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Resources for Your Business
Even if they're not opening/managing their own proofreading and/or copyediting business, everyone is looking for something. That's basically what makes the Web so popular: it's a relatively broad, home-based tool for uncovering information on just about anything.SEARCH ENGINES AND DIRECTORIESThe down side, of course, is that there's so much information out there, you need a focused reference site to find focused material. Most of the broad, keyword-based search engines bring back so much junk that it takes hours to sift through the possibilities to find really useful sites.
This page is dedicated to finding links for writers and editors alike that will help them start, build, and/or grow their businesses with as little wasted time and effort as possible.
I solicit your help in populating this page. It will be continuously under construction for that reason, and I hope you will send me links (and your experiences with them) to include here for others' benefit.
Speaking of searching the Internet for information, there are a few places where your results won't be a waste of time. These places limit the number of responses from the same domain so you'll only get 1 response instead of a dozen or more from the same site�usually one you're not really interested in.FINANCES
Now, here's a subject close to every heart. Nobody wants to go broke and nearly everyone is looking for ways to improve the financial horizon. That's why people get jobs and start their own businesses! Starting up your own business can get tricky if you don't make the right moves early on.ONLINE E-MAIL SERVICESYou can make life a lot easier on yourself if you separate your personal finances from your business finances at the start. Mine is a service business. I get paid to give my opinion about a Web site, document, or manuscript and to make suggestions and give examples to improve the project. I am a sole proprietor, a business owner: I am my business. The way Uncle Sam looks at this is that I must declare all income from my business as personal income, and I can deduct the expenses of running my business from my personal income. It therefore behooves me to make sure I know what's a business expense and what isn't.
The easiest way to keep it all straight is to open up a special bank account for the business. All income from the business will be deposited to this account, and all expenses for the business will be subtracted, via check, from this account, having been categorized on the check stub or in the check "comment" area to match the various business expense categories detailed on IRS FORMS. ( Click here for Schedule C, which lists the various expense categories.)
When tax time comes around, you add up all your deposits for the year and you have your income, then sort your checks into the various categories and add them up, and you have all your business deductions. Voila! The simplest bookkeeping system in the world.
Of course, if you want to keep track of how much money comes from where, that'll happen on the billing end of your bookkeeping system, where you interact with the clients instead of where you interact with the bank, yourself, and Uncle Sam. You can set up a simple bookkeeping system in your word processor, spreadsheat, or database program, or you can purchase bookkeeping software that'll keep track of everything for you, on both ends of the spectrum, making it a snap to file your taxes.
PAYING YOURSELF
You can either write yourself a check or arrange to make electronic transfers of funds to your personal account to pay yourself, but don't write checks on the business account for personal expenses. Is it illegal? No. Will it mess up your simple accounting method? You betcha! And, if you screw up, will Uncle Sam catch you? Need you ask? If you're anything like me, you KNOW that, while the IRS can't seem to catch the big money cheaters, it's right on top of the little guy who makes an honest mistake. Oh, the gov. may wait a couple of years so they can suck a little interest out of you, but they'll get you, and they'll charge you penalties besides. As far as they're concerned, there's no such thing as an honest mistake.
Taking things in order, we'll start with some links for setting up a workable banking system. You can save yourself some hassles if you set up an online bank account. Why? Because transferring funds electronically is generally faster than calling the bank (if you have that option) and transferring funds, and definitely faster than going to the bank and doing it yourself. Is it scary? That depends on how much money you make and how your "store" it.
About half of my income comes in through PayPal, and I make regular electronic transfers between my PayPal account and my business account. When the business account reaches a certain amount, I transfer the funds to my personal account, which is offline. All these are "one-way" transfers. I have not set up transfers from my personal account to my business account, or from my personal account to PayPal, so noone can suck my funds out of my personal account electronically. I leave enough money in the business account to pay business expenses via check. It works out very well.
The other half of my income comes through the mail in the form of checks and money orders, which I take to my local bank and deposit into my business account, from which I transfer funds to my personal account. I happen to be lucky enough to belong to a financial institution that has several different designators for a single account, so I can keep my business and personal funds separate by depositing to the designator that I use for business and then transferring to personal designators. No extra accounts or fees are involved.
