4 – Everyday Dragons

Category Archives: 4 – Everyday Dragons

Micobusiness Dreams

All Paths Lead To Etsy

Posted on January 22, 2013 at 9:00 am

Etsy Traffic Sources

Traffic to the Etsy store has died off over the past few months, due to a lack of new customs and general decline in outside marketing. But now that it’s a new year and a fresh start– time to start filling in the potholes.

As you can see the two ‘official’ model horse paths didn’t hold up to well, Model Horse Blab brought in 115 over an entire year and Model Horse Sales Pages (MH$P) brought in a measly 9. I’ve touched on this before, but I think the failure had a lot more to do with lack of time-in-chair than the venues. Continue reading →

December 2012 Balance Sheet & Yearly Review

Posted on January 17, 2013 at 11:00 am

2012 Simple Balance Sheet

The first year of any microbusiness is a bit rocky and I had my expectations set a tad high, but I think 2012 was a good learning experience. If nothing else, I got a much better handle on how Newport News expects me to behave and staying on the right side of tax law is a bonus!

Since the only thing that happened in December was the paying of Etsy Fees ($0.60) and the income that Smashwords is going to theoretically pay my someday ($11.29)… I’m going to skip the monthly sum-up and roll right into the yearly reckoning. Continue reading →

November 2012 Balance Sheet

Posted on December 5, 2012 at 6:00 am

November 2012

November was a wash, but I’d been expecting that due to NaNoWriMo. Unfortunately the lack of income paired up nicely with a whole flurry of bills, so I’m deeper into the red that I had planned to be at this point.

But on a good note, I now have an official business computer (Chromebook) and the City of Newport News can tax a real $250 computer instead of an imaginary $3,000 one. *mutter* Continue reading →

October 2012 Balance Sheet

Posted on November 5, 2012 at 6:00 am

October 2012

Another month without sales, but with two more eBooks finished, so it wasn’t a total wash. I need to sit down and get the rest of the monthly eBooks caught up and post some of the new horses to Etsy.

And win NaNoWriMo of course.

Actually the NaNoWriMo novel for this year is the rough draft of a novella that I’m hoping to serialize next year starting in January, so it a much more focused effort than past years. *pokes draft* I’ll be posting it as an eBook as well, so that folks can read it all at once if they’d rather.

Anywho, onto the carnage! Continue reading →

Designing a Simple eBook Cover

Posted on October 15, 2012 at 9:00 am

As the eBooks start to pop up in the shelves of my Smashwords store, I figured now was a good time to take a moment to go over why they look the way they do.

Unlike most of the eBooks out there, my covers aren’t very artistic– and there’s two very good reasons why:

I’m not a good enough artist to create something that shrinks well (from 1800×2400 to 71×94!)
I don’t have the money yet to pay someone that is.

Continue reading →

Crafting eBooks: eReader Formatting Headaches Away!

Posted on October 12, 2012 at 5:00 pm

What the heck Smashwords?!?

Well I thought I’d gotten the formatting right on the Saturday Story Prompts Collection : 2011.06 & 2013.06, but thanks to a review from Nickii I’ve realized I didn’t quite pull it off. (If you’re reading this Nickii, drop me an email and I’ll give you a free coupon for the next eBook in thanks! )

I followed the instructions that Smashwords provided in their Style Guide, but I must have overlooked something. As you can see by the example to the right the Meatgrinder (Smashword’s automatic format generator) seems to have gone a bit awry.

Thankfully I’ve been able to find a way to check most of the formats myself (links below)… Continue reading →

Oh Look, Another Tax… Yay.

Posted on October 5, 2012 at 9:00 am

*mutter*

Yesterday I got a personal property tax bill in the mail for ‘Business Equipment.’

Considering the main tools of my trade are little plastic horses, sandpaper, paintbrushes, paint, notebooks, pens (and index cards! )… I was confused as to where the $1k of equipment was coming from. Continue reading →

September 2012 Balance Sheet

Posted on October 5, 2012 at 6:00 am

September 2012

I finally got an eBook done! (And that seriously deserves a few dozen more exclamation points, but I’m trying to be good. … !!!)

But since it’s the first eBook, I threw it up with a coupon so that folks could download it for free until October, which will hopefully let me get any formatting errors straightened out. (I’ve got a post in the wings on that whole song and dance, but I’m still hammering out the flaws.)

Once again, I’ve ended up in the red, but I’ve still got time to reverse the bleeding… Continue reading →

Model Horse Sales Pages Listing Rotations: Take 3

Posted on September 21, 2012 at 10:30 am

Model Horse Sales Pages Ad Duration

I’ve decided to take another stab at getting the two month rotational listings up and running over at the Model Horse Sales Pages (MH$P). Although I haven’t had much luck in the past in terms of traffic to the website and the Etsy store, I figure it can’t hurt to give it one more test.

As a counter-weight, I’m also going to be posting the horses to other locations so I can test the various venues. Right now I know I’m doing Model Horse Blab, but I’m testing out some other ideas as well. (Facebook, Twitter, G+, Yahoo Groups, etc.) Continue reading →

August 2012 Balance Sheet

Posted on September 5, 2012 at 6:00 am

August 2012

Finally another month in the black, woo!

Of course it’s for a sale made last month (Little Miss Margins), but the payment took a long and winding route through the old USPS so things got a bit delayed.

Still, that’s yet another horse galloping off to new shelves and while I’m glad to see her go I’m so happy she’s found someone who loves her as much as I do! *pats her sales herd fondly* Continue reading →

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