business

Shipping Phase 3: Inventory Preparation

By / July 8, 2011 / 8 Comments

Phase 1: Collecting orders
Phase 2: Sorting

Phase 3: Inventory Preparation
This phase of shipping preparation runs concurrently with phase 2 and phase 4. This is because the lion’s share of the work during this phase is done by Howard or other volunteers rather than me. It is during this phase that I make sure we have all the supplies and inventory necessary to fulfill all the orders.

This phase begins when a truck pulls into our driveway and drops of pallets of books. We make arrangements to have 3/5 of the books transported to the storage unit. Those books become our inventory for the next couple of years. The rest of the books have to be signed and sketched for shipping. We arrange a day to have a volunteer come help us. This time we shanghaied a neighbor. He would bring a box of books into the house, open it up, and put all the books into a neat stack on our kitchen counter. Howard grabs the stack and starts signing the covers. Every so often the neighbor would grab the stacks of signed books and deliver them to the kitchen table. I am sitting at the table with the sketch stamp and a tall pile of sketch papers. The papers have all be cut to be narrower than the book, but taller than the book. At the top of each sketch paper is the name of the character to be sketched in that book. I grab a stack of books and I put a stamp and a sketch paper just inside the back cover. The primary reason for the sketch papers is so that we can tell without opening the book what character has been sketched inside. This becomes critically important during the packing phase of shipping. The books get boxed back up and the exterior of each box is labeled with the character that is sketched on the books inside. I try to put only one type of sketch per box to prevent confusion during the packing phase. Because Howard and the neighbor moved faster than me, I sometimes had to box up signed but not-yet-stamped books and stack them to be stamped later. “Later” turned out to be 4 days later this time.

After signing over 1400 books, Howard’s hand had to rest before moving in the next section of work. All those boxes of signed and stamped books were hauled down to Dragon’s Keep. Then Howard opened up the boxes of books, drew a picture in each book, and boxed them back up. This time we had 1000 sketch editions. We allotted three weeks of time for Howard to do the sketching. He’s trying to do about 100 per day. Many of the signed books did not need to be stamped or sketched. These just remain in boxes waiting for the shipping day.

While Howard is doing the sketching, I take some time to double check our physical inventory against the reports generated by our store. In theory our store will only sell what we have, but anyone who has run inventory will tell you that things get lost and misplaced. In this case I made several orders to various suppliers to make sure we have the necessary inventory. As the new inventory comes in, I stack it all in boxes. It will all need to be transported down to Dragon’s Keep for the packing phase. I also make a count of the types of boxes and need and what quantities. The different shipping methods have different boxing requirements. The majority of our orders are a single book in a fold-up box. Larger orders go out in 2″, 3″, or 4″ boxes that we order through Uline.com. The flat rate orders require special boxes that I have to acquire from the post office. I place orders now, so that the packing materials will be here before the big shipping day.

Next phase: Phase 4 Printing Postage.

Mission Accomplished

By / September 24, 2008

Hold on to Your Horses and the Schlock books can now be purchased from both The King’s English Bookshop and Sam Weller’s Books in Salt Lake City. This includes copies of the The Teraport Wars. All of the books are signed. I’m not sure if there will be any signings at those locations, but I have begun the necessary communication to make that happen. Now we cross our fingers and hope that the books sell so it can be an ongoing consignment relationship rather than one where the store politely hands back our books at the end of the 3-6 months. There was an author picking up her books a the same time I was dropping mine off. She did not look thrilled to have only sold one book in six months.

Now that I know that consignment relationships with independent bookstores are fairly easy, I’m going to need to do more research. I should definitely see if I can place some books in the area where Angela lives.

I’m going to be on television

By / September 19, 2008 / 12 Comments

Last night Julie De Azevedo of Kjzz 14 (a local station) called to invite me to come on her “You and Me Monday” show to talk about Hold on to Your Horses. I’m still trying to convince myself that I didn’t imagine the whole conversation. The show will air from 9-10 am on Monday September 29. I don’t know whether the segment I’m in will be available online afterward.

