Piece Work

I've been doing HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) at Mechanical Turk, which is part of the evil Amazon empire. You won't get rich doing this, but if you have about an hour a day to fart around, you can pick up an extra $25 or so a month.

It's like this, y'all

I'm having to streamline.

Fuck ebay, they've never done shit for me other than make me pay fees. I haven't sold shit through them. It's a pain in the ass to list your items. Waste of my damn money and time!
That's the first thing I'm cutting out. And I am unanimous in this. Seeing as I am the only voting member of my board.
Back when Phil Harvey was first starting Adam and Eve, the adult industry was still new and a bit taboo. Adam and Eve is a huge hit and I am proud to be one of their affiliates. My other adult web store that I pay $60 a month in hosting fees for has gone nowhere. I think I need to cut my losses.
I will keep the Dandy Yank store and the dollar store.
I'm going to quit while I'm behind with the Amazon web stores. You can get what's called an a-store for being an Amazon affiliate which I am. I need to be cutthroat rather than sentimental about this. Especially considering what a huge corporation Amazon is. Nobody's getting hurt except my wallet from my paying their hosting fees.
I need to redirect some of these hosting fees into advertising for the book and the stores I intend to keep.
I cannot take this personally. It's just business.

The Crystal Cavern

The newest addition to the Empire is The Crystal Cavern. Featuring a variety of aromatherapy products, books, candles, massage oils, and cool specialty items. Check it out!

Stick This!

Stick Your Banner offers free banner advertising with no reciprocal link needed. This is great for sites like my mall which do not allow for a reciprocal banner link. A mini banner, size 88x31 is necessary. If you do not know how to create a banner or do not have the means of creating one, download the free trial of Banner Maker Pro. I love it so much I bought the full version. I will warn you that their HTML creator is crap although the banner creator itself is wonderful. Feel free to email me for sample banner HTML and help in creating your banner.

My New Dollar Shop Banner

I'm glad I finally figured out how to make my own HTML banners. I think this one turned out really well!

Making Banners

Don't mind me, I'm just making a new banner and I'm testing some graphics here.

Lyrics

Clowned on Ebay

Come, fellow entrepreneurs, and let me tell you my tale of woe. I'm down with selling on Ebay and will soon be starting up a store to sell some of the items from my fabulous gift store, and some of the less, shall we say, explicit items from my adult store. But I despise buying on ebay. I despise the "thrill of the chase." And then I come to find out that I scrogged myself out of some items that I was willing to deal with the most foul-tempered merchant on Earth for by presenting my bid and letting it be part of the dumb driven Bidding War. No, no, no, this is NOT what I should have done! This is for newbies--which I was. The way to do it is to watch the war and wait until the last hour and then swoop in with your Bidnapper!
Bidnapper is an online bidding program. You don't have to download software and you don't have to be at your computer, although if you're really wanting to be hardcore, you will be there during the last hour. You take the crappy-mannered seller by surprise so he or she doesn't have time to harass you like this joker did me, threatening to delete my bids because I didn't immediately answer his emails and just basically being about as unpleasant as is humanly possible. Click here for the whole horrible story.
Then click here to get signed up with Bidnapper. And don't get clowned on Ebay any more!
ebay sniping

This is the front of the postcard I designed to promote my gifts and novelties store.

This is the back.
I designed the postcard using Microsoft Publisher. It was pretty clean and easy. I have some postcard stock with four cards to a sheet. I decided to try and print it. I did everything I was supposed to. But no matter what I did, it turned out wrong and like crap. Unless you are printing leaflets or business cards from Publisher, its printing capacities straight up blow.
I decided to roll with Vista Print, who I've used in the past. They're quite affordable and do a good job. I uploaded my designs to their system and for $25 I can have 100 sharp-looking business cards. Not bad, and really worth the money considering the fact that I wasted about three hours of my time trying to get them to print from Publisher!
Time is money--and I was sick of wasting my time and my dime looking like a clown swearing at my printer!
This adventure in the world of advertising and promotion is brought to you by my gift store!



Click here to visit--don't forget to check out the gift baskets!

