One of my major “Ah-Ha!” moments came when I looked at all of my online endeavors and realized that I am spreading myself thin with far too many projects – many of which don’t really excite me anymore!  I was sitting down and writing out 2012 goals for each of my websites and making lists of all of the tasks I  wanted to get done.  And WHOA!  Holy NUTS! Boy-oh-boy!  I have enough work for several people to do.  This includes work on this site, my Public Domain site, my FBA Collectible Toys site, several sites filled with Public Domain content, a few niche sites and a partridge in a pear tree. Originally I thought – I can handle this, I’ll just do a little on each site – I’ll make a schedule and I’ll stick to it.  “I’ve done this before – I can do it again” I said to myself.  Then I started looking at all the crap I’d have to do – and – yuck! If there were 48 hours in each day AND I could type without my hands hurting then this would be feasible.  But then, I could outsource some of the work – right?  True, I “could” do that – but then I have to create detailed instructions about what I want done, I have to make sure they understand what they’re doing, I have to double-check their work until everything is running smoothly…etc. If I’m handing something over to an outsourcer, I don’t want to worry about anything.  Truth be told – I DO NOT want to sit here put that all together.  Sure, I could outsource little pieces of the whole puzzle and then I have to put the puzzle together myself – that’s all well and good – but I don’t want to be doing that – at least not with projects/websites that just don’t excite me anymore.  Never-mind the fact that having the time to only do a tiny bit of work on each site is going to get me nowhere fast!

Seriously….how in the world do I expect to grow an audience for a website when I post very intermittently and by the time I finally send out an e-mail to the list for the site, the folks have already forgotten they even signed up to receive e-mails from me/the site? Silly, silly.

So, after figuring out what I DON’T want, I focused on what I DO want…

• Continue sourcing and selling items for FBA (I am REALLY enjoying this!)
• Keep websites/projects that excite me – stuff I REALLY enjoy – stuff I’d do for free.
• Create a realistic schedule of what I’m doing with the sites I’m keeping.
• Focus on adding value while creating hands-off passive income.
• Leverage, leverage, leverage each post/idea/item I create.
• Schedule in some fun “me time” EVERY Day!  – All work and no play make’s Beth a grumpy gal! – out of everything, this is going to be the most challenging one to stick to!

One (of many) people who has helped to influence this positive “shift” in my business is Katie Freiling.  I randomly found her on YouTube and signed up for her free video series “Power to Profit” – I HIGHLY recommend watching the videos – especially if you’d like to figure out your passions and make them part of your business.  I’m also becoming a fan of Cheryl Richardson – she is really big on taking care of yourself first – if you’re feeling depleted then you’re not going to be good to anyone around you, and your business will suffer too!

So I’m on my way to creating the business that I want.  How about you?

What kind of business do you want to create and what are you going to do to get there?

“Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”

- Keri Russel

My goal was to find profitable books to sell on Amazon WITHOUT using FBA Scout.  Yikes!  The first aisle had all the supposedly “collectible” books.  Next it was onto the non-fiction area.  I especially looked at craft books, gardening and cooking.  Found a few good ones there then skimmed biographies, business and religion – nothing for me there.  I glanced up and noticed a section of CDs, audio books and DVDs.  I don’t know if someone wiped them out in the first hour or what – but the pickings were slim here with most being ex-library – nothing for me here.  Then it was off to the children’s book section – found a few.  Then I walked the perimeter of the sale looking for areas I may have missed.  I totally walked past the fiction area.  I don’t know enough about fiction writers to pick out the valuable ones without FBA Scout.  Then I  noticed an area with a bunch of puzzles – Neat-O!  And oh-boy…a sealed, NIB, photo-mosaic puzzle!  3 other opened ones and 2 cartoon themed regular puzzles (opened).  I did one more walk around and found some more possibly good books to sell on Amazon.

6 puzzles / $6 – I’m not going to talk about those here, check out my other site FBA Collectible Toys where I’ll talk about my puzzle finds.

$19 worth of books – kids books, craft, gardening, non-fiction.  I used FBA Power to look up pricing info and list them – quick and easy

Here is info about most of the books I found (except for the 3 I kept for myself

Note:  When I put the “non-FBA” prices, these include the shipping cost with them.  Since I’m listing the books FBA, the price I put is based on non-FBA prices with shipping.  Also, I listed many items at $25 even when that is way over what non-FBA sellers are selling the book for.  My reasoning for this is that $25 allows for Free Super Saver shipping for those folks that aren’t “Prime members”.  Plus – if I happen to be the ONLY FBA seller, then why the heck not price it at $25? Yes….people do buy them.  Of course, I do always have the option of changing the price at a later date.  And one other thing….many of these books are “long tail” meaning that they aren’t generally popular with everyone…but for those few that are looking for a book in that particular niche – bam – I’ve got the sale most likely.

