A Time For Everything

Not book sales. A different kind of sales...

I've had an Etsy store for quite a while now. For the longest time, it had one product, and then, at some point, I decided to expand my offerings.

For the last couple years, one of my annual goals has been to double my inventory. That inventory never materialized in full.

Sure, I could have gone to all that time and effort, but I wouldn't have been able to list everything because as a public marketplace that has to manage back-end technology Etsy charges listing fees. Twenty cents per item for four months. So $.60 a year for item that may or may not get purchased. Multiply that by (currently) 41 items and that's $24.60 a year just in listing fees. Luckily I've sold enough to earn that and a wee bit more, but I can't list everything I have.

So that's a long winded way of saying I've been wanting to have my own website where I can list anything and everything I create--no listing fees for a few years now.

The two things holding me back? Sales tax to other states and a payment system...

The second one was solved recently. I think I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago in advance of the author event at the library. Getting a mobile card reader ended up being a lot easier and simpler than I expected and probably a lot simpler and easier than it was several years ago when I thought about selling books directly from my publishing website. (which I can now also do)

But there was still that pesky sales tax dilemma.

So I finally sat down a couple of weeks ago and researched it. I wasn't sure of what I found, so I reached out to a writer friend who's been gung ho on selling her books from her website for several months now. Not only that, her husband runs a business and sells products online... And she backed up my findings:

I, of course, have to pay sales tax to my own state, which I have done for several years now. I have a TIN and everything. :0) But unless I sell (a minimum of) $100K to another state (some have higher mins), I don't have to worry about collecting and remitting that tax. Woo hoo!!

Unfortunately, I don't know to set up a website hosting account, so I have to enlist the help of DH. I have submitted a help desk ticket and, in the mean time, I need to organize the patterns I have and create new ones.

I'm so excited about finally getting going with this.

Wish me luck and have a great week.

Today, Monday of the annual National Library Week, marks one year since the launch of the

Unite Against Book Bans campaign.

I'm just sharing that today.

It's important that individuals get to pick and choose what they or their children read.

This country isn't communist or a dictatorship.

Governments don't have the right. Politicians don't have the right. Professors and teachers don't have the right.

I have the right to decide. As I should have, on that and on so many other things pertaining to my life or my body.

Have a good week.

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

What started as a national endeavor and began as a way to get the message across regarding air and water pollution is now a global event each year on April 22.

This all came about when, in 1969, an oil well off the Santa Barbara coast in Southern California blew and spilled three million gallons of oil into the Santa Barbara Channel.

Earth Day's first focus was the United States, but went global in 1990.

The first Earth Day also helped get the US Environmental Protection Agency formed. As a result, clean air, clean water, and endangered species acts were all set into motion as well.

Even the Paris Agreement of 2016 has its roots in Earth Day.

Did you know that the first Earth Day remains the largest single-day protest in human history when twenty million people took to the streets as part of the day's events? Wow!

I try to do my small part by using re-usable bags at the grocery store and recycling as much as I'm able.

What about you? Do you recycle? Re-use bags at the grocery store? Own an EV?

Take care and have a have a super weekend.

The Dallas Stars have made the playoffs! But you knew that right??

*Clicking on the image will show you the largest version...

According to the chart above, created last October, the Stars had a 58.3% chance of making it to the playoffs and a less than 6.2% change of running the gauntlet of four rounds and winning the Stanley Cup.

Well. they made to the playoffs and they've secured home ice. Which means the first two games are at home to give them the lift of a hometown crowd to support them and cheer them on to early victory. DD and I have tickets to Wednesday night's second home game... :0)

Fast forward six months from the date of the original chart and there's new chart with the sixteen teams (of thirty-two) who made the cut.

Our chances of winning the Cup, today, before the playoffs even start, is 4.6%. It's not the lowest but it's close. They thing about hockey, though, is that once you're in, anything can happen. There are a lot of factors outside the players' control that help or hinder a team's progress.

Injuries to your own players or to the players of your opponent are a big factor, as is "puck luck" and the capriciousness of the officials on the ice making calls. The frustration of many teams is that the officials put the whistles away come playoffs because they don't want to affect the outcome of the games.

BUT... They affected every one of the eighty-two games that led to these teams being in the playoffs and they affect the outcome of a game by not calling penalties when penalties are due anyway. So please, for the love of the Hockey Gods, call the penalties as required.

Okay, enough of that. The officials that get assigned to the Stars' games are all going to call penalties properly. I'm putting that into the universe.

If you don't have rooting interests in another team, will you please send your well wishes and winner vibes toward our boys in Victory Green?

Many thanks!

And on a sad note, the Pittsburgh Penguins, captained by my favorite player Sidney Crosby, didn't make the playoffs for the first time in sixteen seasons. >>sad face<< That's basically Captain Crosby's tenure in the NHL...

Hope you have a great week and don't forget to:

BE LOUD while WEARing GREEN and cheering on the GO STARS!!

Have a super week.

The books are all nestled, all snug in their box, while visions of dollars dance through my head...

Okay, not really, but it would be exciting if I came home with fewer books than I left with. :0)

In the meantime, I've dug out all my stuff and have setup a facsimile of my table at home so I know what it's supposed to look like. Since I have physical books this year, it has to be a little different, so yeah--dry run.

There will more authors and probably more visitors this year since the event is being held on a Saturday during normal library hours...

That's a little nerve racking to me since, as I've mentioned before, my choice of genre is not quite as mainstream or accepted as many others... I'll have a lot of my dear friends close at hand and so I'm choosing to believe it'll all be fine.

The coordinator sent out a huge list of questions which I've been working on writing up answers to...not all of them will be used at the event, so I'll have them to utilize here or at my Goodreads presence.

On another note, I'm not happy with the printed copies of one of the books--not after spending close to $70 for twelve copies that are now "damaged."

The proof copy I received in regards to the cover was perfect. Now the placement of the title and author name on the spine left something to be desired and Amazon had no way for me to fix it.

So I ended up just deleting both and asking DD to print me some, let's just say, labels on her Cricut. But when I got the new actual copies, the cover image was skewed and bits of the illustrated frame were cut off during the trimming process. UGH.

I wonder if the removal of the text shifted the image somehow...but how? Or why? Not that it matters at this point, so not only am I unhappy, but I'm disappointed.

Now the physical book I received from Draft2Digital looks great. Their system took care of all the logistics. The front cover looks super as the cover image is lined up correctly with the edges of the spine. The title and my name are properly centered on the spine...

So, probably needless to say, but moving forward I'll be getting physical books from D2D.

I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be for Saturday's event.

Have a great weekend.