ONLINE BANKING
If your bank isn't "online", shame on your bank. Most are. Before opening any account, it is good practice to read the fine print, not just the interest they'll return. You'd be amazed at the ways banks find to "fee your interest down". For instance, many banking institutions (as well as other companies) allow you to pay your bills online or by phone. Amazingly, some charge a fee for that "service". For credit-card-providing banks, this is just another way they can slow down your payment so you'll be sure to be late twice in a 6-month period and they can jack your interest rate up to 25%. For instance, when I realized a mailed payment might not reach them in time, I called Bank of America Visa to pay my bill over the phone before it was due. They charged me $5.00. Presumably, since Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions (electronic transfers of funds) are free, this was a penalty for having my checking account with a credit union where I receive higher interest (considering interest rates, minimum balances, and fees together) than Bank of America bank accounts pay. The upshot was that it raised my credit card's interest rate for that month by about 6%.
Beware of the methods financial institutions use to make more money. You have to subtract all those fees from the interest they actually pay you to figure the real interest rate of your bank account.
U.S. TAXES
You are entitled to avoid paying any more tax than you have to, as long as you don't try to avoid paying taxes that you are required to pay. A good way to figure it out is to read the tax forms and instructions themselves. Click the links below for some of the forms/instructions pertinent to small business taxes.
IRS forms & publications
IRS business forms
IRS small-businesses forms
Schedule C instructions
Schedule C, which lists the various expense categories.
Schedule C-EZ for those who have fewer than $5,000 in expenses and meet a bunch of other criteria.If you're not comfortable with your level of understanding of these forms, you can hire a tax specialist or use tax software (my personal choice). Depending on the size of your business, how much money you make, and the amount and complexity of your expenses, a tax consultant can cost the same as software or much, much more. I like software because I can take it with me and it gives dependable ongoing results, sucking information from previous years' files. I'm also convinced that tax consultants use this software anyway, so why would I pay them to do what I can do?
Here's the IRS's home page.CREDIT CARDS
It's a foregone conclusion that if anybody needs to purchase anything on the Web, it's easier if you have a credit card. These days a debit card will work just as well if it carries the MasterCard logo, though many people (and I'm one of them) don't want to take the chance of opening up their checking accounts to possible fraud.
If you have a lousy credit history, it may be difficult for you to get a credit card, but you should be able to qualify for a low-balance or secured card.
If your credit history is average-to-good, you should be able to qualify and probably already have one or several credit cards.
MBNA America is my favorite CC company. I've been with them since the early 90's, and over the years they increased my credit limit until they had given me too much credit, which I could have asked them to lower, but didn't because I liked having that pad for emergencies. I did, however, recently close my account because they changed their "rules" by raising my current negotiated lower rate and warning that they will raise your APR to 25% if you miss or are late with 2 payments in 6 months. The only way I could avoid the almost 12% rate was by closing the account. If you don't mind the rate or pay off your account every month, however, these are the people to see. Why? Because their online system includes the ability to create "throwaway" account numbers to give to online (or offline) merchants. You can assign them as a one-time purchase or give them a specific period of activity. This insures not only that they aren't likely to be used for something you didn't authorize by the merchant, but that no one can give the number to another merchant for purchases�MBNA won't authorize purchases for any other merchant. There's no easier way to spot a "crooked" merchant than when it's the only one that was given an account number that's being misused!
Oh, yeah: like most cc companies, they give low introductory rates that balloon after the introductory period. One thing to remember, though, is that once you've been with them a while, if you don't like your "ballooned" interest rate, they will negotiate a lower rate with you when they know you can get a cheaper rate elsewhere (which is why I stuck with them for so long in the face of all the low-interest-rate offers I've received). They probably figured I'd accept the latest rate hike and stick with them to keep my high credit limit, but they were wrong! Even a few months at a much higher interest rate can be devastating to some financial situations. Still, I highly recommend them for full functionality, ease of online use, and security. Click here to go to MBNA America's Web site. Even if you don't get approved, all it will cost is a couple minutes of your time.
Seriously, if you don't have a credit card, your hands may be tied when you come across that MUST-have item on the Internet that you can't find at your local stores.
If you have good credit, protect it. If you have bad credit, clean it up.