When I sent off a press packet to the address given to me by a friend, I really did not expect to hear back. In fact part of me was glad that I was not likely to hear back, because appearing on television has never been one of my ambitions. But I will do it because it is another chance to get the word out about Hold on to Your Horses. I will also draw comfort from the fact that this is a local station and therefore likely to be a more relaxed experience than a more widely broadcast show. Julie was very nice on the phone. I think we can have a nice conversation about books and children.

Now I just need to convince my brain that 1 am is not a good time to mentally rehearse for an interview. I also need to figure out what to wear. Julie said they would send me an orientation packet via email, but it has yet to arrive. This naturally has me convinced that I imagined it all, or that they don’t have my email address correct. (I have a number to call if I don’t hear from them by Tuesday.) I also need to go knock on the doors of my neighbors to find someone who can record the interview for me. It would also be a good idea for me to watch the show this Monday so I can get a feel for the format.

Shipping Phase 2: Sorting

By / July 8, 2011 / 9 Comments

Phase 1 of shipping is discussed here.

Once we close pre-ordering on the sketched editions it is time for me to begin sorting. By this time I have over 1000 pieces of paper stacked in my filebox. Each piece of paper represents and order. I have to make sure not to lose any papers or else that order will fail to be sent. This is why I try to do sorting when all the kids are out of the house. Before I start sorting and after I’m done sorting, finding an order to modify it is fairly simple. Trying to find an order mid-sort is tricky, so I try to plow through the sorting quickly. The sorting process is actually a series of sorts. Each one getting more refined so that I have stacks of similar orders ready for packaging. I have to do it so many different times because if I make the each sort simple, I can do it quickly. If I have to think, then the sort takes forever.

First sort: I focus just on the contents of the order. If the order contains a sketched edition, it goes in one pile. If it contains a regular edition, it goes into a different pile. If an order contains neither, then I’ve made a mistake and filed an order that should already have been sent. I send it out asap. Then I put all the non-sketched orders back into the filebox. I’m still in collection phase for non-sketched orders. I’ll sort them later.

Second sort: Now I focus on the shipping method. Parcel post, US priority mail, international priority mail, international first class, international first class Canada/Mexico, and International priority Canada/Mexico each get their own piles. Each shipping category represents a different pricing structure for the postage and different packaging requirements. I need to have them separated out both for printing postage and for the packaging. When I am done, I put each of the stacks into it’s own hanging file with a temporary label, such as “parcel post sketched”

Third sort: I take one of the stacks from the second sort (Lets say “parcel post sketched”) and I sort again. This time I am focused on whether the order contains a single book or multiple items. The orders with multiple items are set aside for a moment.

Fourth sort: I now sort my stack of orders and sort them based on which sketch the order requested. I now have stacks containing a single book, all the same sketch, all the same shipping method. I put these stacks into a file box labeled accordingly.

Fifth sort: I sort the orders containing multiple items by weight. I know the approximate weights of all our merchandise and so I do quick calculations in my head. I then label the stacks by shipping method and weight. These stacks will be more complex to handle on the packaging end, but there really isn’t much I can do to simplify orders which all contain multiple different items. These stacks are put into the filebox in labeled hanging folders.

I now repeat sorts 3-5 for all the other stacks that I made during sort 2. I also make a tally count of how many of each sketch type we need to create.

Sixth sort: I take one of the many labeled piles from it’s hanging folder. I now sort the pile alphabetically by the last name of the shipping address. This is necessary because the mailing labels will print out in alphabetical order and we need to be able to match the printed invoices to the labels. Repeat this sort for all the piles being mailed inside the US. This sort does not apply to international orders, because those require customs forms and postage can not be printed in batches.

Hurray I’m done! …Except I still have all those regular orders that are still in the collection phase. So I wait a couple of weeks and repeat sorts 2-6 for all of the non-sketched orders. Next phase will be Phase 3 Inventory Preparation

Shipping 1000 packages Phase 1: Collection of orders

By / July 8, 2011 / 4 Comments

I’ve decided to document the process I go through while preparing to host a shipping event where over 1000 packages get mailed out in a single day. I’m doing it because I think it might be interesting to any other small businesses out there who may need to attempt something similar. I’m also doing it for my own record. Someday, when we can afford to have other people do the shipping for us, I want to be able to remember what it was like. Also there is the chance that for some future shipping event, I will be unavailable. Then this series of entries can serve as a starting point for someone else to manage the job.

