Crazy busy and a little lazy

Lately there have been mood swings that alternate greatly. Most of it swinging low. My attempt at a nifty shopping cart software just about fried my brain. All because I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong with PayPal. Well, much to my embarassment, I fixed my PayPal issues very easily and didn't dare tell many people what stupidity was holding me back. As of this post, I have shiny new PayPal buttons on all but one of the products in my store. Yay!! Make sure to check it out at http://theapothecary.lunasgathering.com/ and let me know what you think. I'm actually kinda proud of my little shoppe. It's small for now, but everything is easy to find.

Next comes a MAJOR overhaul of the main site. As I've added new pages, the navigation went awry. Things are too hard to find. I have a new template with much better navigation. It is also more visually appealing (at least I think it is). I will post back here once the new site is ready. After that comes SEO on all of my sites. I believe I have something cool to offer. No one will know if my sites get lost in the massive sea of crap that is the internet.

Not much new to report with the Cafe Press stores. I did post a new Supernatural design a while back. I sold one of that new design just a few days ago. Sales have been slow but steady and much better than this time last year.

On the creative front, all but one of my fan fics are finished. "Final Betrayal" took forever, but the ending was well received and earned me a few favorite story and author nods. It didn't win the fan fic award it was nominated for, partly because it wasn't finished at the time of voting. My first strictly humorous one was a hit as well. Now that I only have the sequel to "What If?" languishing, my muse has two more ideas it wants me to start, one of them being a Supernatural/CSI crossover. I know it has been done, but I'd like to add mine to the mix.

Baby steps

Ok, the store is online. Well, sort of. I have pages up and some products listed. I haven't worked out the kinks in the PayPal buttons and cart. That should happen sometime during my vacation from the day job. The last couple of months there have been very draining, making work on all of my other endeavors next to impossible. I am taking 11 days off from retail and have big plans for all of them; most of it being personal stuff that has been piling up. After it is cleared up once and for all I can focus more energy on the important business stuff. All of the websites should see fresh new content over the eleven days; a whole new issue for DHQ, lots of info in the library on Luna's Gathering, and updates on farm business on Covenstead. I also hope to have a couple of new shirt designs. Then it is a matter of promotion. I have to get the word out to the right people.

On a more personal creative note, I finally finished three of my fan fiction stories, two of them for Supernatural and one InuYasha. The SPN story I've struggled with for over a year and a half, "Final Betrayal" at last has an ending. I also finished a funny one I started while stuck on Betrayal and posted the InuYasha story I wrote long before the SPN ones. I originally planned to adjust the ending. I decided I liked it the way it was and posted it. The posted ending was simple and understated, more suited to the characters as I've seen them in the show than flowery declarations of love I would've added.

A full plate

Much has been going on, though nothing is complete. With the addition of the site for Covenstead Farm, actual work on said farm, and an assist on another Supernatural site, we've been busy with very little results. Product has been ordered and mostly delivered for the upcoming shop on Luna's Gathering. The shop is under way and hopefully put online within a couple of weeks. We've planted seedlings that will hopefully become home-grown herbs for the shop. Once the basics are set in place it will give us time to work on marketing; for Luna's Gathering, the farm, and even the Cafe Press store. Then time can be taken to update the fun sites, the SPN fan sites. All in its own time. The farm and online shop must take top priority.

New design!!

Yep, time to show the newest design at Luna's Gathering. It's been in the store for about a month. It hasn't sold yet, but about half of my designs have never sold, as yet. I have about 5 designs that sell fairly regularly and a few that sell sporadically. My best seller is "WWWD What Would Dean Do?" My most recent sale was the design that simply says "really?" With set backs in getting stuff on lunasgathering.com and everyday life keeping me busy, I hadn't created a new design since the design I put up for Yule. I plan very soon to find some creative, free ways to promote my stores, as well as my websites to boost sales. Every little thing I can do to increase my chances of quitting my crap retail job, I will. Until then, gotta keep the day job. Now to the newest addition!

No more holiday craziness

With the day job and personal life taking such a huge chunk of my time, there's been precious little time to work on the business stuff. I did manage to squeeze a couple hours here and an hour or so there to make some important changes to www.lunasgathering.com. The focus of the site has officially changed from my CafePress store to a more broad audience. I don't have any of the product up or major content, but the beginnings are set. I have a snazzy new logo, the shells of most of the new pages and have removed all the excess shirt design pages. I even have the beginnings of the new site for the farm. I'll be back again soon with more details.

News and new designs

With help from my new roomies, I have about 7 new design ideas basically done and ready to upload and add to products. I've already put up two so far, one for each store. I've begun to see an increase in sales for this holiday. I was averaging about one sale a month until a couple of weeks ago. From there it was one or two a week. I am now seeing at least one a day, occasionally two. It is exciting when people choose my design over so many others. After work, I will add two more designs, possibly three. I am having a harder time coming up with original ideas for the DHQ store than for Luna's Gathering. Though right now I think the best thing for DHQ is to find ways to promote the designs I have now and worry about new designs later. Finding a way to market my designs above others is the only way I will be able to get my stores to succeed. I know the designs are solid. They just have to be seen. When there are over three thousand designs for the chosen tags and categories, there has to be another way to stand out. The designs on the first page of a search are the ones that sell. But how do you sell if you can't reach that first page? Finding the right keywords is only a small part of that conundrum. Ok, now to the news. :)

Luna's Gathering is now officially a business, registered with the state, tax ID and all. I also found a couple of wholesalers who dropship. They are suppliers of Pagan wares. I can add the items I choose to my site, take retail orders from customers, and they will ship the items directly to my customers. Pretty cool for starters. I eventually would love to have an actual storefront with space to just buy wholesale and sell in-store and online. I've also started compiling a list of good wholesalers. I think this is the only way I'll ever get a storefront. I'll have to save capital myself with an online business to start the bricks and mortar store. And I'll have to keep my "day job" so we don't starve. Things are starting to come together slowly but surely. Baby steps to success! And to the left, my newest design, appearing in my store tomorrow night.

NaNoWriMo 2008

Today was day one of NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writers Month. It is a challenge to writers to get 50k words of a story written in thirty days. No editing, no serious planning. Just lots of writing of words to get the jist of the story down. As usual, I'll be getting a late start. With so many other things going on, not much thought has gone into the new Supernatural story I'll write this year. Today I at least chose which of my story ideas to use. Now I have to decide when in the series it will take place and where. Once I have those two basic pieces of info I can start busting out the story. The spirit in this one feeds on hidden fears and insecurities. This is the main reason I have to narrow down a time frame. Each of the seasons had a whole new set of fears for both of the Boys to deal with. Though Dean's insecurities are still basically the same. I also need to choose a setting not so close to home. I don't want to end up setting all of my stories in Texas. Now to go find a good haunted college. :) The sooner I can start writing, the easier it will be to catch up from the word count deficit.