It has been an interesting day. I wish I hadn’t been sick for most of it. The stomach bug interfered with my favorite preorder game. The game is called “click.” All I have to do is sit at my computer and hit refresh on my store info page to see how many orders came in since the last time I clicked. Click won’t be nearly as fun to play tomorrow when the orders have slowed down.
At least this time I wasn’t reduced to a useless pile of very tense Jello like I was on preorder day back in April. In April I was so tense that I couldn’t get anything done. Today had a little bit of tension, but mostly I’ve felt pretty relaxed as I fielded dozens of customer service emails. Fortunately none of the emails were outside my capabilities to solve. All of the requests were very polite, if occasionally frustrated. I think I was able to make everyone happy before the emailing was done.
It is a measure of my relaxation that I haven’t been frantically running numbers all day to figure out if we’ve brought in enough money yet. Howard keeps running numbers, but I’m content to wait a few days before I start doing my figuring. According to Howard’s numbers, we’ve paid the book production bills and about 2 months of Howard’s salary. Before preorders are over we need have enough money to pay out 8 months of salary. We don’t intend to wait 8 months before the next book, but financial margins make me happy.
My work is far from done. I have much organizing to do before we are ready to do a huge mass mailing. The storage room needs to be cleared out. Supplies need to be bought. Sorting of invoices must be done. And postage must be printed. But for today I can just relish the click.
I’m sorry you were ill… stomach bug is no fun.
I play “click” myself when I’m selling things on ebay (or, for that matter, buying things on ebay). I’m glad to know I’m not the only one!
I’m sorry you were ill… stomach bug is no fun.
I play “click” myself when I’m selling things on ebay (or, for that matter, buying things on ebay). I’m glad to know I’m not the only one!
As pre-order #1804, I left the thought in Howard’s journal as well, but Thank You. And I hope you feel well today.
As pre-order #1804, I left the thought in Howard’s journal as well, but Thank You. And I hope you feel well today.
Yay for the click of pre-orders and more Howard-working-at-home!
I was in the middle of the checkout process when the sketch edition option ended. Got booted out. Grump. Oh well, I’ll get a sketch at a con somewhere along the line.
Now to go make breakfast, and toast “Lots of preorders!” for you.
Yay for the click of pre-orders and more Howard-working-at-home!
I was in the middle of the checkout process when the sketch edition option ended. Got booted out. Grump. Oh well, I’ll get a sketch at a con somewhere along the line.
Now to go make breakfast, and toast “Lots of preorders!” for you.
Great. Now I have GUILT!
(Did you place an order or not? This is the sort of thing we can take care of…)
Great. Now I have GUILT!
(Did you place an order or not? This is the sort of thing we can take care of…)
NO GUILT! Not your fault. I was going to do it this morning and overslept, leaving not-enough-time to complete the process. Now if you had been charged with the responsibility of getting my ass out of bed, marching me to the keyboard (with credit card in hand) … and failed to do that … THEN you can feel guilt.
I’d just picked the shipping option when the screen reset. Since I hadn’t yet gotten to the enter-your-payment-info section, the order probably wasn’t considered “placed” or “completed”.
Whether there’s an incomplete order in the db depends upon at what point the shopping cart assigns an order ID and saves off the info: when it goes from the billing/shipping name/address screen to the next page; when it uses the shipping info to calculate shipping costs; when payment authorization is attempted, or … ?
Congratulations on a great pre-order.
My only suggestion for the shopping cart is: check for cookies beforehand and warn users they need to enable cookies from http://www.schlockmercenary.com and the store.schlockmercenary.com subdomain. (I don’t know if you required more cookies than that … some sites will go hit other counters and processors behind the scenes, and require third-party cookies that the user never knows about)
NO GUILT! Not your fault. I was going to do it this morning and overslept, leaving not-enough-time to complete the process. Now if you had been charged with the responsibility of getting my ass out of bed, marching me to the keyboard (with credit card in hand) … and failed to do that … THEN you can feel guilt.
I’d just picked the shipping option when the screen reset. Since I hadn’t yet gotten to the enter-your-payment-info section, the order probably wasn’t considered “placed” or “completed”.
Whether there’s an incomplete order in the db depends upon at what point the shopping cart assigns an order ID and saves off the info: when it goes from the billing/shipping name/address screen to the next page; when it uses the shipping info to calculate shipping costs; when payment authorization is attempted, or … ?
Congratulations on a great pre-order.
My only suggestion for the shopping cart is: check for cookies beforehand and warn users they need to enable cookies from http://www.schlockmercenary.com and the store.schlockmercenary.com subdomain. (I don’t know if you required more cookies than that … some sites will go hit other counters and processors behind the scenes, and require third-party cookies that the user never knows about)
“Click” is a fun game! The bookstore, by the way, looks great. Nice to hear that you’re more relaxed about things this time around!
“Click” is a fun game! The bookstore, by the way, looks great. Nice to hear that you’re more relaxed about things this time around!