Need to get myself in gear.

I have a confession to make. I’ve all but ignored Space Station Anime for 8 months now. I’ve been letting the site run on autopilot since February. Not a good way to run an e-commerce business is it. Even after I gotten paying customers to the site and made money, I never updated the site. I didn’t update the Google or Yahoo ads. I just let thing s run on their own. That’s going to change.

This week I’ve started adding new products to the site this week, and I’m going to go back to marketing the thing. It’s so bad that I forgot my username and password to my Yahoo Marketing account. I had to dig through old e-mail to find my username, so I could reset my password.

I think it was a combination of concentrating on finding a new job, and the joy of the new job that I haven’t worked on the website for some time. I spend so much time, working find a new job, and when I found a new job, I was shocked that I was making so much more. So much that I thought that, the old company was a bunch of cheap skates (actually, I thought that already, but I did hit pay dirt with the new company).

Well now, that I’ve been with the company for 3 months, and I’m doing well, I’d still like to be able to do more. I’ve been pondering quitting the second job at Safeway, but, I still like the idea of getting that extra income. The more I thought about it, the more I thought “why the hell am I not promoting the website more”. So I’m back with Space Station Anime.

Something else occurred to me. There are marketing people here and some of the things they do is work on promoting the company website. So now I’m thinking, that why can’t I pick these guys brains for getting tips on promoting my site? So at this point, I’ve back working on the site.

Actually even though the site has been on autopilot for awhile, I’m getting decent traffic, anywhere from 5 to 15 hits a day. Sure I’ve only had a few customers, but there’s no reason why I can’t continue to work on this and more importantly, get more visitors and eventually more customers.

Anyway, I once again have direction. Every once in a while, I tend to get off track. Maybe it’s a ADD thing or perhaps it’s just….oh shiny thing.

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The site

Why is it despite my efforts to work on a way to become self sufficient that part of me tries to sabotage myself? Is it because I’m too lazy or is it something else? For example, when I first moved into my new place, I thought to myself ”cool, now I can swim in the pool and use the work out room to help get myself in shape”. Well guess what, I’ve been in the building for 6 months now and I’ve yet to go into the workout room. I tried to go into the pool once, but it was closed. So is faith conspiring against me?

The thing lately is the website. I’ve had weeks where I’ve worked on it, and other weeks that I’ve left it alone. I know that I need to be doing stuff like a, b, and c, but for some reason when it’s something new that I haven’t done before, I need to push myself to do it. I’m not going to bore you all with the specific details, because I hate having people’s eyes glaze over when I talk or write about something, but its stuff I need to do. Stuff to get traffic to my site to get people to buy stuff.

The thing that is really pissing me off is that Google usually takes a year to fully include a website into their search, and I only submitted the site to Google in August. Now I’ve been doing other things to promote the site and some people have been nice to link it to their own blogs, and I’ve very thankful for that, but I want it NOW.

I’ve try not to blog about Space Station Anime on purpose because I figure that my regulars would get sick of it. They’d be going, “aww shit, he’s going on about the damn e-store again”, but dammit I’m overdue.I've recently purchased a second domain, animedvdcentral.com and that's going to be a e-commerce site, but I don't really want start on this one until Space Station is getting traffic, and when that happens, I'll be twice as not busy.

I've also found another way to promote the site, but I only do it when someone pisses me off. Sometimes when I'm playing City of Heroes, I will receive a tell, which is a message, from a stranger telling me to go to their site so i can buy ... Now this really pisses me off and it has come to the point that the makers of the game have made it really easy to report these guys because they're not suppose to be doing this. Anyway what I do when I get their tell spam, is send the following reply “Love Anime?, Then come to www.spacestationanime for all your Anime DVD needs”. Yes I spam the spammer and everyone in my SG (or Super Group, or Clan for players of other games) thinks its priceless, until I spam the team, but they all know it's in good fun.

Now your wondering why I'm playing an online game when I should be working on “the store”, my answer. I need to relax sometimes.

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IT'S ALIVE !!!! ALIVE !!!

This is it; the site is now, truly live. This means that I can now accept customers at Space Station Anime. I feel great; I now have a working e-commerce website. The credit card processing works, I’ve tidied the site up, and made a few last minute changes. Now comes the hard part; promoting the site.

There are some friends of mine who want to buy from me, in order to support me. I’m really glad that they’re going to do that for me. It will help me out over the initial launch. Now I need to do A and B. Now I’m not going to tell you what A and B are (at this time), because I don’t want to give out what strategies I know, at least not yet. I’m not saying that one day I will start a “Tips for E-Commerce, blog, but once I’ve come successful; I’d like to be able to help out my friend, real life friends, blog friends, City of Heroes friends. I want to be able to help them out, by doing what I do, but avoiding the pitfalls that I experienced.

