doing business as PhancyPages

Journal of our business venture

 by Nita Holstine

Goodness, another year and I am finally making more notes here. Arlene Correll gave me some great hints and tips on finding free classified sites and I will use them and stay away from ArcaMax. (They have tons of ?interesting email newsletters.)

ArcaMax had a $100 a month rate which Randy thought might be doable but more for more advertising. I had a bad experience when I had subscribed to their newsletters years ago so I wanted to see if they were better now or worse. Oh, they are much, much worse. Tons of unwanted email. Nasty popups of all sorts. 

This week started a new problem. If it weren't for our good firewall, they would have installed a "registry problem solver." There is nothing wrong with anyone's computer, there is just a company willing to pay for the service of invading the viewer's computer. Just one little installation and your computer is useless. I didn't know where it was coming from at first until I saw it at work. I like to visit the photos of the cute little pets but when it opens, I also get a prompt to sign up for the registry problem eraser. Just try to close it. No, it just begins to do its nasty work. 

Randy had set the firewall to not allow the program to work so I was safe. I immediately unsubscribed from ArcaMax and will never go back. I will take this opportunity to warn others to never fall for the trick of thinking they have a problem with their "registry." It is a trick and they may never again be able to use their computer. If they do pay the company for fixing a problem, it is a problem that this weird company has created. When we had a different firewall, it allowed Messenger Service messages through with the same prompt. They say they are part of and sent by Microsoft and actually look official. Don't be fooled. They count on you not knowing any better. Stay away. Exit quickly and leave ArcaMax forever as they are never to be trusted. It is all smoke and mirrors. Act like a friend and kill your computer while you don't know what they are doing. I would never do that to our readers. Don't go there for any reason, ever.

Almost a year since I had last written and what changes have come about. We cannot send out the newsletter to our subscriber list. But a full view of the problem can be displayed by reading CLICK HERE for my notes and those of many others. It cannot stop our Communiquè from being a presence on the Internet.

We are not yet turning the profit that IRS requires for us to stay in business but we're working on that. We'll need our bank operating account and a PayPal account for accepting credit cards and checks. I have found a printed magazine we want to advertise in and had printed out their email telling of the prices. It is much less to get a long term on-line ad so that might be included. I have sold 4 DVDs now and tried to give one to Uncle Merton but he insisted on paying for it because it was so delightful. The other sales were as a result of my giving the DVD to select people and they wanted another and another just to give as gifts. 

Looks like we will need the PayPal account and the eBay account to get word out about the items we already have for sale. Most important when the upcoming products are ready for advertising. I had checked out a fancy magazine and a limited topic ezine. The fancy printed magazine was most expensive and we'd need at least the three months before Christmas. That would be about $3,000. We'll need to work up to that level. eBay will be a good place to start. The ezine runs about $25 a week per newsletter. It is feasible but so limited in the number and interest of readers. We would only be allowed a few words and a click to our page link. Not real sure how that would work. But we are making progress as PhancyPages Publishing! And PhancyPages General Store!

I had made part of this as an article about email scams and things to watch out for but then realized I should include this part here. 

It is slow going with the camcorder. The Pinnacle program that came with it is not what we'd hoped for and not so easy to use. I signed up for a printed magazine and an email newsletter about videomaking but there was no other info. And nothing better than what I'd already found. There is a more expensive version of Pinnacle but there is no information about what makes it better. So far, I have been doing all the capturing from my window just as I used to do with the little digital camera. We have a good set up with tripod and what it takes to secure it from being moved around by Sly the stealth kitty. Randy has been doing the creating. Using the captured clips and turning them into usable video.

Sure has been awhile since I have made notes but I was making other notes and in the neighborhood. Not many articles in for the week yet and I like to stay caught up with my work. I can usually get all my own postings and notes made over the weekend and the first part of the week. We have such a wonderful group of writers who write to share what they know with others. I know who to ask when I have a question of my own. I took on two abandoned puppies in need of mange control and proper diet. They are such dears but without the help of The Tumlinsons, I would not have known what to do for them. They are now happy and healthy! Mange free!

We finally saved up the money and bought a digital camcorder. It is an amazing gadget. It is most professional and does what used to take a major camera setup to accomplish. I have yet to get to use it but Randy took it out and followed Max around. One of our first major projects will be building "The House." It will be a type of building using minimal money and manpower. It will be an alternative to the usual construction in that it will be much lower in cost. I don't mind living in small spaces. We have a moderate amount of space in this mobile home but the construction was lousy before the unit was moved several times. Walls separating from the floors. Huge holes behind the cabinets allowing snakes and rodents to enter. We need practical and affordable. Building material prices are going up all the time and we must be careful in our spending. There will be many topics and it might just be a good idea to have an eBay account. Time will tell. 

Alternative buildings are often nice and seem doable but I remember something that Dorothy Tweedt told me long ago when thinking back to the A-Frame house she and her husband had owned. "Resale Value." She mentioned a round house that their neighbor's had built and how they had to build a dome over it to make it livable again. Everything leaked and was always needing repairs. The value on it was into the negative side. 

I have tended to neglect this page but while I am updating again, I will add a few notes. I have written articles relating to the stupid emails received lately but nothing about the workings of the business.

We are going into our 4th year of business and are not yet showing a profit. I had sent a message to our business advisor at SCORE and got the information on how to approach the IRS and what to say when asking for more time. I need to know what to promise that the business will be doing this year and the next. Come on good ideas. We are getting away from the big name advertisers wanting to buy space in the newsletter, they want a lot more than we can offer. So we reset our goals and make them more defined. What we want to be selling. Randy has a program written and ready to go online. I have ideas for birds and butterflies and such on CD that will require the digital cam corder.

About a month ago, I brought all my files up to date. I checked and double checked and told Randy, okay that's it. Today I just happened to go and check on the "Assistance" as in where we got help for our business when we needed it. Of the four links, two were completely gone. One was needing updating since I'd just been to the SBA website and found much new. The other was my neglected journal. I could hardly believe how long it had been since I had made any entry. I do miss having the dates of things recorded but there were no earlier files. So I will begin again.

We started PhancyPages® Communiquè to create a home business that we could both work on from our own computers. I studied online newsletters for just over a year before we set up and started publishing to our original 7 subscribers. I was determined that there were many things that I did not want for our publication. Many were the offerings which would say they'd not sell or share your address but when the going got bad, they'd sell it along with anything else of value. I signed up for many things I regretted later. I get tons of junk mail now as you can easily see from the short articles I have written about the spam and tricks and stupid stunts.

To find new members, I put invitations on the forums I enjoyed, Homesteading and such. I submitted many articles to places like The Dollar Stretcher and Seniorresources. Many were published and they brought a goodly number of new subscribers. I always regretted the places advertising on opt-in mass email, they were never what they said. Now, it costs less than $50 to advertise to millions but that's not the way I want people to see our business name. It may take a while yet for enough people to appreciate the standards set and be wanting to advertise on our pages.

So many emails I get say that I am a subscriber of their service or newsletter. Whoever they bought the address from had lied to them. But they really believe that they are doing an honest business mailing. I could instantly claim to have millions of subscribers but I don't want to go that route. I want readers to look forward to updates and adding their own knowledge when they can.