try Zoho or Zoho One, which are potentially 100% game changing for microbusinesses and small businesses. Zoho provides accounting software and other software for small businesses, while Zoho One provides all that and a bag of chips - accounting, instant messaging, calendars hosted 'in the cloud' so all your employees are on the same page, and other stuff I'm not familiar with. I actually found it when I was searching for a free online calendar to plan family events with. Zoho Calendar
Calendar-wise, Protonmail recently made their own version Proton.me
Square Online Store This is the first website I've seen that's all-in-one a free online storefront, with fees applied to each payment from a customer. The same company, Square, also makes Cashapp, which I highly recommend because PayPal and bank-to-bank transfers suck.
Ko-Fi Similar to Square, but also to Etsy. And unlike Etsy, doesn't seem to charge their sellers exorbitant fees and engage with unscrupulous business practices. It's not just a donation site anymore, but a commerce site.
Zoho also offers "free" online payment pages, unlike Stripe, where you have to link it up to a DIY page with hosting you pay for, etc. Zoho Payment. I haven't used it so I don't know if it's legit.
Quick article on self-employment taxes/basic info Buzzfeed
Instructable on how to start a handmade business Instructables
Small Business Administration guide to starting a business SBA
Lots of topics in running a small business The Balance SMB
EIN Application IRS
Copyright Application Copyright.gov
Patent Application Upcounsel.com
How To Trademark Upcounsel.com
Instructable collection for small home businesses Link out

10/27/22 The Idea and Inception Phase of Starting A Business

Many great businesses, inventions, and innovations started as an idea, often sketched on a restaurant napkin. Here's a way to get yourself fired up about your own great ideas and keep them either filed away or in steady development into a viable business idea. Literally file them away. Get a three-ring binder or a scrapbook, or a sketchbook, or a flashdrive and computer; however you like to organize your ideas best. For those of you who are really mad scientist types a small plastic or large metal file cabinet might be the best option, plus several shelves of notebooks. Put your ideas for inventions, businesses, innovative problems you'd like to solve, etc. in these, dated like a diary, so you can look back through them and see if you have any ideas you want to develop. If you find one, then work on it til it's definitely cool, and see how you like it. If it's cool enough, do an internet search to see if it's patented already and if not file a patent for it yourself.
Sometimes you're just woolgathering. It's sometimes fun to imagine if there were innovations or products for a need that you have in your life, a "gee, wouldn't it be cool or more convenient if this thing existed" and try to look it up to see if you can buy said product online. If it doesn't exist, you can create it.
Ideas all deaded thanks to extended stress? Some methods of getting back your imagination include window shopping, art projects, watching educational TV, reading fiction novels, reading magazines and/or blogs, and just plain old R&R. It's a design flaw in the human brain that makes people think current circumstances will last exactly that way forever.

1/24/23 Pricing

Here's a general guideline I like to try to remember, because it's what my family and friends agree on also. If something is blatantly a ripoff, your customers are actually going to be insulted that you think they're stupid enough to buy your product at that cost. Pricing your stuff so you might make a slightly smaller profit but at least make a profit is likely to be the difference between a viable business and "why doesn't anyone buy from small businesses?" That's usually the number one reason. Price. If you can't wrangle your costs of overhead, labor, production and every other expense into good enough shape for you to actually make a profit while still selling things at a competitive price, then you should not be in business. More importantly, if you can't give your employees a wage they can live on, keep product quality consistent, raw material quality conistently high, and the quality of what you provide high; if you can't run your business ethically and fairly and still make a profit, you do not deserve to be in business and both I and many others would like all such businesses to fold. Right now. A lot of businesses will state a bunch of folderol about how paying half wages ($7.25/hr) is necessary to keep their doors open etc. etc. but that's bullshit. In business just about any problem has a solution. Need more education to find it? Hit the books. I am saying it is both possible and necessary to cut costs of business in a manner that is both ethical and efficient. If that doesn't convince you then the sea change of non-rich customers who have started to care about sustainable labor practices and ethical business practices will.
7/21/24 After going shopping online for fresh spices, because well, I like spices, it hit me that a lot of small businesses have been doing this thing for more than 15 years: buy from us because we're sustainable, equitable, pay the farmers or sources of our products really well, and pay our employees and ourselves really well. Price of each product? About five to ten times more expensive than you could get it at a grocery store or big box store, thus pricing the product out of reach of everyone except for the rich, and making it, realistically speaking, not equitable at all. Especially if they don't offer free shipping for smaller items, somehow thinking that everyone can afford the bulk pricing cost of like $35-50 per order to get over the "free shipping over _" hurdle. Then they start to lose on profit margins, start complaining about how hard it is to be a small business and "you should really shop from us" without noticing that the majority of their would-be customers actually can't afford to shop from them, and then they fold. Natural life cycle of a typical small business. Don't set up your business this way.

