handmade heartache... or the story of never knowing what to do

I swear I should call this blog the trials and tribulations of being a sole proprietor, and not knowing what you are doing.   Or, how artists (handmade artisans) starting out get taken advantage of.    Yesterday I didn't blog because I had a big order.   Sounds great right?  Sometimes not.   Last year, a catalog company picked out a pair of my earrings to sell.   When a catalog company wants to sell your jewelry (remember this is all handmade) you have to give them a volume discount.  This started out being ok,  because the orders were relatively small (50 pieces) but they ordered more than once so the volume discount seemed manageable.  Then they started ordering 75 to 100 pair a month.   Hurray!  my earrings are popular!  (I thought)  Then I started getting sad.   Silver prices started to soar and the other part of being in a catalog is that you are under contract to keep your prices the same for the duration of that catalog season.    They placed a last order for this catalog season of 150 pair.   Silver is now so high that I can't even afford to pick up the supplies let alone make this order.  (did I mention this catalog doesn't pay you for 30 days after receiving the order?)    I sent them an email saying that if they wanted to keep these in the next catalog I would have to raise the price.   They wrote back that they were having a lot of returns and that they would no longer be carrying these earrings.   This seems strange to me when they have ordered over 1200 pair of earrings.   They wouldn't keep ordering if they were being returned so much- right?   This is a big loss of income for me (not if they won't agree to a higher price- but still).   I sent them an email saying I would try to work on whatever kink they were having that was making the earrings be returned since they seemed to be selling so well.  We'll see how that turns out.    Anyway back to the new order.   I go to pick up the 300 earrings (150 pair) in their raw state to start work on them and it's ungodly expensive.   I get them home and 70 of them are broken already and have to be redone.   70!  that's a lot.    So I return those 70 and get to work on the next 230...   While I am working on them 100 more snap and I have to solder them back together...  I spent what should have taken me a few hours 10 hours so far on these earrings and still have to make the 35 more pair!  Already based upon the price I'm not even able to pay myself any labor on these earrings.... it's 8:45 in the morning and I am still working on the broken pairs that are here- is it too early to start drinking wine?

sterling silver spiral hoop

have I mentioned how much I now hate these earrings?    

you can see the rest of my jewelry here-  myfriendroze