THammid introducing myself

[THammid]

Hello. I'm very glad to find this forum. I haven't looked around too much yet and I want to get more of a feel for the culture here before diving into the substantive threads. I expect that more about myself and my business will emerge through posts and responses.

Briefly, I have been a photographer for over 3 decades and I have found an author with whom I put together an ebook. We seem to have similar values and perspectives on fairness and flexibility and we have come to agreement about some fundamentals of our project and business relationship. We have no written agreement yet and we know how important that is to execute asap.


My initial reason for joining this forum is to seek advice on what business structure we should start with given our circumstances which follow. Geoff, the author, lives in Vancouver, B.C. and I live in Los Angeles. Our product is a DVD that contains our ebook and in the near future we will offer it as an online download.


The book is oriented toward the jewelry industry, an arena in which we both have lots of contacts and some substantial recognition. We have sent the book for review by several of these people and have received extremely good results that we believe to be mostly objective. This has helped to bolster our confidence that we will have at least reasonable success.


Some questions we face are as follows:


-What entity should we create in which we conduct this business?


-If we create an entity, such as a corporation where should the entity be located? Canada? What proovince? USA? What state?


-What system should we create to receive income and by what method should it be distributed? We have a profit percentage agreement but we do not know how to set it up practically and most cost effectively.


-Where should we produce our product(s)? The cost of production is roughly equivalent in the two cities so other expenses such as shipping and tax liability, among others, are important to consider.


Lastly, I am eager to comply with the suggestion to create my Signature File but I cannot find that form within the Settings area. Please direct me where to find it. Thank you.


THammid

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Tino. I'll answer the easy question first. To create a signature start by clicking on Settings in the upper right on any page when you're logged in. Then look to your left. You should see a section called My Settings. Toward the top of that section you should see a link to Edit Signature and once you click it you should have a window on the right where you can add a signature.

Next congratulations on the ebook. Sounds like a great project with a good partner. As for a business entity I would think either a partnership of an LLC would be the easiest thing to set up. The difficulty might be in you both being in different countries. I'm not sure how that would work. It might make sense to look into the pros and cons of forming in each country. I would think there are different taxes and regulations and one might be more favorable than the other.

If you form the business in the U.S. I'm pretty sure it'll need to be in the state where you live or at least one where you can prove residence. It should be in the state where you pay taxes. I'm not sure how it would work in Canada.

Is there a reason you're starting with a DVD to sell the ebook? I would go directly to the online download. Do people even buy ebooks on DVD? My computer doesn't even have a DVD drive so you'd be eliminating me as a customer Keep in mind that there are likely people who will buy your book to download on a tablet or phone who might not have a computer. It's also going to cost less to set up online that to produce the DVDs and ship them. It's really going to be much easier and less expensive to sell online.

To sell you'll want to set up a bank account for the business and sign up with some company that can collect credit cards and send money to your account. In the past that meant a merchant account, but now there are other options. PayPal is obvious one, but companies like Square offer similar service. Some companies that sell accounting software like Intuit now also offer payment processing services. PayPal will be the easiest to set up, but the other companies have their advantages. You'll probably want want that can be incorporated into a website.

Hopefully I answered your questions or at least some of them. I probably raised a few more for you as well.

Welcome again and thanks for joining the community.

[THammid]

Thank you for your reply and your advice. I guess I'll consult an accountant or a tax attorney for advice on the type of entities that would best suit us and where to do it.

Your observation about DVD v. download is well taken and Geoff and I will be discussing that for sure. I was under the impression that most mobile users have their devices synced with a primary computer which most likely has an optical drive. However, it still may be an unnecessary limiting factor. I'm sure we will be pushing the progress of setting up the downloads at a high level of priority.

We are already set up with both PayPal and Square for our own account. However, since we have not yet set up a business entity I'm sure that we will immediately set up those methods of payment when the entity's bank account is set up.

I'll search around the forum for tips about these and other concerns before I do much else.