9/15/24 Other Tips

Copypasted from the Texas section: If you own a small business, make it accessible. By that I mean if whatever it is you're selling is something you actually aim to make a living from or a side hustle, it's important to ask yourself the following questions: 1. Is it easy for even the "laziest" (and that could mean super busy, unlucky, poor, disabled, of limited mobility, elderly, etc. etc.) person to come to my business, online or in person? 2. Is it affordable enough for such people? 3. Is it something that actually fulfills a need of my target market, specifically that improves either their quality of life or that's essential to their survival? 4. If I were a potential customer that had never heard of my own business, would I bother to go, given my overload of responsibilities? 5. What would entice me or someone in that situation to actually make a purchase and have it be worth the effort? Making your business accessible is one of the secrets to success for large businesses and corporations. The deciding factor of if something is accessible or not is actually convenience, Dead Kennedys mockery notwithstanding. (Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, and I believe it was more a mockery of greedy individuals glorifying the almighty Dollar than of someone actually needing something accessible). Disabled folks and other folks in need of better resources and quality of life and other good things to live off of do need more options and small businesses can fill that niche, but only if they actually think about such things. And provide such goods and services. I just don't see this particular target market (and last I checked that's a very large chunk of the population) buying pink-dyed fringe leather purses.

Creative Self-Employment Tips

6/11/23 Found a good piece of advice I appended to the bottom of this page since the image is big and I just don't have the spoons to shrink it rn
7/31/22 You know, I fucking hate writing. Writing is not why I started this website at all. It's actually because throughout my life, I've had a dire lack of good advice, but reams of absolute crap advice. It almost killed me. This website started as a book idea and then I was like, "fuck it I don't want to make this pay-per-read" and voila, this site. (I think I've earned $0, because Paypal wouldn't send the two $5 donations through?) It exists to function as good advice and a resource hub. My point being threefold: 1. you really have to be passionate about something to make it happen and 2. making something creative and monetizing it are two completely different things, so you better hash out your reasons for doing a thing before you do it cause if lack of monetization is a dealbreaker you'd probably be better off actually getting a different income source. and 3. I hope you believe my sincerity if nothing else. I am actually giving this my best.
7/31/22 I invest. I'm not bad at it, I'd even say I'm alright at it. This verges on illegal to tell you because investing advice is illegal, but since this isn't really investing advice (technically) I feel comfortable saying it. Please try to remember. If you invest in nothing else, invest in yourself. If you can't find it within yourself to invest in yourself, invest in nothing else because you don't have the necessary cool, clear head. Invest in yourself. Time, effort, energy, money, equipment, anything that helps with your happiness, your passion, your goals, and your overall "how and why to human." You want a new dance studio? Pay for remodeling for your house. You want a career as an artist? Buy the paint, rent the studio. If you don't believe in yourself, why the hell would you believe in anyone or anything else? Alright so you say you believe in yourself? Put your money where your mouth is.
Boomers really love to shit on creative anything, especially making a living from it. Ignore them. There are ways to make your passion your living, but don't expect it to be easy.
Boomers shit on creative anything because Boomers gave up. Creative fields are cutthroat, competitive, and grueling. The snowflakes flaked, and now they think their own dreams that THEY gave up on are impossible for everyone else. They aren't. But you have to understand that creative anything requires persistence. You can't, shouldn't, ever give up. If you already have, un-give up. And it could take you years to achieve success, but if you keep at it, and keep improving at not only your creative field but also business savvy you are very likely to achieve success. The trick is to work on it consistently, even if it's just a little bit at a time.
Until (if?) your creative stuff starts consistently selling and you know you can make more and it will sell, you should have at least one side hustle and possibly also a day job. This is not a sign that you've failed. This is a sign that you understand that starving is not conducive to being creative.
The only way to set yourself apart from the pack is excellence and originality. You can develop the excellence; that's the easier part. The originality part requires a lot of inner work.
It is far easier to accomplish creative anything, indeed sometimes the only possible way, by setting yourself a private space to work on it. Find a room, or better yet a solitary freestanding cabin or studio with a hell of a lot of privacy, turn off your phone, install soundproofing, lock the door, don't let anyone in there, not even pets. This is because the number one crusher of creative anything is critics who feel threatened and inadequate by anything original at all. They'll do anything to get under your skin - and I mean anything. Also, our society is not kind to anyone original or creative, and therefore with all that internalized crap lurking you can shut off a lot of the inhibition for creativity by shutting out the world.