I know that there are some people who have been rooting me on and I appreciate the vote of confidence from all of them. Now comes the next step, promotion. Now I know that I wasn’t going to say what A and B are, but the “if you build it, he will come” belief won’t work I’m going to do some free options to promote and as the coin starts to come in, I’ll make some more serious investments into advertising.

The fact that the site is now live and that I can accept customers is a huge weight off my shoulders. Phase 1 is now complete. I still need to add more products, though and that will take time, but the initial step in promotions should be done by the end of the week.

Hopefully, with this behind me, I can go back to posting about my breast fetish, rants about political correctness, and general stupidity, that is until I start working on website number 2, but at least I have the experience behind site one to fall back on.

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Nothing is gonna stop me now

Once again, Vics is poking me. She's such a trouble maker that one. Here's the deal. I'm working at "Officially" launching the site TONIGHT. I'm hoping that I'm happy with things tonight to start promoting it, but if I'm not, then it will be tomorrow.

Bottom line, the only thing that is preventing me to go completely live, a la, accepting customers is ME. No web hosting issues, no credit processor issues, no supplier issue, the only issue is time and my personal motivation.

I now have people waiting to buy stuff now, but I want to make sure that everything is "just right". I don't want any issues to cause grief to my new customers.

So Vics, poke all you want, cause I'm about to become an e-business person.

UPDATE. During testing today the server went down. I'm NOT IMPRESSED.

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Almost there, almost

Once again I discovered another hurdle with the credit card processing. I need to change my business account to a US funds account. Nice of these guys to tell me this. I'm starting to get red up with these guys. The site is functional, the bank has been very helpful, it's the damn credit card processing people. I'll be glad once these people are taken care of, and I'm able to go live. I've put so much into this thing. I've so close to victory that I can taste it. I just need this last piece of the puzzle to fit in the picture of me giving my employer the bird, and the piece doesn't want to fit. I keep telling myself that I'll know in the future. In the future I'll know how to deal with these clowns. I'll know how to get everything rolling. I'll be able to use that knowledge in the future.

What really surprises me is how unhelpful these guys are, and I'm going to be paying THEM, A monthly see and a transaction fee. You'd think they would be more helpful since I'm the customer. Now I know that your wondering why don't I switch companies? We'll the truth is that I've already prepaid these guys. Long story and it doesn't need to be talked about. Bottom line is that I know better.

Also, I want to thank Jay, Vics and Stef for their input on the site. Their input was extremely helpful and I've sent you all a "thank you" in the mail. Jay already got hers and she appears to like it.

So once again I'm shooting for the weekend for the "Official" Launch. Some of you have said that they would plug the site on their blogs, and I appreciate it. I'll thank them soon, after I'm at the point where I can travel and visit. Yes I said travel. I'm planning a trip to Toronto in the fall and Manchester in the late spring. I'm going to Toronto first since I won't need a passport. There's some really good people out there and I want to buy them a meal (and I was warned about Stef's bottomless stomach). It's just a small way of saying thanks.

I'll let everyone know how things go after this visit to the "Bank". I do need to say one thing though, The Bank has been really helpful during this, and I thought Banks were supposed to be the evil ones. Maybe Canadian Banks aren't as bad.

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More Web site Blaa Blaa and a Joke.

I finally heard from the payment processing people and they needed some more information including a business number (a.k.a) a GST number. I knew I forgot SOMETHING. D’oh!!! I’m going to head to the big government office building tomorrow morning and hopefully, they can give me a GST number right there and then. Other than that, everything is good.

The really strange thing was despite this problem, I got excited all over again about the business. Just as I picked up the needed forms from the printer, I felt that rush again, the rush that I’m going into uncharted territories and that I’m going to do great things.

Let’s face it, working for someone else sucks. Having to answer to some bloated, balding dumb ass with a cigar in his mouth, who expects you to kiss his ass really blows. I hate the idea of getting my ass out of bed at 6:30am to the sound of some alarm going “ARGGGGGG”. I want to get up when I want too. I want to get up at 8:00am, take a shower, have some breakfast, check the website and make sure all orders are processed and then take the elevator down to the Rec floor and enjoy a morning swim. After that I’ll do what I want, check the site before lunch…you get the idea. No stuck in a commuter train with strangers. No working at a job that I’m not challenged with anymore.

Right now the worst part is that the site is dominating my mind right now so I’m not thinking of anything else to blog about. I know people just want to have the site launch so I’ll shut up, about it. I wish I could but… I’ll feel better when I have closure and have the site live.


