You may have noticed that I had a bit of a hiccup in my posting schedule this past month. I wish I could tell you it was because I got inundated with awesome crafting projects. No instead I severely underestimated the sheer volume of educating myself I would have to do to get my business started legally.
At first glance every thing sounded so easy. Go get your business license, start an Etsy, eventually profit! But before I can get my business license I have to get a State Seller’s permit. Okay rad. That form was actually entirely online. That was great. Living in the future where we can get all this paperwork done at the press of a button is Great! Oh, wait, no I need to register my fictitious business name since my Etsy isn’t going to feature my legal name as part of it’s title… How do I do that?
So I look it up, and it turns out that this is the single most archaic system I have encountered in this whole process. Not only do I have to take the forms in to the county clerk’s in person (or mail it and wait a Ton of extra time), but I have to do so for four copies. One copy is for the County to keep, one is for me to keep, one is for me to give to a bank if I want to open an account under my business name, and the last one is for the newspaper. Why does the newspaper need one? Why do I have to give a copy to a newspaper? Oh, because the filing isn’t actually legal until a publicly circulated newspaper publishes my business name for four consecutive weeks.
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….
I didn’t even know there were publicly circulated newspapers anymore.
So I could have had everything finished in a single day, but no, I have to wait four weeks before I can file to get my business license.
And Summing this all up makes it sound really easy. But it took me a whole week of referencing, cross-referencing, and calling all these involved offices to make sure that I wasn’t missing a step. And half the time I Was missing a step and had to then back track. Also throw in getting link lost researching how taxes will work for me once this is finished. And suddenly a whole week went by without me posting anything at all!
I am proud to say that I have successfully navigated the forms maze and am ready to go to get my business license as soon as the county clerk confirms my fictitious business name! At last I can get back to writing and working on commissions!
Thanks so much for sticking with me guys! There are cool things on the way. This week I start scouting locations for photo shoots for my portfolio and upcoming Etsy. And I am getting started on phase two of a commission for truly epic wizard robes.