You may wish to make a routine to ease yourself into your creative work, such as a warm-up of some sort if you are a dancer, meditation, brewing a cup of tea, or whatever. Something to signal to yourself that you are safe to venture into the creative unknown because you've done this before.
A major part of learning to be successful as someone doing something original or creative is learning to get the more venomous critics to back off and also learning to not give a single shit what they say. This is not easy. In fact, the sheer mountain of jerks who will do whatever it takes to stop you is enormous - putting you in your place is how they feel more comfortable so they'll try to make you give up, usually through backhanded compliments, but more often through abusing any and all power and influence they have over you in order to make you feel that what you're trying is impossible. Or worse yet through actually making what you're attempting to do impossible and setting up blocks for you, most often through the guise of friendship, assistance, the helpful hand of an authority figure, or even love. Good luck.
On that note, divorce yourself from bad people, bad places, and bad situations as well as you can. Pursuing a creative passion is an excellent way to learn who, what, and where is out to get you but wearing the semblance of a friend. Once you start mentioning your interest in such a thing and the situation/person/place starts crapping on you and trying to get you to have no faith in yourself, well, that's one way to learn the truth. With friends like these who needs enemies, right?
Understand that there's only one person who defines your success or failure in this line of work. You. Creative work is defined by "am I pursuing my passion and really making my art, whatever it is, in the way I want to?" It is not defined by money, popularity, or how much the world lauds your work. Pursuing quality, excellence, self-exploration, self-expression, a calling, what's your reason? Define your reason to be making your work. Actually write down your "why" because you'll need it. Look at it. You living up to it? That's all you need to know. Money is secondary. If you got into a creative field just for the money, get out now. It's not right for just everyone and it's fucking hard okay?
The #1 thing to do with this line of work is to get therapy going for yourself, and plenty of mental health help. You have to believe in yourself. That's not as easy as it sounds when you're creating something from scratch and are vulnerable to criticism.
The second most important thing is patience. Creativity is cultivated during periods of rest, much like how certain seeds need a winter dormancy period in order to germinate. That resting ground called your noggin is actually an incubation chamber. People celebrate the outcome of creative work, but they don't understand that you can't have the tree without the roots. The roots are time, rest, and patience. Doing a whole lot of nothing in between creating stuff on the outside is actually just as important as the visible/conscious work.
Do not hurry your creativity. Work on your projects consistently, a little at a time, over the years, or however your personal pace as an artist goes. Usually for most that's in fits and spurts, and in between nothing, but your own process is yours alone and you must respect it. Respect how much time it takes. The world will not respect you at all for having produced no finished products, but listening to it is a trap. It is said that to be a writer, you must write; to be a painter, you must paint; to be a chef, you must cook - but that is actually not entirely true at the core. If you are one of these at heart, then you are halfway there, and you have to believe in that vision within you because it's the truth. You decided it, and therefore you made it real, it will just take time to show on the outside. If you don't believe in this, the world will gladly shut you down before you even start and that's just sad; don't let it. Quietly work on becoming the whatever-it-is for years of practice, quietly work on what you care about, for you and your own enjoyment and no one else's. Get better and better over time, because putting not-so-great work out is regrettable and you know it. Examples abound of people who harvested the fruit of unripe work in order to please others: adaptations from books to film or TV series, or sudden massive popularity, are notorious for making authors rush their work and destroy the worlds they've built through shoddy writing. I can think of three like this that started out really well and petered out really badly - one particular fantasy soap opera with lots of warfare, one particular set of novels that make people think my religion is way more glamorous than it is, and one megapopular chain of bloodsucker novels whose first one was likeable enough and pleasant but that devolved into sheer wtf'ery. If I am not mistaken Claude Debussy did the opposite.