These days, if you join almost any Internet service, you get free e-mail. However, I've found the following services to be particularly useful. Some offer special filtering; some offer the ability to read e-mail from several accounts in one place. Some offer to "alert you when a message arrives." Most offer the ability to download messages to your hard drive.ONLINE WEB-SITE HOSTS:Bigfoot Bigfoot is probably the original free e-mail forwarding/compiling/filtering service. No matter how often you move around and change ISP e-mail providers or if you have several e-mail accounts, you only need to give out one e-mail address that will be good for life�until it becomes a spam magnet. Fortunately, they have at last developed a hatred for spam and, for a price, will probably cut yours by 50% or more. They have also added an online e-mail hosting function, rather than being just a forwarder/compiler/filter to some other e-mailbox.
Yahoo! Mail Access your e-mail from any computer that has internet access, and be alerted when new mail arrives by signing up for Yahoo!Messenger as well (also free). All Yahoo functions become available to you when you sign up for Yahoo! Mail.
The "neatest" of Yahoo's functions, in my humble opinion, is Yahoo! Companion. It's a browser plug-in toolbar that allows you to access all Yahoo! functions from your browser rather than from the Yahoo! site.
They deal with spam in several different excellent free ways, but what I consider their best anti-spam product will cost you only $19.95 a year in the Yahoo!Plus program. It allows you to generate a "throwaway" e-mail address (using a base- and keyword combination) for each person/site to whom you give your e-mail address, all of which are delivered to your "real" Yahoo! account. Then, when a throaway address starts attracting spam, not only can you just shut it down without shutting down your entire e-mail account, but you also know who generated the spam by giving away, renting, or selling their e-mail list with your address on it.
This function also makes it easy to regularly change addresses that are automatic spam-magnets, like the address you must use to register your URL. I use a keyword with digits (indicating the creation date) appended to the keyword. When the spam starts looking like it's going to overwhelm me, I shut down the address and add a new one using the same keyword but different date digits. This allows me to determine how long it is taking for the harvesters to pick up the new address. I recommend this for anyone who regularly registers at sites that demand an e-mail address but spam the dickens out of you (or your spam mysteriously increases) once you register.
Hotmail Access your e-mail from any computer that has internet access. Access mail from other kinds of accounts. But I can't comment on how much help this company provides for spam. Since MSN took it over, it's better at fighting spam and spammers than it used to be, but it's still the original spammer's delight�both for sending and receiving. It was so bad that many online services won't accept hotmail addresses when you attempt to register. Spammers generate e-mail addresses if they cannot harvest them, and they start with @hotmail.com because it's the oldest, best-known, and probably largest of the free e-mail services.
HINT: If you want to find out who's abusing your e-mail information (selling/giving it away), open a free e-mail account for each e-zine you receive and each bulletin board or usegroup you post to. The ones that fill up with spam indicate lists that are not protecting your info, or the ones frequented by spammers harvesting addresses. You can then resign/unsubscribe from the group/e-zine and close the free account, or just close the free account and open another to which you can transfer your group/e-zine subscription until the next time your mailbox fills with spam. Of course, if you subscribe to 20 or 30 zines/lists/usegroups, it could be cumbersome remembering and logging into and out of all those accounts ;^>! I, personally, don't have time to participate in more than 1 or 2 groups at a time. But now that I use Yahoo! throwaway addresses, tracking e-mail is a lot easier/faster, and if I had the time I wouldn't be afraid to join more groups.
Angelfire Angelfire is as complete and flexible a free web site host as I have found (I have had 4 different free web-site hosts�though I haven't looked lately). Unfortunately, it is no longer free. Fortunately, it is only $4.95/month for a basic, do-nothing-special web site.SITE BUILDING AND ENHANCEMENTS:Tripod Tripod was not as flexible as Angelfire or as "user friendly"; however, it has improved since Lycos took them both over. It's an altogether interesting and powerful free host . . . at least I think it's still free.
Building a Web site seems an overwhelming job to many, but it is only as hard as the type of site you want to build. A common informational site like this one isn't hard at all. The coding is fairly easy to learn, and the real star of the site is the value of the content, not the acrobatics it will do.SITE PROMOTION:Below are some resources you'll find enlightening.
HTML with Style Internet.com's Webreference
Language Translation Service Language translation by human translators. High quality translation at excellent prices.
HTML Background Color SelectorTest your color scheme before you blind your viewers.
Learning the www Use this list of links to learn more about publishing on the Web.