So. Here goes.

Collection of orders:
Our store is managed by volusion.com. They’ve been very good to us and their customer support has been excellent. There are many other store options available, but we’ve been happy with volusion. Like any other piece of complex software, the store has some quirks. Prior to opening orders I spend a day making sure that all the products have been entered correctly. I run test orders to make sure that postage is being calculated correctly. This time we were offering t-shirts, posters, mousepads, and magnets at the same time as books. I had to make sure that the inventory tracking functions of the store were working properly so that we don’t sell more than we have of any particular item.

Then we open orders and I have a steady flow of email from customers needing help. This shows me the weak spots in the system. I answer questions and clarify product descriptions to make sure that other people don’t have to ask the same question. Helping customers is rewarding. I love being able to solve the problems with a few clicks of my mouse.

One of the challenges of a pre-order period is that some of the orders have to be held for shipment later. Other orders do not contain a pre-ordered item and need to be shipped right away. The disadvantage of our volusion store is that it is not set up to manage mass mailings. It can handle high volume, but it is optimized for people who expect to turn around and ship out orders immediately. The best way I’ve found to keep track of which orders need to go out now and which need to be mailed, is to print out the paper invoices. These invoices have to be printed anyway because they have to be included with the orders. Fortunately the store has a batch function that lets me print a stack of invoices all at once. So each morning I print out the orders that came in the day before. I go through the stack and pull out any of the orders that do not contain pre-ordered items. Those get shipped out the same day. The remainder of the invoices get put into my file box.

Each invoice has and order number on it. I keep them in numerical order, 200 sheets per hanging folder. This allows me to pull and modify invoices as customers make requests. If two orders are to be combined, those two invoices get clipped together with a paper clip. If a person is moving, but doesn’t have the new address, I put a post-it note on the invoice detailing the situation and put the invoice in the “special handling” folder. That “special handling” folder is for all the orders that have specific instructions or need special attention. I make extensive use of post-it notes to make sure that all the customer needs are clearly labeled on the invoices. This is necessary because my brain gets too frazzled to remember everything.

Once all the sketch edition orders have come in, I begin to sort. Sorting will be the topic for the next post. Phase 2 Sorting

My marketing brain is tired

By / August 22, 2008

I spent several hours yesterday sending emails to book bloggers who I thought might be interested in reviewing Hold on to Your Horses. It took so long, not because of a gargantuan list, but because I agonized over the wording of the email. It is tricky to send out an advertisement/request without making it sound like spam. I seem to have done alright though because I’ve gotten positive responses from most of the bloggers that I emailed. Then this morning I spent several more hours responding to the responses and shipping out books. The positive responses were so encouraging that I spent another hour or more researching even more blogs that I’ll contact on another day. Oh, and I finally finished up that press release. All the packages are in the mail. Hopefully in weeks to come, I’ll be able to do a Link Salad to all the lovely reviews. Now it is time for me to shut down the marketing brain and go do something else. This is necessary because the thought of further marketing is currently exhausting. But turning off the marketing brainis proving difficult. I keep spinning further plans for both Hold Horses and for Schlock Mercenary. The thought of executing on these plans is completely unappealing right now, but my brain continues to provide the plans. Sometimes my brain won’t shut up.