A lot of the time when people are scared of going commercial, or selling out, or going corporate with their art, the reason is that they are scared of being rushed, bossed around, and otherwise forced into some kind of prostitution of their work to appeal to the greatest possible audience. As well they should be. Every step taken as an artist has to be done with one's integrity as an artist in mind, so don't rush, and know what you're getting into. If you want a ton of money for your work but want to keep your passion for the work and your integrity, then grow your business slowly, organically, and consistently. This will also help your customers know you're the real deal.
Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach is the best guide to getting started with a business based on a personal passion. But just in case you can't get ahold of it, follow this recommendation from her and from me: don't share what you're doing with anyone until you're proud of a substantial portion of your finished works. And you have to make them no matter how bad they suck to begin with. Make a whole bunch of original stuff.
For everyone with a creative passion, there are likely going to be times, even periods of several to many years (or a whole lifetime) when you are denied the ability to do what you most want to do. These are bad times indeed. How you cope? You do what you can, when you can, and you adapt as much as possible. If the door is closed, bust down the wall, break a back window, or knock on a different door. Usually you can find another way to engage with your creative passion in spirit even if it's rather far removed from your original interest. Or you can start taking small steps throughout a long period of time to get closer and closer to your goal till you pounce and seize it. Or both. And if you can't figure it out, maybe someone else who makes a living in a related creative field can help you with good input. Just don't ask a soulless sellout and make sure you know the person first.
If you're scared of making original stuff then take heart: everyone sucks at first and you have to suck in order to get good. The difference between sucking and not sucking is making a whole bunch of stuff that sucks but working on improving it over time. Time and effort make all the difference. Practice.
As you are going to suck at first, if anyone passing by happens to notice and dump on you because of how bad it is, the toughest thing about creative work is that you have to learn how to shrug it off. Keep going. Keep being bad at whatever you're doing. Ignore the criticism, the hatred and the haters. Manage this, and you've passed the first hurdle. Usually, learning how to manage this is a process with a steep learning curve but it's possible. Get knocked down, try again later. Keep trying. If you can be helped by the criticism in a positive way, such as for instance by getting tutoring to learn how to hold down the guitar's strings properly for each chord, then listen to it, and if you can't, focus on improving instead of worrying about the critics. Importantly, pay close attention to see which of your critics are actually actively working in the creative field that they are criticizing you on. Enlightening, ain't it? Usually the worst critics are has-beens with mediocre abilities that are jealous of you because you're up-and-coming and they gave up. Besides the has-beens, you'll need to contend with a lot of hate because society is just plain toxic and it's cool to dump on anyone original. A lot of great artists have peanut galleries telling them that they suck but a really devoted niche following. You ain't Walmart, you do not need to please everybody.
There are a few things that can take any raw talent you have and refine it into something truly excellent: 1. Doing the suckish parts of your creative field and doing them a LOT - for dancers, this would be many repetitions of ballet training exercises, for guitarists, finger exercises that sound like crap, for artists, getting good at sketching before drawing with pen, as some examples. 2. Fantastic mentors 3. Realizing when you are screwing up and fixing it fast so you don't for instance injure yourself, even if everyone else is doing the thing and has normalized it - a good example is overtraining as an Olympic runner or using the wrong shoes and giving yourself sprains 4. Overcoming assorted mental issues related to your field, which is way more common than you'd think; I usually see people either totally overconfident and selling an unripe product, or way too unconfident and with no faith in themselves, and nothing in between
Just DO it. Whatever the thing is, no matter how awful it is because you're not that great at it yet, don't delay for any longer than you have to. You won't get better at it by just sitting there doing nothing!
Polish your work. Don't be satisfied with mediocrity. You can do your best and you'll know when you reach it because you won't be able to add or subtract anything from the finished product without messing it up in some way. Sometimes the artist's finest final touch is to stop painting. Like that. So have high standards so that you can look at the work and be like "yeah, this is undeniably good, I shouldn't mess with it now, better leave it alone." Creative work is not like grunt work. It's not really for the money, it's for the sake of your passion, so have respect for yourself and pursue excellence.