Ok….onwards….

5 kids books

Fisher Price book -  no FBA sellers – non-FBA ranges $5.29 – $6.35 – listed for $25

Blue Clues books with Buttons that make noise – no FBA sellers – non-FBA ranges$4 -  $97 – listed for $25

Disney pop-up book – 1 FBA seller $4 Acceptable – non-FBA ranges $4 – $140New – listed for $45

Board book with flaps – no FBA sellers – non-FBA  ranges $4 – $16 – listed for $25

Disney Christmas board book – 2 FBA sellers $3.30 Good -  non-FBA ranges $4-$292 – listed for $25

Disney Picture book – 2 FBA sellers $3.99 – $4.99 – non-FBA ranges $4-$6.99 – listed for $25

4 hard cover books

Craft – Needlework Book – no FBA sellers – non-FBA ranges $5.29 – $8.99 – listed for $25

Book from Public Television Show – no FBA sellers – non-FBA ranges $6.80 – $14.99 – listed for $25

Golden Picture book about the Solar System from 1957 – NOT SELLING – keeping this one for myself.  I really like the illustrations in the old Golden Picture Books and Encyclopedias….adding it to my collection

Self Defense book – 1 FBA seller $55.99 -  non-FBA ranges $4-$5 – listed for $49.99

soft cover books

Specialty teaching book – ex library – $25

Furniture craftspeople directory – $25 – 1 FBA seller $2.95 good. non-FBA ranges $4.99 – $43.99

Book about Antique linens and lace – $25 – 1 FBA seller $11.95 VG. non-FBA ranges $7.65 – $22.99

book about Faberge Eggs – $25 – no FBA sellers. non-FBA ranges $4.89 – $46

Foam craft book – $4.99 – Amazon is selling this one for $5.95.

Niche Architecture book – $75 – no FBA sellers. non-FBA ranges $7.99 – $85

Niche craft book – $12.99 – 3 FBA sellers ~$3. non-FBA ranges $4-$8.99

19 craft patterns (these were a few pages each)

None of these craft patterns had any FBA sellers on Amazon.  Non-FBA prices ranged from $4 up to $9.  I listed most of them for $12.99 and a few for $25.

3 other books I’m keeping for myself

Total spent = $19 on books

The box I sent to Amazon with 32 books in it is worth $688.74

Around 1/3 of that will be fees and what not – approximately $230 will go to Amazon in fees (storage, selling fees, shipping fees).

That leaves $458.74

Minus the $19 I spent on books gives me an expected profit of $439.74

Not too shabby!  I’m rather proud of myself   Did I leave a lot of potential profit on the tables at the book sale? – Absolutely!  Having my scanner with FBA Scout helps tremendously and would have increased my profit tremendously.  However, “going commando” forced me to hone in on the subjects that I was familiar with instead of looking at everything under the sun.

I think I may “go commando” at another books sale, but have my scanner in my pocket just to check

I’ve been selling on Amazon with FBA for 6 months now and loving it!

I am selling all sorts of stuff but have become intrigued by selling “collectible” toys. You can read more about my adventures here: FBACollectibleToys.com

It all started when I wanted to show people how to do something but I didn’t want to re-invent the wheel.  I figured that if someone else had already put together a good “how-to” on how to do it, then I’d recommend their “how-to” guide instead of writing my own.

The problem – no one else has done it! So, my “problem” kind of became a blessing in disguise.  Now my goal became to create the “how-to” guide that I was looking for.

This has lead to many days and nights of figuring out just how to do it – the best way I could.  I have scoured the web for information – web sites, forums…etc.  I have tested various methods and software.   I’m kind of combining what could be 3 separate “how to” guides into one major product so I wanted to make the process as simple as possible.  Each of the 3 separate methods has different variables involved – each is slightly different.  My goal was to find a good way of doing it while also keeping it simple so others could replicate it.  I hit many snags and road blocks along the way.

Anyways, tonight I finally figured it out.  Everything works, the software/program I used is FREE, and the results are GREAT!  I wrote down all of the steps I have done and created a “check-list” for others to use.  Over the past couple of days I’ve recorded some videos, created a few guides and still have more to do!

