Day: October 5, 2006

Processing the second batch of orders for shipping went much more smoothly than the first batch because I already had a system. I’m starting to feel like I know how I’ll manage it all for the huge pre-order shipment. I have yet to attempt to export information from the store to Quickbooks. That would be a nice feature to have working, but I can maintain the manual system I have right now if need be.

We’re now able to accept credit cards which was a complicated process full of hoops to jump through and verifications to be made. Those credit card companies have to decide they trust us. Apparently they do, because we accepted money from people all day long. Now I need to work my way through the lesser bugs and quirks to make sure the store is streamlined. I have a little more than a week to do all of it before the preorder for Blackness Between begins.

Someday we’ll be selling enough schlock books that we can pay someone else to do all the distributing for us. That will be nice.

For now I’ve turned off the light over my shipping center and closed the window with the storefront. I’m not going to do any more business mucking until after I get kids off to school tomorrow. Then I need to have my very first chiropractic visit to untweak my neck which I tweaked yesterday. Also I have to mail all those packages that are sitting in bins waiting to go out.

Until then, sleep.

It should not surprise me that there have been bugs in our new storefront. Fortunately everyone has been most kind in trying to help us sort them all out. Some were critical failures that we believe we have already fixed. Some were urgent issues that were easy to fix. Some were urgent issues that are going to require me to make a customer support phone call. Some are minor glitches that we haven’t even begun to address because we’re still managing urgent issues. In the midst of all this bug eradication I’m also printing invoices and labels then packing books for shipping. In fact I should be packing right now, but I promised myself a brief break.

An interesting observation: The longer it has been since I’ve eaten, the more stressed I feel about all the bugs, glitches, and looming book mailing. I noticed this most clearly at lunch. I bought fast food because I wasn’t capable of enough coherence to figure out that there were other options. As I began eating I was regaling Howard with the litany of bugs that I need to track down and stomp upon. I felt exactly when the energy from my food, carried by my blood, hit my brain. Everything in my head and body relaxed. What had been overwhelming was instantly manageable. This means when I’m in a high stress state I should eat often. Unfortunately when I’m in a high stress state I’m much less likely to remember to eat at all.

Back to book packing with me.