Unlike the rest of the business world, originality is valued in creative fields. So the standard advice, to go to school, get some tutoring and mentors, and get some friends to help you in a particular career field to climb the ladder doesn't actually apply. Instead of going outside of yourself to for instance learn "how to paint," go within. Ask yourself the hard questions, focus on how YOU do this creative field, not on how others do it. I mean, if you need to for instance learn the basic mechanics of how to do ballet, or how to understand chiaroscuro, or even if you really want to put yourself through art school or something, by all means, but the critical thing is that you must not allow the outer world to taint your inner creativity, reality, art, self. You don't want to just be a copycat, right? I mean, you could possibly gain a living from it but that is almost never the reason someone enters a creative field in the first place. Dare to be yourself.
Once you've been making original stuff for a while and you're now proud of it, only then show someone super close to you with very good judgment. Take their criticism and think about it. You need critics. They help you grow.
If you manage to get a following: Show appreciation to your fans. The bare minimum is don't be a fucking asshole to them; treat them with courtesy and respect. It's never cool to bite the hand that feeds you in a niche field like basically any creative one. Especially because your fans aren't just fans of your work if you're doing creative anything that is truly original, they are fans of you and that's a special kind of assholish to mistreat that kind of fan. Prima donnas are no longer welcome in the creative world, no matter what past divas may have behaved like, that kind of behavior is no longer tolerated by most people. If customer service is involved, stay professional. And most importantly, do your best to be consistent with the stuff they pay for.
Network only with professional people that you can trust. Do business only with professional people and businesses that you can trust. If you can't trust anyone, go it alone. With creative work this isn't just about all the money that can be conned out of you by the unscrupulous but your heart's on the line. So for instance if you are in the music business, you should make your own record label or sell your music on home-pressed CDs and/or by the track on various websites that pay you per download, until you figure out better options. Music is a notoriously exploitative line of work; don't bother with huge record labels unless you really like bullshit. If you are an artist, sell your work on your own website and not in some coffee shop that has an exorbitant commission and a fee to display your work. Your fans, and fans of creative work in general, understand that creative work is worth the price and they want to support you directly. The dirty little secret in all creative work is that no one gives a shit about, or even needs, the middleman.
If you have extra money, time, or energy to invest in yourself in order to make better work, such as new paintbrushes, a studio, even a weekly massage because that'll help with your creative process, invest it. Always invest in yourself and your dreams. It's a good thing to do for yourself and for your creative career.
You do not have to have just one creative side hustle. And not all your creative pursuits have to pay you. Just putting that out there. I recommend the following as much as you are able to do: Live how you want. Work how you want.
As you proceed down your creative work path, you will most assuredly fuck up at least once. What defines your success long term is your grit and determination and the willingness to fix the fuckups as you go along. It's really about your dedication, more than anything else. So ask yourself, how badly do you want this?
Beware the twin traps: believing you suck super bad and no one will ever like your work, and believing your work is super awesome and everyone is going to love it so why isn't it popular already? Fuck all that. Focus on excellence. Listen to your critics and improve what you're doing, consistently, over time. Kaizen applies to creative work too.
There is another trap that lots of experienced, highly talented creative people fall into. That is failing to learn about business because you're so focused on being good at your creative work. It will most assuredly destroy your dreams if you fall into that one. So tear yourself away from the creative stuff from time to time to hit the books about business, finance, marketing, taxes, regulations, advertising and all that good stuff. You're going to need it. Also learn about the specific business tricks of the trade in your creative field; if you wind up going to school for anything to support creative anything that's probably what could be the most handy besides a MBA.
If you figure out how to make it in a creative field, pay it forward. Help others. Mentor younguns. Don't be an asshole. Creative anything is only toxic because people think it's a zero-sum game, which is ridiculous, because it is defined by originality. We could certainly use more talent in every creative field, and everyone in each field is well aware of the pain of rejection, criticism, hate, starvation. If you make it, remember when you too were hungry and desperate for a chance, and more importantly why you thought it was so important for the world of your creative field to give you a chance. Remember all that you had to offer, which you so often couldn't because no one would bother with you or take you seriously. Well, lots of other people have a lot to offer, and it's time we stop slamming doors shut in their faces.

