Wowzer….

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Val

Wow – haven’t posted anything here for nearly two months. Best get writing then.
Like I said before, the month before Xmas was madness here, with Elfin Diary orders coming in all the time. Now the rush is over, I can sit back and analyse the mistakes. The print bill was more than I anticipated – that was my error, I hadn’t clarified things. Not a big problem – I’ve covered all my costs and even made a small profit, but I’m going to have to raise prices. Having been thrown into the deep end and knowing nothing about pricing, I simply used the same prices that Caro had been using for at least three or four years.
Of course, I have to be careful with raising prices, especially in these times – put them up too much and people won’t be able to afford them, keep them low and I’ll be left out of pocket. So, at the moment, it’s a bit of a guessing game.
Another mistake I made was to think I could sell all the Diaries myself. It now turns out that Caro had supplied shops all over the country – I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told “I’ve always bought my Diary in XYZ shop, but they don’t have any this year”. But of course, without her list of shops I had no idea. This time, it will be different; I’m compiling a list of New Age shops and will be leafleting them all come August.
A smaller mistake was not noting the date of posting on each order form; a number of Diaries went AWOL in the post and weakly telling people “Er, I’m sure I posted it sometime last week…” isn’t good business. So a cheap date-stamper will be on this year’s shopping list.
Finally, this year the 2013 Diaries will be ready for sale in September! (Won’t they, John? :D )

It’s a lovely sunny day out right now but I daren’t go out walking. My ankle has been bothering me for weeks – Doc G says it’s probably a strained ligament, and he’s probably right (it started when I bought a new pair of boots) but it doesn’t seem to be getting any better; everytime I stop taking my daily dose of paracetamol the aching and twinging comes back. So I’m pretty much stuck indoors for the time being. Luckily the weather has been pretty awful most days. Good job, I suppose, as I have to get the 2013 D finished before May.

So, best to stop procrastinating, and get on with it!

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A Break in the Madness…

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Val

I’ve spent the whole week packing and dispatching Elfin Diaries – over 200 orders. Still got 90-odd orders to fullfill, but these are all hardbacked diaries and desk diaries, and I’m waiting for more deliveries. That wont arrive before the weekend, so I’m taking advantage of the calm to catch up on office work; there is piles of filing to be done, followed by the monthly accounting.
It’s been a mad and exhausting week – I had some stress problems, with my left ankle copying my left knee in swelling and complaining. But after that I decided to pace myself, stop flapping and panicking, stay calm. And I think I’m getting on top of this work thing now. The headaches are almost gone as well – looks like Doc G was right when he said they were stress-related.
It would be nice to have some more orders in, though. And I have to think about next year – will I put up prices, will I increase the print run, how will I advertise, get a proper list of shops together…. etc etc…. I’m in business now, got to think ahead.

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Waiting…

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Val

Well, got rid of all the first consignment of Elfin Diaries and still got hundreds of orders to fulfill. Another consignment should arrive any minute now. I’ve tidied up my desk, got all the labels and printer ready, got the order lists printed out.
So now I’m sat here just tapping my fingers.

I’ve decided to give up web design work. I never had many orders for it, never found it easy and spent all my time boning up on the latest techniques (there seemed to be new ones coming along every week). I reckon that publishing and distributing the Elfin Diary is going to be pretty much a full-time job for several months of the year at least. So I’m simplifying my (online) life, unsubbing from forums and email lists; I won’t have the time to read them all even if I was still professionally interested.
But all the work ought to be worthwhile; I’ve done the figures and the Diaries, while not making me a fortune, should be a decent little earner. After years and years of scrimping and doing without, I can’t wait to have a little spare cash.

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Posting, posting…

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Val

Too busy posting stuff to post stuff on here!

Getting the Elfin Diaries out!

Getting the Elfin Diaries out!


The first batch of Elfin Diaries finally arrived at Elfin HQ last Wednesday, and I’ve been busy packing them up and dispatching them. Being able to print the postage online is a great time-saver – I can simply print out the labels and hand the packages to the postie, instead of trekking off to the village with them.
That’s providing I manage to catch the postie on his way around the houses. This morning, I turned my back for just a minute and he was here and gone! The car is in for some minor repairs, so I had to load up the shopping trolley and practice my trekking.
Still got loads of orders to fulfill, but I’m having to wait for more Diaries to be delivered, sometime next week. Oh well…..

