As some of you know, I run my own book touring business as well as my blog. My business is run entirely online, by me only and I get to work closely with lots of incredible authors and arrange what will hopefully be a great tour for them to help them gain extra exposure and reviews for their books. I started Neverland Blog Tours in 2014 and it has grown more than I ever expected it will but… There are pros and cons to everything – work included and today I wanted to talk about some of them.
The Pros
- Buiilding something from scratch that’s entirely yours: This is an incredible feeling, having something that’s yours and yours alone. Something you created with your stamp on it and nobody can take that away from you.
- Responsibility: Responsibility can be hard but it also gives me a lot of pride knowing that I’m responsible for my business and therefore it motivates me to try and make it better all the time.
- Earning from your own services: Earning is good all the time – obviously – but as someone who’s had a bunch of retail jobs, earning from my business is so much more satisfying!
- Seeing your business grow: I honestly didn’t know whether my touring business was going to go anywhere. But… It did. And in the space of less than 2 years, it’s grown more than I ever hoped it would!
- Positive feedback and being recommended: I’ve had authors say to me that they’ve recommended me to others for my blog tours and thankfully, I’ve never had any bad feedback for the tours I run and it is an incredible feeling to know you run a business and a service that people like, appreciate and most importantly, want.
The Cons
- Staying on top of self-assessment forms and tax: Being self-employed is great but all the stuff that comes with it can be a bit of a pain in the arse! Having to note down every single transaction that comes and goes in your business, worrying if you’ve completed your self-assessment form in time, having to pay your own national insurance… ugh.
- Responsibility: As you can see, this point comes under both the good and the bad. Responsibility is great but it can be frightening and stressful when you realise that nobody is going to help you and everything is down to you to do, otherwise you’ll let people down.
- Having to stay on top of things when you’re going through a rough time: Sometimes, the motivation just goes and for a whole bunch of reasons this might happen. If I’m having a rough time in my personal life, I find it extremely difficult to stay on top of things but when you run a business, you have no choice.
- Inconsistent wage: I can set my own prices and services but obviously, being paid one tour at a time, the wages are pretty inconsistent. I’m grateful I’ve been able to make money by starting my own business but this can be a pain, especially when you particularly need cash!