Online Business Stuff in the US

If you want to take a crack at affiliate marketing, I'd recommend starting with Commission Junction. It seems to be pretty good and professional, I'd recommend it to start with. I do not do it right now for one very specific reason: I'm too bloody honest. I'll tell you like it is, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I don't want to get rid of that. People who are trying to sell a product don't like that and frankly I can see why. So search yourself to determine if it's really for you. Also, be aware that the workload is far higher than it looks and you would actually have an easier time getting paid at an in-person job.
Yes, damn it, everything else applies. Filing AND paying taxes four times a year if you earn more than $5000 per year, determining sales tax for your specific location, business registration, regulation compliance. The "quarters of the year" and their corresponding tax due dates for quarterly payments are Q1 (first quarter): Jan-March and due date April 15, Q2 April-May and due date June 15, Q3 June-August and due date Sep. 15, and Q4 Oct-Dec and due date Jan. 15 of the next year. No, it doesn't make sense. You might want to get an account at H&R Block. However, filing for a small business seems to be $200 or so. Fool review. 4x a year is $800, on top of whatever taxes you're already paying, so determine if the time saved and worry over audits prevented is worth the cost.
Ko-Fi has seriously upped their game, possibly to compete with Buy Me A Coffee, Etsy, and Patreon. You can sell commissions on there, sell products on there, have memberships, and get donations for your work, but getting enough marketing going to make it viable is tricky. It's not exactly classy as a storefront either. Probably best if your customers already know you, and one of the best websites for artists and other creative folks who already have a following.
You can sell ebooks online. I am not sure exactly how to do that, but it is possible.
Just Publishing Advice has an excellent article for preparing a Word file (or in my case LibreOffice) for ebook publishing. The whole website also seems to be top notch, so if you write, do give it a look.
Ko-Fi Digital Sales page Yes, you can sell ebooks on Ko-Fi. As well as all kinds of other downloads. Their terms of service seem to be quite fair.
With your own web domain and website, you can sell stuff online. If you have something to sell.
Neocities now allows affiliate marketing and advertising and even running an online storefront on it. Neocities contact page However if you do end up making money from your site, please consider becoming a Neocities supporter by paying them monthly or at least donating. They are the most user-friendly and the least hassle-y domain on the internet and without money they could fold.
If you pay for your own web domain and somehow manage to run a website on top of that, then you can slap affiliate marketing all over your page and have a supposed passive income stream. However, most people never click on that stuff so don't do it unless you're sure it'll earn. Most people use Wordpress/Bluehost and affiliate market for all kinds of crap on Amazon and also for Google Adsense. I think that's pretty unethical, but that is what most people do. A more ethical approach is to open up a page hosted on an eco-friendly place such as EcoHosting if you are in the UK or GreenGeeks for basically anywhere else, shop online on websites that offer affiliate marketing, for a bunch of stuff and see what you like best, then once you find and love something recommend it on your page with a full detailed review, pictures, and so on. This could take you a couple years to amass all the affiliate marketing companies worth recommending so be patient and don't rely on this for income. You will still have to pay taxes on whatever you receive from this so keep track of everything you earn. (With EcoHosting you can also set up online payments for your own online store, which is pretty cool if you have something to sell. You might need to link it up with a payment service such as Stripe or Zoho.)
Online vendors that are kind of a "one stop shop" for selling stuff include Etsy and Shopify. In theory you can also sell on Ebay but in practice it might be harder than it looks.
It is definitely an option to sell stuff on Craigslist. It is not safe at all, and obviously do not do this during this pandemic, but if you make the sale in a public place of your choosing, it's probably the fastest way to make quick cash.
If you create things on a regular basis, such as art, music, journalism, or writing, set up a Patreon for recurring money from patrons and a Ko-Fi for one-time donations. It's hard to ask for these things but at the same time, you won't be able to continue doing those things you're asking to be paid for if you are broke. Leave the starving artist routine behind; it's 2021.
You can also pay for web hosting, buy your own website, set it up, and then route payments through a service such as Stripe. I've had good experiences with that one, but there are others.
If you happen to have the necessary space, you can consider setting up an AirBnB, or even your own bed-and-breakfast. However, AirBnB is easier. It works for some, but bear in mind, everything to do with customer service is bad. No exceptions. AirBnB
If you have a car that can take a lot of abuse, a very thick skin, and a sidearm, then you could do Lyft, or drive for a food delivery service of some kind. Never, EVER do Uber.

Websites of note

Kickstarter NGL, don't fully know how this works, but a bunch of businesses attempt to raise capital through this.
GoFundMe If worst comes to worst, you can ask for money here. There is no shame in needing help.
Afterpay For customers to a business who can't pay it all now but can pay later in broken-up bits

Big Brain Time

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