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Happier….

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Val

OK, so in my last post, I said I was feeling healthier.
Ha.
I promptly went down with two days of low-level thumping headaches and general unwellness. That’ll teach me.

But today’s been magnificently sunny – yippee, no rain! And I’ve been able to catch up with wurk. And of course feeling better.

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New Start…..

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Val

…Yes, I’m not posting here much lately, am I? That’s because the Elfin Diary is really taking off now – orders are coming in daily and I haven’t even had the first batch of Diaries delivered yet. If sales continue at this rate, I’m on target for breaking even; in fact, I could quite possibly make a profit!
It’s keeping me very busy – for the first time in my life, I’m running a business all by myself. I’m having to talk to suppliers and shops, engage with customers, keep accounts and records, keep a very close eye on finances and constantly stay ahead of deadlines. It’s both frightening and exciting.
Strangely, I’m not feeling at all stressed (apart from those odd moments lying awake at 4am when I wonder what the hell I’ve got myself into…) Having something to do every day, a purpose and goals, seems to have cured a lot of the generalised ennui that’s been dogging me for years. I’ve even stopped the betablockers that I’ve been taking for years. It’s now been a fortnight and I haven’t had a tachycardia attack yet. Plus I’m sleeping a whole lot better and not constantly battling tiredness. I’ll not throw the pills away; they could come in useful for stressful times.

As I said, I’m busy – too busy for doing quite a lot of things that I used to do. So I’ve decided to give up the web design work. I’ve never had a lot of web work coming in and I’m not all that good at it anyway. So I’m retiring my web design portfolio pages on here. I won’t necessarily turn work away, but I will be putting the Elfin Diary work first. That’s going to pay rather better, I think.

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Autmn Leaves…..

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Val

Been busy, busy busy. The Elfin Diary is still at the printers – should get it next week, hopefully. In the meantime, I’ve been using all those addressed envelopes I was given at Caroline’s house to send out order forms – nearly 600 of them. So far, I’ve had over 100 orders, most of them on the order forms; that’s reckoned to be a pretty good rate of return from a mass mailout. I wish I had the Diaries to send out to all these customers!
Still, that’s lots of money coming in. I’m going to need it to pay the printing bill and cover all the other expenses; postage alone has cost me over £200 and I’ve not posted out any Diaries yet. I’ve worked out that I’ll need to sell at least 500 Diaries before I start making a profit. Still, it early days – people aren’t looking to buy diaries just yet, and I’ve got an ad going into a local freebie magazine that’s distributed all over the county. And I intend to buy some Google Adwords as soon as the diaries arrive from the printers, to get more people to the website. So I reckon I can do it.
Then, of course, I have to get started on the 2013 Diary!

I’m feeling generally better, sleeping better, less tachycardia attacks. Its probably from having work to do all day – I no longer sit around getting bored and restless and fretting.
And now it’s almost the Equinox – autumn already. The leaves on the trees aren’t turning colour yet, except for the ash – that always seems to the the first. But it’s getting chilly enough to warrant putting another blanket on the bed. And then the days will shorten, night will come earlier and leave later. All these seasons – I’ve seen so many. How many more to go, I wonder?

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Balloon’s Up…..

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Val

So now the Elfin Diary site has been live since Monday, and taking orders for 2012 diaries and T-Shirts for the last 24 hours.
I’ve sent out an email newsletter to the 350 or so people on my Elfin Diary mailing list and so far I’ve had three Paypal orders. Hopefully, people will eventually be ordering by post as well; as soon as my new printer toner cartridge arrives tomorrow, I’ll be printing out copies of the order form and stuffing them into those 500+ addressed envelopes that Caroline left for me. I now owe rather a lot of money, so I need to sell this stuff! To that end, I’ve been beavering away at the site’s SEO; it’s now on the 2nd page of Google for “astrology diary 2012″, which I reckon is pretty good in such a short time.

Well, looks like I am now a businesswoman. I’ve been having to work on details like profit margins and unit prices, and working out pricing – you have to strike a compromise between charging too little (and not making any money) and charging too much (and losing customers). So far, I seem to have got the pricing thing about right and should end up making enough money to justify the work involved. And there will be quite a lot of work!

