Ship me outta here
/I'm behind on posting for this blog. As I go through my day I make mental notes about stuff to blog about. "Oh look, I go to all the trouble to open all the downstairs windows for the cats so they can get fresh air and they both go to the air-conditioned upstairs to sleep the day away."
Or, "How is it possible I spend 2 hours researching payment options for my website and feel at the end like I'm in the exact same place where I started, with absolutely no increase in my knowledge?"
Or (and this one is quite frequent): "Should I cut my hair or continue to let it grow out." The great debate continues. But then I never get around to posting and by the time I do, I'm thinking, "Eh, that's old news."
Okay, positive things on the marketing side. I checked out Amazon tonight and for a mere $30 (and 55% discount they take from me!) they will post my book on their site. Yea! Even though it means less money for me for every book sold through their site vs. mine, there's a level of validity that comes with having your book marketed on Amazon. Plus, I won't have to deal with shipping which frankly is just about worth giving the book away for free.
I was wigging out the other night about shipping. "How will we handle this?" I demanded of Blair who had literally just walked in the door.
"Don't worry honey, we'll get through it," he said, having no idea what I was referring to. It's a pretty safe stock answer of his.
"I mean it!" I said. "If we use PayPal does that mean we have to open every e-mail, copy and paste the shipping address into Word, print a label, print a shipping label, wrap it up and get it out the door? What sort of tracking system will we have to guarantee we don't overlook an order? We'll have to pack and ship every night to stay on top of it."
"Whoa," he said. "That's a bit much. Why don't we accumulate orders and spend one night a week shipping?"
"One night??" I screeched. "The book can already take a week to deliver! What if our shipping day is on a Friday and someone orders on Saturday? We're going to make them wait 2 weeks for their book? No way!" I'm in a lather.
"Amazon sometimes has a 4 week window for shipping," Blair pointed out.
I stopped foaming at the mouth and considered. "Hmmm...that's true."
"And it's not like we're expecting to get 500 orders a day," he said. "We'll stay on top of it. We'll handle it."
"Well," I grumped. "I guess that would be okay."
"We'll have shipping night 2 nights a week," he offered. I beamed.
--------------------------------
And I make fun of my friends for being drama queens. Lord, I must be stopped.
Okay, I have a list of things to blog about and I'm afraid of forgetting so I'll just list here to refer to later:
- Ghost Cat
- PayPal vs. bizhosting.com vs. Netfirms merchants accounts
- Squarespace.com (with a shoutout to Melody and Rachel)
- Gift Store Marketing
- How annoying Bogger.com can be with their slow download times
- cute picture I took of Lucy with my flowers
- Lucy getting ticked off that Olivia joined our game and her stalking off and refusing to speak to us
- Spooning a Cat
- Workshop and speech ideas (related to cat book)
- Why I don't really need a new laptop but have almost managed to convince myself otherwise
- Methods to my madness - staying organized
- And much more! (it's the marketing person in me. Had to add it).
I know Rachel and Melody are looking at this thinking, "She should use tada list!" It's a cool enough way to keep track of things, but I could never desert my beloved post-it-notes.
I'm giving a speech tomorrow in front of 30 Toastmasters on the topic of "Establishing Yourself As A Professional Speaker." Everyone think good thoughts for me tomorrow at 9am.
Or, "How is it possible I spend 2 hours researching payment options for my website and feel at the end like I'm in the exact same place where I started, with absolutely no increase in my knowledge?"
Or (and this one is quite frequent): "Should I cut my hair or continue to let it grow out." The great debate continues. But then I never get around to posting and by the time I do, I'm thinking, "Eh, that's old news."
Okay, positive things on the marketing side. I checked out Amazon tonight and for a mere $30 (and 55% discount they take from me!) they will post my book on their site. Yea! Even though it means less money for me for every book sold through their site vs. mine, there's a level of validity that comes with having your book marketed on Amazon. Plus, I won't have to deal with shipping which frankly is just about worth giving the book away for free.
I was wigging out the other night about shipping. "How will we handle this?" I demanded of Blair who had literally just walked in the door.
"Don't worry honey, we'll get through it," he said, having no idea what I was referring to. It's a pretty safe stock answer of his.
"I mean it!" I said. "If we use PayPal does that mean we have to open every e-mail, copy and paste the shipping address into Word, print a label, print a shipping label, wrap it up and get it out the door? What sort of tracking system will we have to guarantee we don't overlook an order? We'll have to pack and ship every night to stay on top of it."
"Whoa," he said. "That's a bit much. Why don't we accumulate orders and spend one night a week shipping?"
"One night??" I screeched. "The book can already take a week to deliver! What if our shipping day is on a Friday and someone orders on Saturday? We're going to make them wait 2 weeks for their book? No way!" I'm in a lather.
"Amazon sometimes has a 4 week window for shipping," Blair pointed out.
I stopped foaming at the mouth and considered. "Hmmm...that's true."
"And it's not like we're expecting to get 500 orders a day," he said. "We'll stay on top of it. We'll handle it."
"Well," I grumped. "I guess that would be okay."
"We'll have shipping night 2 nights a week," he offered. I beamed.
--------------------------------
And I make fun of my friends for being drama queens. Lord, I must be stopped.
Okay, I have a list of things to blog about and I'm afraid of forgetting so I'll just list here to refer to later:
- Ghost Cat
- PayPal vs. bizhosting.com vs. Netfirms merchants accounts
- Squarespace.com (with a shoutout to Melody and Rachel)
- Gift Store Marketing
- How annoying Bogger.com can be with their slow download times
- cute picture I took of Lucy with my flowers
- Lucy getting ticked off that Olivia joined our game and her stalking off and refusing to speak to us
- Spooning a Cat
- Workshop and speech ideas (related to cat book)
- Why I don't really need a new laptop but have almost managed to convince myself otherwise
- Methods to my madness - staying organized
- And much more! (it's the marketing person in me. Had to add it).
I know Rachel and Melody are looking at this thinking, "She should use tada list!" It's a cool enough way to keep track of things, but I could never desert my beloved post-it-notes.
I'm giving a speech tomorrow in front of 30 Toastmasters on the topic of "Establishing Yourself As A Professional Speaker." Everyone think good thoughts for me tomorrow at 9am.
