Now that we’re into November and it’s the last month of blog posts, I thought I’d just touch on a few writerly business things that could help anyone reading them.

When you take on the role of author or writer, there are so many business issues to deal with, such as taxes, do you want to be a business, will you need an ABN and website, do you need ISBNs for your books, will you set up a publishing house for them, etc. 

So today, I thought I’d do a quick post about taxes.

Here in Australia authors come under Special Professional, income averaging for authors. 

Now, something I’ve recently found out while getting my taxes ready, is that if you sell on a book site that’s not your own, and other companies sell your product, Amazon, Kobo etc, then you DO NOT pay GST on royalties earned. You do need to deal with the whole 5% treaty with the US and the IRS however, but if you set that up yourself then you’ll have no issue. Otherwise, your accountant will have to deal with it.

If you DO sell your books on your own website, then yes, you will need to pay the GST on sales over $75,000 AUD. Even if it’s as little as $1.

You just need to make sure you have the right accountant for all of this, and that they know about the income averaging. I had to sort this out with my accountant last week. When I first got my Australian Business Number (ABN) it was for my jewellery company and in that name. But now that I’ve set up a publishing house (more on that in two weeks) I needed to change things around a little.

So, decide what you want to do and make sure you’re doing it right!

With my birthday being last Sunday and turning the ripe old age of 43, not only did I think this was a timely post, but I would also like to mention my weight loss to date of 2stone/28pounds/13kgs in about four months. You can read the whole sordid weight loss journey over on my style blog, Jewel Divas Style.

Let’s move on with this costly post…see what I did there…

Sometime last year I somehow came across blog posts from authors who were doing book tours and what they charged for a visit. Reading on, I found lists that they compiled of what they charged for and one author suggested adding the cost of your child caring time, your housework time, your time away from writing, basically everything that your visit would be taking you away from. And then there was the time needed beforehand to prepare and get ready, the cost of petrol to drive there, the air flight to fly there, the hotel stay etc, etc, etc.

So I thought about this and many a year ago after I did my styling course I was going to set up a style business off my jewellery business and planned out a pricing guide. That of course didn’t come to fruition but I was considering what my hourly rate was going to be.

Obviously since 2013 things have changed. I’ve written more over the last two years and my jewellery has been pushed to the back of the bus. My jewellery store is on holiday more often than not because I just couldn’t deal with it all. At least I don’t have to package my books and send them off. People can just buy them online and download them to their device.

But more about money. I decided to try out the author’s suggestion of dividing up my time and what I would be taken away from, so I’d know what to charge for and came up with this plan…

What I Do…

Run a business and all it entails.

Care for parent and all it entails.

Run a household and all it entails.

Broken down into detail…

1 – Jewellery Creation: time spent on finding and buying beads, findings and everything else, creation of pieces, making full collections.

2 – Book Creation: handwriting of books, typing of books, editing, creation of covers and interiors to produce complete book.

3 – Business Management: taking pictures of jewellery and books, uploading of jewellery or books to sale sites and spending time filing descriptions, covers, interiors, publishing, blogging and social media, paperwork, research, web management and all that entails.

4 – Caring Management: appointments, calls, doctors, medications, home care and anything else that comes up.

5 – Household Management: calls, appointments, tradies/housing trust, housework (cooking, cleaning, dishes, washing etc), and anything else that comes up.

Now originally when I had set a cost for my styling business I was going to charge $60 for the first hour and then $180 for each hour after. But after what’s happened to me and the amount I’m working all day if I needed to be taken away from this then my time had better be worth it. So I came up with this…

First hour, $1 per minute per each item, so that’s $1 X 5 items = $5 X 60 minutes = $300 for the first hour. Each hour after it’s double that at $600 per hour. Now that may be a bit rich for some but seriously, I do the one job the rest of my siblings don’t do…LOOK AFTER THEIR MOTHER!!!!!

So quite frankly, I’m worth it. My time is worth it, and my bloody energy is worth it. If you can’t afford me, don’t ask me!