The last time I posted was July 11. That night a lighting storm traveled through the Klamath National Forest setting off dozens of fires. We had over 1000 lightning strikes and started the next day with about 35 fires.

Many of them are still burning.

One fire was less than a mile from my home. The Little Grider Fire was a mass of bright flames at night, and an angry brown cloud of smoke during the daytime hours. It was on the hill right next to the wooded hill I live on. I thought I would be evacuated, and had to pack all my valuables. My computer was one of the valuable things I wanted to save, so out of the house it went. I sure missed it.

Packing up made me think of backing up important data. Fortunately I had a lot of my great stuff already backed up, and plenty of time to find a safer place for the computer itself. But what if I hadn’t? What if my evacuation had to be done within ten minutes after waking up in the middle of the night? The local deputy kept giving us this possible scenario - I didn’t make it up. What then?

When writing novels, I got into the habit of sending them to myself at my Gmail account. There’s plenty of storage space and Google seems like a very trusty, reliable place to deposit information. There are other options of course, and emailing them to several similar sites might be better. For a while I uploaded all my novels to a Yahoo Briefcase account.

But sites sometimes fail or go out of business - for example, the impending demise of personal Yahoo photo galleries. I recently got a notification to get all my pictures out before they closed the doors forever. That surprised me because I’d completely forgotten I had anything there.

Some sites are created to serve as backup portals. For a while I had the software for using Mozy.Com on my computer here. I never got to use it, however, because I’m on dial-up and you need a better connection to make use of the site. There are other similar online services. A Google search will help you find them.

A lot of people would take umbrage at having all their data on someone else’s site anyhow.

My best solution is an external hard drive. I recently purchased a small 160-gig Maxtor 3200. It was easy to install. In fact, I simply connected the cords, and it installed itself on my computer. I transferred all my web design files there. Now if I have to leave suddenly, I can easily unplug the external hard drive and carry it with me. It stores all my client records, client sites, my personal sites, financial records, and everything else connected with my web design business, plus hundreds of digital photographs and my collection of novels and other things I wrote.

I still think it is best to have all these things backed up elsewhere, stored on a remote site. You could create zip files and upload them to your web design site, or could email them to yourself at Gmail like I’ve done. Or use one of the online backup services.

Another option is to burn vital information to a CD which could be stored in a fireproof safe, in your car, or even in a bank safe deposit box downtown. I find that to be too time consuming, but you might like it best.

This is all to say that if you don’t have a back-up strategy, perhaps you should have one. It could save your business from an information blackout that would be very difficult to recover from.

Someone recently emailed to ask how I billed people. I remember in the early days of my business, I had the same question. I’d never owned a business before and had no idea how to create an invoice.

And then came that fateful day when someone said they would pay me as soon as they had the bill.

“What bill?” was my first thought. And I scrambled to look for sample service invoices on the internet.

I don’t remember where I came up with this sample but I’m sure it isn’t my original creation. I’m sorry I can’t give credit to my source. It may have been one of my word processing programs.

Here’s a link to get a Word.Doc copy of the invoice I used. I’ve never had a client complain about it and can testify that it works.

Here’s what it looks like when filled out:

For invoice numbers, I developed a method. I gave each client a personal identification number, then added three digits to indicate which invoice this was. For example if ABC Construction was my customer number 43 and this was the seventh time I’d billed them, the invoice number was 043007.

Often I exported this invoice as a .pdf file and attached it to email. Alternatively I’ve sent them by mail or delivered them in person.

Keeping track of the time is another issue! I will put some information here soon about the time-tracking software I used to compute the amount I charged for hourly contracts.

It was the winter of 2001-2002. I was living right here in Happy Camp - a tiny town of about 1200 souls in the middle of the Klamath National Forest, about 70 miles from the rest of civilization. I desperately wanted to work from my home so I could be there with my two youngest children who were 11 and 12 at the time. I didn’t have a clue as to how I should earn money as a stay-at-home mom, but felt I had to do something to supplement our income.

A friend nearby, Judy, called one day and told me a workshop on starting a small business was about to be offered in our town. She worried that the event would be canceled if enough people didn’t show up.

Wanting to be a good friend, and slightly intrigued by the topic, I volunteered. “I’ll do it, Judy; I’ll go with you.” I thought it was a one or two day workshop.