It is amazing how many notebook pages I’ve filled, video clips recorded and bits and pieces of guides created.  Now I’ve got to put it all together into 1 cohesive product.

I’m excited for tomorrow.

Goals for the next couple of days:

• assemble guides for each part of the “how-to”
• record more videos and edit them
• edit checklists
• write sales page
• create 3 aweber lists
• create affiliate materials
• create graphics for sales page
• and I’m sure there is more to do – but that’s enough for now!

I’ll give an update again in a day or two.  Then the next post after that, I should be announcing my new product!  woo hoo!

Thursday – Dec 3rd

I can’t believe it is December already!  Where did the year go ??  Whoosh! – gone!

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I did have some time to do some things on Wednesday

• I cleaned up a few boxes and shelves of books!  woo hoo!
• Listed many on half.com, and many are being donated.

Then starting on Wednesday night into today…

• I kind of stumbled upon a great topic for a new product.
• No, I’m not going to mention what it is yet.
• I’m writing another “free guide” to give out and I want to see the kind of response I get to it.  I pretty much have the entire FULL product mapped out.
• It’s something newer that just started in the last couple of months – so not that many people know how to do it – some of the ins-and-outs are a little clunky and that’s where I’ll come in to help people through it.
• I’ll have the guide done and available by the end of the day on Saturday
• I’d like the free guide (which in and of itself is very useful) to be a lead-in to the full product – but the full product isn’t done yet.
• So here is what I think I am going to do:
  • give away the guide in exchange for a list sign-up that is just for that particular topic.
  • encourage those that get the guide to send me their questions – this will help me further refine the final full product.
  • I really believe I will get a great response for the free guide and the full product.

Well, that’s it for today – I’m BEAT!  I didn’t even get to my gripe……I’ll save that one for tomorrow!

Tuesday – Nov 30th

• Worked on cleaning up more old scans with “ScanTailor”.
• Organized my collection of Public Domain books
• Researched Copyright of a few books
• weighed the pros and cons of using Ejunkie vs. ClickBank.
  • this will be a future blog post.
• wrote up 2 future posts for the Public Domain Source.
• answered an interesting question about finding mystery novels.
• Made a goal of having 10 of my public domain items up and available for others to use.
• Wrote a list of various “how-to” products I have to review.
• FINALLY did some posts on my Christmas site.

That’s about it for today.  Doing some family stuff in the morning on Wednesday, but may have some time to work on my sites during the day.

Monday – Nov 29th

• I responded to a few e-mails.
• Solved a technical problem I was having with my scanner.  Seems that some of the software needed an update to work with Windows7 – joy!
  • This is a good example of WHY it is a good idea to outsource certain tasks.  I would have saved myself a lot of time and aggravation – but – I’m stubborn and was determined to figure it out…..a few hours later, I did.
• Scanned another public domain book.
• Played with “ScanTailor” to clean up some scans I did of public domain books eons ago.
• Cleaned out my office – 4 boxes of misc. paper to the recycling bin!
• Looked for copyright renewals of around 20 books that I have sitting on my shelf.
• Still leaning towards providing others with already scanned public domain books.  I’m flushing out plans for that – delivery method, possible affiliate program….etc.

All-in-all, a good day.

Saturday – Nov 27th

• Responded to e-mails about Public Domain.  The response to one will be a post on The Public Domain Source next week.
• I did not work on the new guide I started yesterday.  I’m going to set it aside for a while until I can give my total attention to it.
• Scanned a PD book that I may be selling.
• Been pondering a lot about what I’m going to be focusing on in the upcoming weeks and months.  There are only so many projects I can handle and I’m going to have to give up some of them.  It’s come down to figuring out -  what do I really enjoy doing?
  • The answer to that question is that I really, seriously, enjoy hunting for Public Domain stuff – especially books and magazines.  I like researching it, finding it by surprise at a thrift sale, going to book sales..etc.
  • I like posting it on blogs and creating products from it – but I’ve been doing it so much that I’m a bit burned out on it.  I’m not even excited about doing more posts on my Christmas site.
  • Every time I sit down to post PD content onto one of my blogs I inevitably end up surfing the web looking for MORE PD content!
  • I have shelves and shelves full of various PD books and magazines and each one has at LEAST one project idea attached to it.  There is no way I’ll get to all of them.
• So I”m seriously leaning towards providing other people with PD material for them to use for themselves.  This would be PD books that aren’t readily found online at places like Google Books.

That’s it for today.  I’m going to let the above thoughts gel in my brain over night and see how I feel about it tomorrow.