This is inserted because of a thread in another forum at this site.
A bunch of us here sell pen kits,blanks & such so here is a little comparison.
First let me say this is not a complaint if it were I'd get out of the business. It is offering a taste of reality (if reality exists) to pen makers.
I commonly see people say "start at three times what you spend for materials". I can't speak for Ed, Roy and others but I'd love to do that and can assure you that I don't "start" prices at 3 times what I pay my supplier because you won't pay that much for most of the things that I sell. Maybe the larger sellers can buy in sufficient volume to do that, but most of us selling here can't.
They then say "add a fair wage for your time". I also don't get to say "Well my time is worth $20.00 per hour and I won't take less than that" (even though in my career job I was making about twice that 22 years ago). I think if we said that we'd all be out of business.
Additionally, your time, if you are a sole proprietor, according to the IRS is worth absolutely zero. Your pay is your profit, if any, for the year, that's what you pay tax on including the payroll tax. In fact, you can't pay yourself a wage which is a good thing because if you could you'd need to deduct income and payroll taxes from it and couldn't subtract expenses. It might eliminate profit from your business but you'd be worse off.
The point is:
A) If you are making pens strictly as a business, you will price your pens to make a profit and if you can't sell enough pens make a profit you'll get out of the business.
B) If you are making pens as a hobby and want to off set your costs you will sell your pens for any price you feel like because any income from pen sales does offset some costs.
C) If you are an (A) maker you have no reason to expect that the (B) maker really cares one iota whether or not you can charge what you'd like to charge to make the profit you'd like to make.
A bunch of us here sell pen kits,blanks & such so here is a little comparison.
First let me say this is not a complaint if it were I'd get out of the business. It is offering a taste of reality (if reality exists) to pen makers.
I commonly see people say "start at three times what you spend for materials". I can't speak for Ed, Roy and others but I'd love to do that and can assure you that I don't "start" prices at 3 times what I pay my supplier because you won't pay that much for most of the things that I sell. Maybe the larger sellers can buy in sufficient volume to do that, but most of us selling here can't.
They then say "add a fair wage for your time". I also don't get to say "Well my time is worth $20.00 per hour and I won't take less than that" (even though in my career job I was making about twice that 22 years ago). I think if we said that we'd all be out of business.
Additionally, your time, if you are a sole proprietor, according to the IRS is worth absolutely zero. Your pay is your profit, if any, for the year, that's what you pay tax on including the payroll tax. In fact, you can't pay yourself a wage which is a good thing because if you could you'd need to deduct income and payroll taxes from it and couldn't subtract expenses. It might eliminate profit from your business but you'd be worse off.
The point is:
A) If you are making pens strictly as a business, you will price your pens to make a profit and if you can't sell enough pens make a profit you'll get out of the business.
B) If you are making pens as a hobby and want to off set your costs you will sell your pens for any price you feel like because any income from pen sales does offset some costs.
C) If you are an (A) maker you have no reason to expect that the (B) maker really cares one iota whether or not you can charge what you'd like to charge to make the profit you'd like to make.