HTML Goodies HTML-, Javascript-, and CGI-specific instructions
Web Design Links Someone else's site-building links
Web Resources Graphics, animated gifs, tips, and much more
LE FastCounter LinkExchange's FastCounter counts visitors to your web page without slowing it down.
Search Engine Watch will show you how search engines rank sites as well as how to search smarter.Access Business Online is a powerful business tool that contains news, directories, classifieds, articles, databases, international buyer-seller connections, and BizWiz!
There is a lot of information on this site. Different visitors will find different information useful, and I'm sure no visitor will care to read it all. For that reason I will attempt to provide clearly identified links to information of interest to specific classes of readers. If you want to contact me, please follow the instructions below. If you find this site useful, please tell your friends using the popup form triggered by clicking on this button:
Navigation and Contact Info:
Contact Person: Lynda Karr (FYI: Mrs., but we don't stand on ceremony around here.)
Contact Preference: E-mail--see instructions below.
Confidentiality
All communications of any type with A Last Look are private and confidential, and may not be stored by any means or shared in any manner with anyone else without the written permission of Lynda Karr. Communications from you are accorded the same rights. Your e-mail address is never shared with anyone else without your express permission except as demanded by the law. If you receive a communication from me by mistake, you may not use anything in it for your personal gain or for the personal gain or detriment of others, and you should notify me at once, delete the communication, and ignore its contents.Message Instructions: I'm eager to hear from you, but thanks to UCE/SPAM and address-harvesting robots, I had to devise a method of masking my e-mail addresses and/or weeding out serious inquiries from junkmail. My method is to (1) provide a new e-mail address whenever spam overtakes me and (2) provide subject lines for you to use that robots can't use.
(1) If you don't need me now but think you might in the future, bookmark this page and come back here to click on the current e-mail address when you need me. Once you become a client/networker, you'll be given my permanent address.
(2) To enable my e-mail program to filter your message properly, please type or copy-and-paste one of the following subject lines into the subject line of your message. I look at messages with these subject lines first and the rest of my messages when I get around to it. Once I become familiar with your address, you won't need to worry about this step.
I may need a proofreader and/or copyeditor.
I am a proofreader and/or copyeditor.
I'd like to be a proofreader and/or copyeditor.
I have a comment about A Last Look and/or your Web site.Then click on the "Send e-mail" link.
Once you've clicked on the link, your e-mail program will pop up. Right-click in the Subject line, and click paste to enter the subject line you chose from those above (or just type it in). Then, compose your message including how I should address you in my response, at least your general location (city, time zone), a phone number at which you can be reached in case e-mail ceases to work, and a short outline of what you are hoping to accomplish. If you are requesting a free estimate, please attach your project file(s) or a file containing a few pages from the middle of your project.
Send e-mail
To send a personal message, write a subject line that includes the name I would know you by, like "Do you remember Lynda Sandford, from Maple Shade, NJ?", and click on the following link: Hi, LyndaHaving trouble? If mailer daemon returns your message or if the links above don't appear to work for you, send your message directly to me at dzntwrk (means the link or your e-mail "doesn't work") @alastlook.com, but please don't forget the subject-line instructions above.
If you are a potential client and do not receive a reply from me within one business day, it may be because your e-mail host treats mail from Yahoo.com as spam. Check with your provider to see if placing my yahoo address in your filters or address book will negate that block. If so, send me a message telling me that, and I'll send you the yahoo address to put in your filters or address book (via my ISP e-mail, currently handtechisp.com). If putting my yahoo address in your program won't work, please resend your request, and tell me your e-mail host won't accept yahoo mail. Hopefully your e-mail host will accept mail from my ISP. I move around a bit and my ISP can change, so I prefer to use stable, continuous, able-to-be-reached-from-any-computer Yahoo.
If you are a potential networker or newbie/wannabe, you won't hear from me until network activity increases and I am once again accepting applicants or I have new pages on the site that may be of interest to you. I will keep your information on file for that purpose and that purpose alone.
Thanks so much! I look forward to hearing from you, even if it is to complain about my site (grin)! If you know what you want and I know who you are, you can use the following buttons to fund your retainer.
$15.00 (one hour of my time) $25.00 Retainer $50.00 Retainer $100.00 Retainer $500.00 Retainer