The following evening at 6 pm I sat in the classroom - a small portable room behind the local elementary school. It was there I discovered I’d just volunteered for a nine-week video-conferenced class offered by College of the Siskiyous in Weed California - a college about 100 miles away. The instructor, Chris, was an employee of JEDI - the Jefferson Economic Development Institute.

Nine weeks! That was a lot more than I’d bargained for. And the class met twice weekly!

I weighed my options. Should I spend so many hours away from home, commit myself to the effort needed for success in a college class, and totally dedicate myself to it? Or should I flake out and go back to my quiet uninvolved life?

Besides Judy and I, there was one other student - a newcomer to town who wanted to open a clothing distribution website. Judy’s business was writing - she already had a part time job writing columns for a county-wide newspaper. And as for me - I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I needed to do something. Silently I decided to take the class along with Judy and our new acquaintance, Erik.

The class involved learning all the steps for writing a business plan including cash flow projections and other simple accounting procedures. But I didn’t know that then. We started at the beginning - with simple goal setting.

We were joined via video-conferencing to students in three other Siskiyou County locations. There were about six students in Yreka (population about 7000) and maybe twenty at the main campus in Weed (a much smaller town near Mt. Shasta). And in a tiny town in the north-west corner of our county, Tulelake, there were three other students. Many of the students had businesses already. Others had definite plans about what they wanted to do. And a few were like me: clueless, but willing.

I survived the nine weeks! I got through the class and at the end we were given certificates with our business names on them. I still was unsure what business idea to pursue but the instructor was so enthusiastic with my idea of a web design business, she put “KlamathDesign.Com” on the certificate. And that did it for me. Since she thought I could create a successful web design business, I decided to do it.

I purchased this domain name, and struggled to come up with a site design. I redesigned it three times before I was satisfied. And before I could officially open the business, I got a call from a local business owner who wanted to hire me for her site maintenance projects!

I’m convinced that almost anyone with web design skills can learn to offer their talents to the public. This blog will reveal all the lessons I learned in my journey to becoming a well-paid web designer. I will not only tell you what worked well for me, I’ll reveal my most painful and frustrating mistakes.

If you’re considering a career in web design, this will be a journey worth taking. And if you want to read this blog to glean the web design business tips I have to share, you’re welcome here as well. And as for you who just want to laugh at all my mistakes, go ahead. I’m writing this blog for entertainment as well as for sharing what I’ve learned.

To stay notified of updated postings please subscribe via FeedBurner - you can sign up with any news reader you like. If you don’t have a news reader yet, you might like the one I’m using: Google News Reader.

I’m also setting up an emailed newsletter - the link is at the top of the right-side column. The newsletter, Web Design Business Help From Klamath Design, will contain articles and information not included in the blog. I probably won’t send out newsletters very often - about once a month would be enough for me - but it will remind you of this blog and encourage you to check back in once in a while.

More stories of my start-up web design business efforts will appear here in days to come.

I read an article recently that helped me decide to do something I knew needed to be done. I’ve decided to change the focus of this blog. The former focus was “Free Web Design, Hosting, Browsing, Blogging, SEO, and Business Tips”. Now I’ve changed it to “Tips For Starting A Web Design Business”. I’m going to draw on my experience as a professional web designer to share information to help people wanting to set up a web design business for themselves. I want to show people who are getting started as web designers how they can organize their time and develop their talents to create a profitable business.

When I started my business a few years back, there wasn’t much information on the web focused on helping me get started. Though I knew enough about web design, I didn’t know much about starting a business, making contracts, copyright considerations, and lots of other things. I self-educated with time and experience, and got through it. Now I’ve closed the doors of that business and for the first time in eighteen years, am working outside my home for someone else. This site was converted from a web design business - to this blog.

Actually, I started blogging here in 2002, but have dropped most of the old content of that blog. It was originally started to keep track of my business development and when I moved the blog to the front page of the site, I decided the old content must go. I’m starting something new here now. I’ll be showing potential and beginning web design business owners how to get into business, find and enjoy working with clients, and prosper.

So that is my new focus, which will draw not only on my experience as a former web design business owner, but also on my skills as a paralegal and marketing analyst.

And by the way, that article that explained why I should narrow my focus is found here: Blogging in an Oversaturated Market is Usually a Poor Decision. Though there are scads of people sharing SEO and web marketing information on the web, there aren’t many web design business owners using their blogs to divulge the secrets of the trade to newcomers.