Welcome to the forum Tino. I'll answer the easy question first. To create a signature start by clicking on Settings in the upper right on any page when you're logged in. Then look to your left. You should see a section called My Settings. Toward the top of that section you should see a link to Edit Signature and once you click it you should have a window on the right where you can add a signature.

Next congratulations on the ebook. Sounds like a great project with a good partner. As for a business entity I would think either a partnership of an LLC would be the easiest thing to set up. The difficulty might be in you both being in different countries. I'm not sure how that would work. It might make sense to look into the pros and cons of forming in each country. I would think there are different taxes and regulations and one might be more favorable than the other.

If you form the business in the U.S. I'm pretty sure it'll need to be in the state where you live or at least one where you can prove residence. It should be in the state where you pay taxes. I'm not sure how it would work in Canada.

Is there a reason you're starting with a DVD to sell the ebook? I would go directly to the online download. Do people even buy ebooks on DVD? My computer doesn't even have a DVD drive so you'd be eliminating me as a customer Keep in mind that there are likely people who will buy your book to download on a tablet or phone who might not have a computer. It's also going to cost less to set up online that to produce the DVDs and ship them. It's really going to be much easier and less expensive to sell online.

To sell you'll want to set up a bank account for the business and sign up with some company that can collect credit cards and send money to your account. In the past that meant a merchant account, but now there are other options. PayPal is obvious one, but companies like Square offer similar service. Some companies that sell accounting software like Intuit now also offer payment processing services. PayPal will be the easiest to set up, but the other companies have their advantages. You'll probably want want that can be incorporated into a website.

Hopefully I answered your questions or at least some of them. I probably raised a few more for you as well.

Welcome again and thanks for joining the community.

[patrickprecisione]

Welcome! A new business venture is always exciting. Have you set up a website for the ebook and DVD? I'd love to check it out.

[Harold Mansfield]

First of all, Welcome to the forum.


I was under the impression that most mobile users have their devices synced with a primary computer which most likely has an optical drive.

Where did you get that impression? Sure, SOME people many have their mobile devices connected that way, but most don't because they don't know how. The average user is not web or tech savvy. However, if you are targeting a tech savvy audience then you may want to make the assumption....but I wouldn't alienate everyone else and intentionally make your possible market smaller.

Drives aren't as prevalent as they used to be. Some new laptops don't even have drives anymore, nor do tablet conversions, and desktop sales are in the toilet..even though people like me still love them.

So I agree that using any disk as your only distribution media is kind of the same as putting music on a CD. Sure, many people still have CD players, but they aren't still buying them like they used to because they aren't as neccessary as they used to be. The last time I actually put a disk in something was probably 3 years ago.

[THammid]

Hi Patrick. Yes, I have now set up my post Signature including the web site below.


Welcome! A new business venture is always exciting. Have you set up a website for the ebook and DVD? I'd love to check it out.

[vangogh]

I just want to echo what Harold said. Don't make assumptions about what kind of devices people have or how well they can use them. If I had to guess I would think a product geared toward the jewelry industry isn't targeted toward the high end of tech-saviness. As someone who has mobile devices and reads a lot of ebooks on them there are 2 general ways I get the ebooks.

1. I download them directly from a store like Amazon, Barnes&Noble, or the iBooks store.
2. I download them to my computer and transfer them to my devices.

The amount of times I've started with a DVD is exactly 0. I would think most people getting ebooks are going with option 1 above. There are more than enough books in the major stores that no one one really needs to look elsewhere. Option number 2 leans toward a more tech-savvy crowd, though I don't think you have to be super tech-savvy to move a book from computer to mobile device.

Offering a download is going to be easier and less expensive for you and easier for your customers.

[THammid]

Thank you Harold and vangogh. I see your points and will get on it. Now that you've spelled it out your perspectives make a great deal of sense to me.

THammid

[vangogh]

Glad we could help. Let us know if you have more questions. As you can see we're not shy about offering opinions.

[Gabe]

Hi Tino. Looks like you're already experiencing how valuable this community is, welcome to the forum.

[THammid]

Thank you Gabe.