Denvention Day 1

By / August 6, 2008 / 8 Comments

I started the day feeling optimistic. That optimism was upheld. From the moment the dealer’s room opened, we had a steady stream of traffic. I never got to sit still for longer than 15 minutes all day long. It was exhilarating and exhausting. Many people had never heard of us, I gave them a quick pitch and a card with our URL on it. Some people had come straight to us to make sure they got the merchandise they wanted. This was wise because if sales continue as brisk as they were today, then we’re going to start running out of some of the merchandise before the weekend is over. Several friends stopped by to say hello and to chat for awhile. I was glad to see them all, but we were often too busy to chat for very long. Most satisfactory to me personally were the few people who stopped by particularly to see me, either to talk about my book or my blog. It was wonderful evidence that I’m adding something to the world. This is wonderful to offset the thousands of people who looked right past me both on the dealer floor and at parties later. Our sales were very good. This convention appearance is now half paid for. I suspect that the most enthusiastic fans have already stopped by and done their purchasing. Sales for the rest of the con will probably be much slower, but If we can only bring in a quarter of today’s sales for the next four days, we’ll still break even. But breaking even is not the point of this convention. Mostly we’re here to meet people and talk to them. We’ve done some of that already. Howard and I both got a chance to speak briefly with Lois Bujold. Howard also got to shake hands with Larry Niven and Elizabeth Moon. Then we had a marvelous dinner with Phil and Kaja Foglio, and Mark and Alice who help out with the Girl Genius booth. So now I am tired, happy, and my feet are killing me (no heels tomorrow.) Four days to go.

The tale of one domain name

By / July 27, 2008 / 9 Comments

Announcement of the jerry-rigged fix:
If you have any difficulties reaching www.schlockmercenary.com over the next few days, please click over to www.schlocktroops.com. It has been set up as an alternate location for fans to get their daily Schlock fix. Please spread the word in the event of a problem. That is the important information. Like any good reporter, I’ve put it first in case people don’t care to read the rest of the story. We are in the process of renewing the Schlock Mercenary domain name. Due to a comedy of errors (some of which are our fault, why did we not take care of this months ago? I keep asking myself this and then remembering exactly how busy we’ve been for the last three months. That’s my excuse. I’m sticking to it.) the renewal may not be complete before the domain expires. We’ve set up the www.schlocktroops.com site so that no one need to go Schlockless while we sort things out. Some of you may remember the domain name snafu of last summer when Howard and I only became aware of the domain expiration after the site went down. We vowed to not let that happen again because that was really embarrassing. So we’ve improved. Perhaps next time we need to renew the domain, we’ll figure out how to do it without a public brouhaha. That would be nice.

The Back Story:
Last year, just after Howard departed for Comic Con, I received a phone call from a friend that the Schlock site was down. I investigated and discovered that the domain name had expired. We’d registered the name seven years earlier and all our contact information had changed, so the registrar could not contact us to warn us of the need to renew. I called a registrar and fixed the situation. I then spent the rest of the day fielding phone calls and emailed offers to help. It was cool that people made international phone calls to offer to help. It was also extremely embarrassing that we’d allowed it to happen at all. I’ve had “Renew Domain” on the calendar ever since then. I paid attention 3 months ago, but was busy. I paid attention 2 months ago and discussed how to proceed with Howard. Did we want to stay with the same registrar or transfer? At the one month mark it was time to act so that I would not have a similar fiasco with Howard out of town.

The Details of the effort to renew:

Renewal is simple right? Yeah. We thought so too.

Company A sent us a renewal notice, suggesting we should renew and set up auto-renewal. “What a good idea I thought.” So I clicked the link only to have Company A’s website tell me that we are not registered with them. So why am I getting notices plastered with Company A’s name? I call Company A. The tech guy says that the name is registered with Company B and I will need to contact them to renew. I contact Company B. They tell me that they do not handle renewals and that I will need to contact a registrar company to renew the domain name. This bout of non-information lasts more than a week via both phone calls and emails. I ask Howard to please, please take care of this because I don’t know what to do next.