Beautiful Gift Baskets

I was about to give my Dandy Yank store up, then I discovered these beautiful gift baskets that I could sell there! They're perfect for bridal shower gifts, family reunions, barbecues, or a special romantic gift. Unfortunately the dropshipper only ships to the U.S. and Canada. If someone from a country outside of the U.S. or Canada would like one of these baskets or any other gifts from my store, I can have them shipped to me and find out the cost to have them shipped to your location. The shipping costs could become prohibitive, however, as you would have to pay for both the cost of having the item shipped to me, and to have the item shipped to you from me. However, if there is something you would really like, I'd be more than glad to work it out with you. Email clhbiz@clhproducts.us and leave me a comment letting me know you've emailed me.
I'm very excited about these baskets. I want to sell them on Ebay, and I also want to make index cards to post on community bulletin boards promoting my store. The baskets have really brought renewed life to this project. I'm...dare I say it...Jazzed!

Affiliate Avenue

Come down and check out Affiliate Avenue!

This is a directory of products, services and work from home programs that people can use and participate in.

I've learned the hard way about affiliate programs. They can work for you, but you have to build a system and you have to advertise. The idea that you will be making thousands of dollars in your first month is pure hogwash. I have worked 'round the clock on the various projects I've started with, have busted my budget as well as my ass, and have made about $80.

An honest program will tell you that it will take time and work to be successful.

A bullshit program will tell you that you'll be making hundreds within hours and thousands within a month from "multiple income streams." They will upsell you on a bunch of crap resale "tools" that you can download for an exorbitant price. Two cents would be an exorbitant price for most of this dreck. Yes, you can make thousands from multiple income streams. You have to find those streams, and then you have to find ways to advertise them.

I hope to build Affiliate Avenue into a truly respectable directory of products and services that people can really use, as well as being a tool for webmasters to create their own residual income.

But if you will just send me a hundred bucks now, I've got some great useless information you can have, as well as one of the Idiot of the Century buttons I've pinned on myself for falling for multiple lines of bull.

This post brought to you by my online mall. Dozens of stores, thousands of products, and several good business opporunities--for real, no bull.

New Mall

The Empire has added a Mall!

Click here to read the details on my Straight Dope blog.

Pros: It's FREE!

Cons: It ain't gonna promote itself.

Still, it's pretty sweet.

Rather than jumping into a webstore which you have to pay monthly hosting fees for, one of these free malls may be a nice way to start. Promote it on your existing site, use banner exchange programs and other free means of advertising, and look at the Straight Dope blog for suggestions and caveats about other forms of advertising.

Happy e-marketing!

Cie

Free Viral Marketing

Click Here for your Free Traffic!

Usually "viral" and "computers" go together like "liver" and "chocolate sauce," but in this case, viral is good. If you click the link, I guarantee your computer won't get hurt. If you're on a tight advertising budget like I am and trying your damndest to spread the word, this little method is certainly worth a try.

Shout out to my great adult hosting provider for informing their clients about this free and easy marketing method.

Get Your Store Now!

Sad Decision

It saddens me, but I think I will have to concentrate my efforts on the adult store and developing its satellite and the site for the promotion of the book and drop the other efforts for the time being. I can't afford the advertising involved. My first selling experience on ebay went to shit thanks to Net Dropshipper canceling my order for the item I was selling and declining a valid debit card. This fellow in Nigeria wanted to buy it and I was all ready to package and send it, even though I would be making only a dollar from the sale I considered this a triumph.
When these companies try to get you to sign up for their service, they do NOT tell you about the monetary costs that will be involved in advertising effectively. Advertising is expensive in the "real world" and it is also expensive online. Unless you are some sort of an adwords guru, you will need help in getting good placement for your site on a search engine. I was ready to give up everything, cut my losses (I have spent nearly $2000 on all of these projects) and go away to lick my wounds. But the adult store is beautifully constructed and very classy. I think it has potential. Please go check it out and see if you don't agree.

Visit the Sexy Li'l Devil at Top Shelf Adult Online Superstore

My New Partners

Meet one of the Sexy Li'l Devils who helps me run my adult storefront and will be helping me run our ebay store.


They provide a great image for an adult business.

They will even have their own email address.


I've got the brains (well, a close approximation) they've got the looks, its time for us to make lots of money!


This, for the record, is far closer to what I would look like if I had either the energy or the desire to be sexy.



















