5 Essentials

I’ve been contemplating adding to my website’s roster of goods. I’ve been toying with it in my head for months now, since about the time we moved. So I would say I’ve mulled it over well and the thought has gone from something half baked to something that I think I can pull off well.

So here’s the idea: 5 Essentials by Comfortable Shoes Studio. What it is: I pick 5 items I think are essential to my artistic endeavors; they have to be things I like and use and love. If I don’t like it, it doesn’t go on the site, end of story. I’m open to new items that people suggest, but here again, I actually have to like them and take them on a test run. If after the test run I decide that I don’t like them, I won’t carry them. I’ve come up with 3 products (to expand to 5) and 5 items each in those product lines. So far I’ve got pens, pencils and notebooks/ journals. I won’t go into depth about the different items in each line but I think they are the best, and starting out that is what really matters. I will probably add to these lines coloring items and a 5^th line.

I’ve set myself lofty goals for bookmaking this coming month so that can fund this endeavor. I’m also going to take an html class this spring and really make a decent website, rather than my simplistic site that I have currently. It will still be simple but I’d like to integrate something a little more into the site.

Not to worry this shouldn’t involve too much of my time. I fully expect that I’ll still be able to make all the books I’ve been making up until my move. I simply feel that it’s time that I expend the scope to the studio to more fully support my family and myself. The ultimate goal is that I am able to leave my DayJob and work on this full time. Though I know that in the beginning that I will be asking for help from my significant other in packing and shipping.

You may wonder where the thought came from, why a bookbinder would decide to jump into the online retail world? My DayJob is for a multinational retail corporation. I manage a tiny aspect of that brick and mortar business. I manage and maintain a department that brings in close to half a million dollars in sales every year. Peanuts to the company, but imagine if those were my own dollars, even working on a 30% profit margin that’s more money than the company pays me in a year. Hell, even if I chose to work on a 20% profit margin, that’s more money than the company pays me. The reality of this is that I’m really good at making money in a retail setting, I’m a great sales person and a terrific florist, but I’m making a profit of close to a QUARTER OF A MILLION a year for the company and getting paid very little for my hard work, and I do work hard. I’m not expecting my little section of the online world to pay me that much, but I’m looking to supplement my income not replace it at first. Do I hope that someday it replaces my DayJob, I’d be a liar if I said no, so heck yeah, I want nothing more than for this to work out and be great.

So over the next month look for the 5 Essentials by Comfortable Shoes Studio, here and on my website.

(and as always this idea is copyright Leslie C Herger 2006)