So let’s get on with it!

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Aftermath…

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Val

Yes, we got to the Camp. For us, it was not the best camping experience of our lives.
The disappointment started as soon as we arrive. Every year we park and set up camp in a particular spot next to the hedge half-way down the field. It’s one of the few completely level spots, it’s far enough away from things to get a peaceful night’s sleep, but not so far away that nobody can find us or that walking around to see everything would be a problem for me.
Beforehand, Brian had volunteered our big people-carrier as a taxi for picking up people from the bus station. Upon entry to the camp we were practically ordered to park it right by the gate instead of in our usual spot, because “we could be driving in and out all the time”. Never mind that we would only be fifty or so yards away, or that we would be sleeping in it, or that we would make sure that nobody would block us in (we’d need to go out shopping). No, we had to stick to the plan – which was that the Camp’s taxi would be instantly available at the gate, all the time.
The result was that we were well away from everyone and everything. Hardly anybody came round to talk to us – we were too far out of their way. And the extra walking for me proved ruinous to my knees; by Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t walk at all and was forced to completely miss John Barleycorn – the highlight of every Camp for me. On Sunday afternoon also, the rubbish skip arrived and was parked next to us – oh, yes, I’ve always wanted to camp next to a rubbish skip! And, to top it all, our taxi services were never called upon anyway. So we spent a lot of the weekend just sitting there, bored and ignored.
Then there were my nightly Headaches from Hell. These came on in the middle of the night and were horrific – I was retching from the pain. The first time, I thought I was about to have a stroke; after the second night, I concluded that it was my neck being cricked from sleeping on the damm airbed – the pain was radiating from the muscles at the back of my neck. Shifting my position the next night didn’t seem to help; more pillows under my head were probably the answer, but there weren’t any more.
In previous years, we’d never hurried to pack up and go on the Monday. We hadn’t wanted to leave and often stayed until the next day. This time we drove out through the gates ten minutes before noon, feeling nothing but relief that we were on out way home. We’d have gone a lot sooner if I hadn’t been disabled from a tachycardia attack and so unable to help with the packing.

I’ll have one more try at camping with the people-carrier, with lots of pillows this time to see if I still get the Headaches From Hell. But that was the last of the Camp for us.

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Another post….

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Val

So, packing for the Oakleaf Camp now and setting off in the morning.

Quite looking forward to it, but I do hope I’m not disabled with another humungous tachycardia attack like the one I had at the camp a couple of years ago. It lasted the whole of Saturday, and left me whacked out for the rest of the weekend. I’ve increased my dosage of beta blockers for the past week to try to head it off – I’ve already had a couple of short attacks. Otherwise, though, my health seems to be improving somewhat. I had my monthly blood-pressure check last week and it was a healthy 128 over 80. My damm knee has been twinging more than usual, so I’ve tried to keep off my feet. Did slip a little Tuesday night – B had gone to bed early, I was bored and restless, there was a letter to get into the post. So off I went in the dark, down to the postbox in the village and back again. The night wasn’t completely dark, but a long stretch of the road is overhung with trees, forming an almost black tunnel. There’s no footpath or verge and there’s a blind bend. So you have to take a lot of care walking it at night. I slung on my cream-coloured jacket and took a torch – I have a reflective tabard that I should really have worn but couldn’t be arsed digging it out from under all the jackets hanging in the porch. Only one car passed me the whole time, but it was on that dark bend so I was glad I had the torch to make myself visible.
The walk was otherwise completely uneventful. There was some strange noises from the bottom of the field bordering on the loch. It sounded a bit like a pair of geese quarrelling, but it could have been almost anything – foxes, badgers, deer. I’m not enough of a countrywoman to know the difference. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound scary, just natural.
The whole trip there and back took me 40 minutes; I was quite breathless back in the house, but otherwise fine. Curious to know just how far I’d walked, I got out the Ordnance Survey map and measured it; to my surprise, I found I’d walked a total of one and a half miles. I’d always thought it was only half a mile to the village, but the map said three-quarters. Fifteen years ago, I’d have managed that distance is about 25 minutes and not got out of breath; in my current state of health, 40 minutes isn’t half bad. My knee complained by the next morning, of course. But that was as I expected. And it had been an enjoyable little adventure.

Ah well, will report on the Camp next week.

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