The Devil Chix will get a blogger account of their own to keep the adult and non-adult e-commerce separate. I'll be the ghost writer this time. I'm a right old slag of an author. I can write damn near anything.

So please come visit us at our online store and very soon at our ebay store. The girls look forward to meeting you!

Thanks to Xoospace for the great graphics!

This page brought to you by my (extremely cool) host provider for my online adult store.

Get Your Store Now!

Currently I can only accept orders from US and Canadian customers at the storefront. Bummer! But fear not--soon I will be making my own storefront (not near as pretty, but definitely functional) where I can ship 'round the world!
There really do need to be more than 24 hours in a day!

About the Empress

Me, as usual, doing things I shouldn't do.

I borrowed $2000 from my parents, ostensibly to pay off credit card bills. I've used half of it to start my own "cyber empire." I've long thought that there was money to be made in e-commerce, but went about it the wrong way, falling for get rich quick schemes. My determination strengthened this year and I started websites with storefronts (one adult and one non-adult, both with a multitude of products) for the purpose of funding the publication and promotion of my books (one being prepared for press, one in the process of being written a myriad of others waiting to be written.) 50 per cent of the profits from the books will be donated to the World Health Organization's mental health division.

All of these things are worthwhile reasons for me to be working two full time jobs--my regular job and the designing of the websites. I am not especially HTML literate. I comprehend it at approximately a first grade reading level and can figure out how to make very minor changes. I want to buy a good WYSIWYG editor (Dream Weaver) but will probably need to wait until my student loan for the summer comes through. (We can chalk up any inane typos to complete exhaustion.) I am getting a copy of Front Page from one Pirate Pete and his scurvy crew (thanks mateys!) in the meantime. Because although my domain hosting service (shamelessly promoted at the end of this post) is great in most ways, their WYSIWYG editor, frankly, blows. The sad thing it, its better than most of the other free or inexpensive page editors I've tried.

I get frustrated because I want to see my empire coming to fruition one mighty palace or fortress at a time, surrounded by helpful soldiers and craftspeople. Instead I see me, the Mighty Empress, bricklayer's trowel in hand and shovel by my side, constructing slipshod structures one brick at a time. If the invading hordes were to come riding through, I'd be fucked! (I don't use foul language in my other e-commerce blogs, but in this one, the cuss words will flow freely.)

Currently I'm dealing with the providers for my Dollar Store storefront and the Dandy Yank Superstore storefront leaving me looking like a damn fool when people come to my CLH Products and Services site, click the link, and find--well, what the fuck! Somehow the Dollar Store people didn't process my payment or they have the wrong debit card number and failed to inform me that the card didn't go through, and now when people click on the Dollar Shop link they find--somebody else's dollar shop, not mine. Well, beg your ever-lovin' pardon, but I don't want somebody else getting the tribute money that's supposed to fund the building of MY damn empire! And when they try to save a dandy dollar with the Dandy Yank (that's me in one of my many guises!) they get an Error Message from Secure2U, which is the company that handles the hosting for the storefront. When I go into my account, everything is in order. Is there a phone number a cyber-empress can call and get some tech support action? Hell no! So I fire off a few increasingly desperate emails. I WANT PEOPLE TO BE SEEING MY STOREFRONTS WHEN THEY CLICK MY DAMN LINKS!!!!! Is that too much to ask??

On the other hand, the folks at Adriatic Internet services which will provide the storefront for my adult site contacted me both by email and on the phone to find out how they could help me build my empire. Let me say that Ryan is The Man! He was friendly, professional, and I knew I was working with people that were going to help me construct a store I'll be proud of. All I know is, when I'm paying out the bucks for a product, I want some bang for my buck! So far, Adriatic Internet is providing the fireworks! And I think my customers will be pleased.

We live in a society where people want everything yesterday I work from dawn to dusk to build my empire with very little rest, and then from dusk to dawn at my regular job, stealing some clandestine shut-eye on the infamous Short Couch in the corner (my head is crushed up at one end--its no wonder my neck problems aren't improving bery rapidly!) and I curl myself into a semi-fetal position with my feet sticking up over the other end. Great for the spine align--NOT! I haven't even started working on the book site yet although I do have a very nice template. (Which is more than I can say for the current half-assed entry page at CLH Products and Services. Ug-lee, and looks like a kindergartner designed it! I feel like my fat out of shape self is swimming a race upstream against Michael Phelps.

