Pondering new merchandise
This morning Howard and I had one of our “meetings” where we talk about business stuff while one or the other of us putters in the kitchen. Today we were talking about finances and I suggested that we probably want to do some more merchandise before the end of this month. Howard responded that he wasn’t sure he was allowed to do more merchandise (other than books), considering how stressed the t-shirt mailing made me. After the conversation was over I pondered, trying to figure out exactly why I was so stressed with the last t-shirt printing and why contemplating more merchandise doesn’t make me that stressed again.
The Rule one shirt printing came at the beginning of March. Howard was leaving for a convention the next week. We were both leaving for Ad Astra two weeks after that. My Hold Horses project had just come back in the door with big image editing problems that were yet to be solved. The bonus story for Teraport Wars was barely begun and I hadn’t done any lay out work on that project for nearly two months. Biggest of all, the stress of everything else led me to make the enormous error of deciding that it was simpler for me to do all the shipping myself rather than rounding up help.
What would be different for a new merchandise project: Howard has no conventions until the second week of May. I’m not going anywhere any time soon. The Hold Horses project has been fixed. The bonus story for Teraport Wars is all scripted and drawn. It will probably colored and laid in by the end of this week. I sat down this morning and did a pile of Teraport Wars layout work. There is lots left to be done, but it feels like a couple of weeks of solid work. And I have learned my lesson about not doing big shipments all by myself.
In short, it looks like by the third week of April I will have cleared my slate of all other business tasks. This means that my business brain space is available for merchandise shipping.