Howard is insanely busy and does not have time. He finally makes time and calls Company A. The tech guy at company A says that we are registered with company B, but gives Howard an authorization code sans any instructions. Howard has to leave for a convention and hands the mess back to me. (This takes another week)

I call Company A. The tech guy tries to tell me that the domain is registered with Company C. I not so politely explain that I am confused as to why we are continuing to get renewal notices saying “click here to renew” from Company A if they don’t have the domain name. Also what is this about Company C? I’ve never even heard of them before. I mention Company B, and the tech guy backtracks and says “Oh yes. You’re with company B.” Apparently Company B is somehow affiliated with Company A, so that Company A handles their notices, but not the renewals. Or something. I still don’t understand it. Also a mystery is how the name ended up in the hands of Company B since it was Company A who I called and paid money to last year when I renewed the domain. In order to renew the domain name I have to transfer the name from Company B to Company A. Apparently this is the purpose of the unexplained authorization code. At this point we are 9 days from expiration. Transfers take 5 days, we should still be fine. 7 days later the transfer is not yet complete. It is a Saturday, so no one answers the phone at customer support. The emails I sent to support go unanswered (Despite assurances of a 24 hour response.) It is now Saturday night and the domain is due to expire on Monday.

So we set up an alternate domain address. First thing Monday morning I will be on the phone to discuss the situation with a manager rather than a tech guy.

The End?
I don’t know the end yet. I’m confident the problems will be solved. Hopefully a quick phone call tomorrow morning will be answered by a knowledgeable person who will banish my problems with an application of his knowledge. Less happy, but more likely, I’ll be told that I just have to wait for the system to finish processing which will take however long it takes. Then I will have to be mean to customer support and demand to talk to a manager. I don’t like getting snitty with customer support. They’re just trying to do a job and in this case they’ve frequently been as confused as we have been. Which is sad really. So I growl at some poor guy, knowing that when I get off the phone I will be recounted in todays installment of “Unreasonable Customers.” Anyway, having jumped through many hoops and made many contortions, I hope that tomorrow it will all be resolved and I can think about something else now.

Marketing

By / July 9, 2008 / 4 Comments

So far today:
Carried 9 boxes of The Tub of Happiness books into our house (This was to make space in the storage unit for Hold Horses)
Printed invoices from the store so I can ship orders, all of today’s orders contained magnets which we won’t have until Thursday
Filed the invoices to deal with on Thursday
Checked email & read blogs
Began drafting a press release for Hold Horses
Made breakfast for kids
Researched writing press releases
Fixed a listing error with the ISBN service
Researched distribution through Ingram (Not a chance. We’re too small)
Researched distribution through an Ingram partner Greenleaf Books (Slim chance.)
Printed out a submission form for Greenleaf Books
Remembered I was supposed to be writing a press release, worked on it some more
Updated information in our store and on the Hold Horses site to reflect the fact that books have already arrived.
Drafted an email to a popular blogger, pitching Hold Horses for a contest, haven’t sent it yet.
Went to the post office to mail 80 packages
Made lunch
Opened up the press release again, realized that I could not brain because I have the dumb. Closed it again.
Took a nap
Fed the fish in my virtual fish tank (Yay Insaniquarium)
Helped a neighbor child throw up in my sink and then took her home to her mom.
Washed the sink.
Looked at the press release again, decided I really should go and blog instead.

Still to do:
Pay more attention to children
Get outside for awhile
Read
Fix the Amazon listing so that it reflects the fact that Hold Horses books are available now.
Move 40 boxes of books from our garage into my van
Move 40 boxes of books from my van into our storage unit
Blog something more interesting than a list
Answer email
Make Dinner
Research popular mother and parenting blogs and plot ways to make them interested enough in my book that they’ll write about it.
Fill out registration/volunteer forms for a local book festival
Make a contact at a local independent book store.
Put kids to bed
Finish the press release

Finished

By / June 26, 2008 / 3 Comments

The Teraport Wars is done. Tomorrow morning I will stick DVDs and print outs into a package then FedEx them to our printer. I now have two days to get down to the serious business of spending time with my kids and my house. Then Monday morning I need to dive into organizing for shipping. We’re hoping to send out all the warning sign magnets next week. In the second half of the week Howard leaves for a convention and I may take the kids and go visiting. The week after that is when I expect pallets of Hold on to Your Horses to arrive. I’ll ship out those orders, but most of the boxes will have to be hauled over to our storage unit. So the next two weeks are busy, but it is a happy busy. It is also a busy that does not tie me to my computer quite as much. This is good. My kids need me to be more available than I have been this past week.