fyi, I spotted an article about Expensify in the business section of the paper on Sunday. I can't track down the exact article, but it sounds like something useful for people who have lots of expenses and not enough time to fill in reports.

I've considered attending the MHC a few times, but currently I don't know how I could take on much more work during the Halloween season. As it is I have 15-20 people working for me just to pull of the Universal Studios event. Still it would be fun to see what other folks are doing in smaller venues.

I have friends who go to MHC, and have a blast.

A long-shot, but that's part of what this thread is for, right? Does anyone have any suggestions for manufacturing companies (that are not sweatshops or child-labor) that will do small runs of clothing?

I'm (sloooowly) working on getting a small GCS apparel line together, and I want to start researching clothing manufacturers.

I`ve got a t shirt place! Uhh...except it is child labor! Ok, not really. It`s called Little Bluebird, named after an Apache artist who died a few years back here, and they do job skills training for White Mountain Apache kids. I`ll link it later. And yeah, I realize just screenprinting isn`t what you`re after but still.

eta: Little Bluebird

For my accounting, I use Quickbooks, which is not cheap, but it is easy. I also pay them for an assisted payroll dealio which helps me keep up with whatever latest regulations are.

Non-profits (including libraries) should check out TechSoup for donated (administrative fee, so significant discount) software from major vendors like Microsoft and Intuit.

ND, can I ask what you pay your accountant? Also, I assume you must still use software to track your expenses? I'm using Quickbooks and their payroll thing but I'm still anxious about taxes.

(I guess I should add that Quickbooks is great for all the UI and employee withholding stuff but I'm anxious about my own personal tax bill qt the end of the year. )

Not to compete with Liese, but I have another t-shirt company I like to champion - TS Designs [link] They have 3 lines of t-shirts; organic, recycled, and grown in NC. They have chickens, PV solar power, an organic garden, bees, and make biodiesel at their plant. They're working with farmers to grow organic cotton in NC. And their claim is true - run a hand across one of their shirts with your eyes closed, you cannot feel the difference between the shirt and the printed design because of the inks they use. More info about how they're different - [link]

I'll keep thinking about small scale clothing manufacturers.

My accountant bill was $400 for taxes when it was just me and I believe went up to $700 now that Pix and I file jointly.

We actually track the checking accounts in Quicken and then I have a custom built filemaker database for running the business which includes inventory for my rentals, dealing with timesheets, and invoicing and estimates. I use a payroll service for my employees so I don't have to directly deal with that and they handle withholdings and workers comp and other issues win some of the studio lots I work on. They cost me 25% above the rate the employee makes for people in the field and something like 17% for folks in the office.

The links to the screenprinters are fantastic, because that's another piece I've been thinking about.

On the clothing design front, one of my oldest friends reminded me that her niece has a degree in design, has worked for clothing companies, knows how to take fuzzy sketches and turn them into CAD files for pattern manufacturing, is currently bored out of her mind at her current job, and would almost certainly welcome an interesting side project. So! Time for me to get some sketches done.

(Oh dear, I'm going to have to source fabrics, too. Woe. Woe is me.)

Ok, need feedback.

I'm wantint my website to go live in the next week or so, and I'm doing a lot of content and infrastructural work on it.

Right now, I'd love it if some peeps could offer me feedback on my rough draft of my rates. I'm looking for feedback from both sides of the fence: writers and peeps with experience in the publishing realm, and also people looking at the rates with a potential customer's eye.

Here's what I have so far, and it's taken generally from the mid-range of the Writer's Market rates section. I went middle of the road, because, although I don't have a lot of formal samples, I have a shitton of education and experience sans samples.

Rates:

Book Publishing:

Content Editing - Scholarly/textbooks: $45/hr; $4100/project/$7 per page

Proofreading: $30/hour; $4 per page

Copyediting: $45/hr; $3700/MS; $4.50 per page

Creative Consulting/Brainstorming: $35/hour (phone or email)

Newspapers & Magazines:

Book Reviews: $250/review; $1.00/word

Copyediting magazines: $50/hour; $5.75 per page

Fact Checking: $50/hour

Research: $50/hour

Proofreading: $35/hour

Small Businesses, Entrepreneurs, Individuals:

Copy for brochures, booklets, flyers, etc.: $80 minimum; $1.21/word or flat project fees can be negotiated.

Business editing: $70/hour

Copyediting: $60; $3 per page

Newsletters, writing: $60/hour or $100/page Resume Writing: $70/hour; $250/project with 1 re-write

Social Media Postings: $50/hour

Writing:

Articles Blog post: $50 per post Website Content Editing: $60/hour; $6 per page

Internet Research: $55/hour; Academic Research: $70/hour Phone Consultation: $35/hour

Like I said, it's a rough, and I'm still not sure what to wrote for article writing, since I am willing to write articles for a lower price to get some clips and experience.

Thoughts? Too high? Too low? Ideas for organiztion?