A bear and a rabbit are taking a shit in the woods. The bear asks the rabbit if he ever has problems with shit sticking to his fur. The rabbit says no, so the bear wipes his ass with the rabbit.

Ok I wrote something else.

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Not quite there

Another bump in the road. So I’m not launching today, but hopefully tomorrow. It has something to do with my site’s ability to accept credit cards. I’ve filled the application out (online), but they need to check on me before they let me accept credit cards. I guess they want to make sure that I’m not a criminal or anything like that. It makes sense but it’s another roadblock. So my website won’t go live today.

I have solved other issues like setting up shipping and how to give discounts, how to put certain titles in specific categories, so things are looking good. I’m still very positive about things, I’m just sick of getting dinged by all they setup fee’s. It’s really starting to add up.

While a lot of this stuff is no big deal to me, other things like filling out banking and business forms are not one of my favorite things. To be honest, I absolutely hate it. I know bullshit makes the world go around, but I don’t want to be the one adding to it. I guess this is why I hate paperwork. I hate having to deal with some weasel who wants to know why I didn’t properly fill out form EDFG-33-5, or whatever. This stuff gives me a headache. I’m just glad that I have a bottle of ibuprofen in my backpack. Too bad that it’s going to take an hour for the drugs to kick in because I’m in pain now.

I just need to keep focused on going live. I’m sure that will happen on Monday now, which sucks, but it will give me time to add more product.

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The final hours before going live.

If the reaction to my logo is a sign of how well my website will do, then I’m going to make a SHITLOAD of money. The reaction by some people over my logo has blown me away. I’ve had requests for copies from six people, AND THAT’S JUST THE LOGO!!!

I should make one thing clear. I did not design the logo, not really. I came up with the initial concept. I knew that I wanted the face of a girl done in anime but I paid a company to create it for me. I’ll be honest, that I think they did a fantastic job, and once I’m at the point where I’ve achieved success, I’m going to get some shirts made up with it. I’ll probably get some coats done as well, and give them to my friends and family.

Something just occurred to me. She doesn’t have a name. Should I name her? It’s just a logo but do other characters in logos have names? How about you, the readers, let me know. Then you’ll have an excuse to write a comment.

I’ll be honest, I’m really excited by this website. While I’m not happy with everything with the site, the main problem is inventory. I need to ad more titles, and soon I’ll have to divide my products into categories. Did I mention that I’m REALLY excited? The other stuff is almost done, and I’m aiming to go live TOMORROW!!! Then the real work, of promoting the site starts. Don’t worry; I have a plan for that as well. Anyone can put up a website, but it takes a plan to get you sited listed on the front page of Google.

I keep thinking that the site could lead me to owning my own life. No more working for someone else. No more daily commutes to an industrial. Instead, I can wake up when I want to, take the elevator downstairs and enjoy the pool and take it easy.

Though I’m not going to spend all my time loafing. Once I’m happy with the success of the first site, I see myself starting a second site, and a third and… well you get the idea.

I also see myself doing some other projects in the future for other people. I once made a promise to myself that I would everything in my power to help a friend in need. I intend to keep that promise.

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The Secret Project Revealed

Some people have already seen the logo and some know what I’m up to, but I thought I would let EVERYONE know. Well everyone who reads my blog anyway. I’m getting into the e-commerce racket. Specifically I’m going to start selling Anime DVD’s online.

I’m not going to go into the details, except that I’ve been working on this for a bit and I’m ready to go live…almost. I was actually planning to go live with the site today, BUT I had a few pitfalls and I’ve pushing the launch back to Wednesday or Thursday., at the latest.

My main roadblock is getting the products on the site right now. I have about 400 imported titles listed but I need to get some of the domestic titles on as well. Domestic, meaning that it was translated here; the still is all from Japan. The way I figure it though I can still go live and add product on a daily basis until I’m happy with the selection and then add as new titles get released.

One cool thing about all this is that I started buy anime magazines and keeping the receipts since I can deduct them as a business expense; market research. Also since I’ll be running the business from my home, I get to deduct…yea yea move on.

Now I haven’t quit my job yet. I’m not planning on doing that until I’ve made a certain amount of money, which I’m hoping to do by the time the snow starts falling again, (the problem with that is that sometimes the weather is extremely chaotic and the snow could start falling in July).

Now I also know that simply having a site isn’t enough, I need to generate traffic, the right kind of traffic. I’ve been working with some people on this. They are going to help me get to the top of the search engines (and that included Google).

I’m not going to give out the address yet since there’s nothing to see, but I look forward to getting everyone’s opinions when I launch, and hopefully you’ll wish me luck.

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