The fat and out of shape part is another frustration but I won't blather on long about it. Suffice it to say, screwed in the genetics department (having a great-grandmother who was five feet tall and weighed 300 pounds, and I take after my mother's side of the family who gain weight easily but have trouble taking it off) endocrine problems (thyroid and pancreas) There's not enough time (or energy) to exercise properly (I walk the dogs) and I have a tendency to eat on the run. But I'm trying, Kids! Instead of eating a meal at work I've had two nutrition bars at 220 calories apiece over the course of the night and will have a green tea latte to the tune of 165 calories at about 5:30 AM so I'll be alert for the drive home. One of the things that building my e-commerce empire would allow me to do is work a bit less at my night job so I could be more rested, hopefully have less fibromyalgia flare-ups (ahh, the feeling of habanero pepper oil mixed with Ben-Gay and injected into the muscles and joints!) begin incorporating exercises such as swimming (look out Michael Phelps!) back into my life, and maybe by the time my son has kids, be available as a helpful and doting Grandma. (The ole Empress is having trouble seeing the computer screen at this moment, Folks, 'scuse me while I grab a Royal Kleenex to dry my eyes.) My son's going on seventeen so this won't be for a few years yet I hope, but I want to be there for him when the time comes. I also want to have more time for spiritual pursuits. While the Buddha doesn't damn anyone to hell for not going to Temple regularly, how are you going to advance spiritually when your spirit is chained to the constant pursuit of capital so you can pay your over-inflated mortgage and space rent on your Trailer Park Palace?

I've always wanted my own business and I've always wanted to do something that would make a difference. In my youth I desperately wanted to be Adored as well, as in being a Movie Star and/or a Rock Star and/or a Famous Author. Well, I'm too much of a toad to be a Femme Fatale, though if you piss me off I'll body-check your ass against the nearest wall and then I'll be a Fatal Femme, but I still wouldn't pass up the opportunity to do some character acting. I'm a real ham at heart (or my heart may be made of ham.) I love music of all kinds, but as far as performing it myself I far more suck than rock. As to the Famous Author thing, I write constantly. I have blogs upon blogs, most of which are hidden from the eyes of the narrow-minded because I tire of hearing "ewww, you have so many blogs, what's WRONG with you" (I have bipolar disorder, numbnuts, my mind never shuts up and I have to put my thoughts somewhere because I refuse to be medicated into zombie-dom) and they wouldn't get the off-the-wall tales I've created anyway so I only share this secret part of my empire with a select few. (Shhhh!) It took me 15 years to get the first book to press and I don't want the second one to take that long. I may never be Stephen King, but I do have a kind of twisted talent for writing disturbing and disturbed tales of esoteric terror. So I wanted to use this talent to make a difference. You'll have to check back in at the book website time and again (please keep checking back, I do think it's going to be worthwhile!) to find out the story behind the story because that's a whole chapter in itself, but suffice it to say, my mission is to raise money to further understanding and EFFECTIVE treatment of mental illness. Thus, 50 per cent of profits from the book will be donated to the World Health Organization's mental health division.

And that's where the profits generated by the rest of the Empire come in. They fund the publication and promotion of the books!

I also have a side interest in helping others avoid pitfalls when building their own cyber-empires, which is why I have an entire area devoted to affiliate programs and my E-Business Review and Straight Dope blogs to share the lessons I've learned. While I do earn commission if someone signs up with one of the affiliate programs I feature, I will never hard-sell or lie. If you want to develop a reputation as a straight shooter you can't deal from the bottom of the deck. (The Gunslinger is another of my personas. I love tales both tall and true from the Old West and I love Stephen King's Dark Tower books.)

I hope you'll join me in my journey to make my Empire a place that stands out among the literally billions of other cyber-monarchies. I've started to feel like I've found materials to construct my dreams with that can really shine! And if I can help others build their dreams too, a person can't ask for more in life.

With Expectant Hopes for a Brighter Tomorrow

(ok, you can puke now!)

Cie

(the Empress)

This post is sponsored by:

Building my E-Commerce Empire

This will be about my journey with building a real, working e-commerce business.
(Hint: it ain't as easy as it looks!)