Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

January 16, 2011

More Trouble Than It's Worth

I'll be completely honest.  Being a small business owner sucks.  I have no fucking idea what the hell I'm doing.  I got all my yearly renewal crap from the State.  More stupid forms to fill out including the tax return.  Deb's helping me, since she does our books & firm returns.  Where I tear open the household bills and bank statements before I even have my shoes off, I have to force myself to open the TB, LLC bank statements and credit card bill.  It's a chore.  I dread it.  

I made a few sales on Etsy and I made the mistake of not transferring the money from my Paypal account to the biz bank account after every sale.  I did not realize this until recently, when I actually did go to make the transfer.  There was way, way less money than should have been from my sales.  Then it hit me:  Whenever I use my Paypal account to purchase something online, they deduct the money from my payments-received balance!!!  It never occurred to me that the money would be comingled.  Now I have to pay back the biz account a couple hundred $$.  It's not a big deal and I still have plenty of Xmas bonus money to use, but it was a discovery I wish I'd made a few months ago.  It was just frustrating b/c then I had to print out my entire Paypal history from the summer to the present and figure out sales receipts vs. purchases made by me.  Have I mentioned that numbers, math and accounting are reeeeally not my thing?  I'm the artist goddamn it!! NOT the beancounter!!!  Just leave me out of it and let me make the jewelry and shoot pictures of it!  I don't have the time for, or the interest in, bookkeeping.  

And that's another thing.  I am still running into the problem of not being able to resize my photos to 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels.  Joe did a ton of resizing and zooming in for me last fall so that I could get things up and running, but I can't ask him to do that for me every single time I want to upload new products.  So I don't know what to do or what to buy software-wise, and I'm getting wicked frustrated by this.  There are so many photo sharing sites and so much software.  How the hell do I know what's the right one for my needs?  I don't need bells and whistles.  All I wanna do is resize the friggin things, you know?  So if anyone out there has any ideas, please let me know.  Everything's come to a grinding halt b/c if I can't resize the pics, then I'm not going to make new items to shoot pics OF.  I've drifted off into the world of altered art and back into the world of beaded cross stitch, so my jewelry supplies are just sitting there.  

So this now snowballs from all that right into:  If I'm not making anything new and everything is just 'status quo', then there's no point in killing myself advertising my Etsy store.  If I don't advertise, no one will shop there and I won't make any money.  

Frankly, I do not need this extra stress and turmoil.  I have enough on my plate without this on top of all the other major issues and stress.  With the heart disease that runs in my family, I cannot believe that I haven't had a heart attack yet.  Either I'm really strong, or I'm in massive denial.  So just call me Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.  

Like I said, I'm completely open to suggestions or advice.  I'm all for DIY and all, but this really is becoming more trouble than it's worth.


8 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:49 AM

    When you post your photos on Etsy, do you have an option to adjust the size? For instance, if I post a photo in Blogger, I can adjust the size however big or small I want it. I'm not sure how the posting on Etsy works, so I can't say concretely how to tell you to do it. That size you quoted is huge and I'm assuming it's because you want to show details of your pieces. Give me more information so I have an idea of what you are dealing with.

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  2. Hi Nantz, the pics I try to upload are apparently too large for Etsy. They want square pictures, 1000x1000. I asked for help from the Etsy people and their suggestion was to get a cheaper camera that takes smaller photos. Um.....not exactly what I had in mind. I can resize them on Photobucket, but then I would have to recopy them to my harddrive then upload them to Etsy. That's a lot of time consuming trouble. All I want to do is "select all" from the pics on my hard drive, "resize all" and have it be done.

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  3. So you can't do that on basic Photoshop? I usually do my resizing on that.
    I agree totally about the business side of things. I have that same problem, honey, I HATE numbers, serious business stuff and money management!

    I have that same Paypal problem with my Lulu books :-(
    I've sold 5 books (yes, I know....but its SOMETHING...LOL) and no money to transfer from my Paypal.
    My paintings aren't selling either. Ebay is just way too big for them to even get noticed.
    That is why I also think doing your own thing sucks. Rather just work for someone who pays you and does all the financial dirty work.

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  4. Anonymous12:35 PM

    My digital camera has an option to take photos with a certain size...does yours? As an aside, I am insanely jealous of your weather.

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  5. I have NO idea how to resize pictures, though I have tried.

    But you should be able to change the pixels on the camera before you take the pictures. Getting them square though..

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  6. I never thought about seeing if the camera has that feature. Thank you for that tip. The thing cost enough, and it has a lot of features i've never used.

    Photoshop costs $800 and I don't have that kind of money. I guess I'll have to go to the camera shop in Lakewood and see what they can suggest, but they really do push Photoshop.

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  7. Thanks for reminding me, I have that same hell to attend to! I feel your pain.

    Good luck sister.
    xo

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  8. Wow. The things I learn everyday. I didn't know that they combine those. But I guess I won't know since I don't have a business. LOL

    http://brownbugz.blogspot.com

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