I’m starting a new venture, one that I hope will be successful, but I know I must keep at it and not let it fade away. I have had other ventures in the past.
I’ve written several short stories that appeared in independent small press, a bit of light horror, and a bit of modern urban fairy tales. I’ve written 2 YA supernatural novels, one with a small publisher and the sequel I self-published. Eventually, I had to self-publish the first novel after the publisher closed its doors and gave back the rights to my novel. I wrote four children’s stories about a rabbit and a fox and illustrated them. The illustrations were simple and looked as if someone did it in grade three. You can verify this if you go to Amazon and search for Stefan Ellery. Most of the books I wrote or was a part of will show up.
I sold a few books but mostly at writers’ conventions and local events.
My art improved and then I thought I would try red bubble and society six. I never kept up with either which is a no for sites that has millions of artworks by other artists. Nor was the art suited for those sites.
I looked at other print-on-demand sites and set some stuff up but never got to the point of launching a product from their services.
I did have a store with board pushers, I designed a bunch of skateboards and put them online on the space board pushers provided. I really enjoyed that but didn’t make a single sale. When it came to renewing the account, I ended it because of a lack of funds. Incidentally, I found that they have an app for Shopify and if things work out well with my store, I may reinstate my account and put the boards on my Shopify store.
I then started an Etsy store with digital downloads of colouring pages. I sold a couple enough to pay for a couple of months of Etsy listings. I have since closed my Etsy store.
Now I have a Shopify store. At the time of this writing, it had not been launched.
So, what makes this different? Well out of my previous ventures, I believe my writing was the most successful. I managed to write a novel, it’s not an easy task for me, but I did have an editor and the editor kept me on track and on time.
With this Shopify store, I have a professional e-commerce advisor who is showing me how to configure the store, through meetings and training videos. Plus giving me tasks that help me stay on track. Plus, my art is much better. How do I know this? I got affirmation from potential customers that were looking at my artwork at events. Compliments from family is great but it is so much more helpful coming from strangers. Heck, I even sold a few paddles.
The last thing that is pushing me to keep at it is I’m a few years away from a full pension retirement and a year away from retirement with a partial pension. The pension is okay but not good enough to support my wife and I in this era of high cost of living. It’s not just the need to have an additional income. It’s the need to keep busy after I retire. Having a store and consistently keeping myself busy will give me a longer life. I’ve seen people who died shortly after retirement because they were idle. I don’t want that to happen to me. I want to make sure I have a purpose. Of course, the will to do this is not enough. I need to promote and market, and I am sure this new venture will be successful and keep me moving forward.