Someone's been talking, somewhere ...busyness

[kinzel]

Really, I guess someone's been talking about us, somewhere. This is good news-bad news situation, you betcha.

I guess that because while we were away for the weekend SRM Publisher's website was very busy; in fact as of now I am declaring both the Meisha Merlin Crystal Dragon and our SRM Publisher Liaden Universe Companion Volume One as unavailable. I may find some of each, and hope I do, but in the current cramped basement office of SRM ... I'm not confident that I have any more of either and the website may have taken more orders than I can fill of both of them. I still have about a dozen of the Hellspark's sitting in the last case, IIRC...but again, since we returned from the ocean I haven't had an opportunity to print all the orders out. So now things are printing, and with luck I won;t have to refund too many orders...

Oh yeah...

we did go to Old Orchard Beach, and I'm for telling you that as soon as we win that lottery we're for moving to the ocean. We got in a lot of walking, a bit too much eating, and a fair amount of lazing about... and a bunch of story-conferences and other conferences as well. You know, what-if things...

And so I'm suddenly and without much warning considering the advantages of an actual in-town office for SRM Publisher. This thought first struck me last Monday when I discovered that a small computer shop had gone of business, leaving it's quiet side-street location (see gone of of business above) empty. So I sat at the end of the street in question, looking over the Kennebec River as it flows under the Two Cent Bridge and drank a bottle of milk while I nibbled on a brownie bought from the bank's "Support The Food Pantry" bake sale.

Thoughts: SRM doesn't do much in the way or retail-walk-in type traffic, but we do need a certain amount of dedicated space, and we need it in a place that's not subject to seasonal wetness. A dehumidifier is, in the long run, not sufficient... sigh.

Thoughts: We could use a commercial address because that way we'd get shipments more consistently. Where we are in east Winslow there's a local seasonal road load limit that means we've had to drive as much as 300 miles (multiple car loads back and forth to Augusta) to pick up shipments. That limit is in force as many as 75 days. Hmmm.

Thoughts: The first three in-town locations I looked at averaged about 1/2 mile from the PO, and one I really like was 1/4 miles. Hmmm... So in gas alone we could save oh... $50 to $80 a month, not to mention the hours of drive time.

Thoughts: Then again, if we have a commercial location we might be able to get some help from the local business college, in terms of interns from the business programs. They have a firm, set in super-grade concrete ringed in barbed-wire policy that none of their interns will work with an in-home business. Since many of their students are people who are returning-to-school types, they represent an experienced and motivated resource that I don't have access to right now. Marketing help is good!

Thoughts: Of course, there's the cost. One place I looked at yesterday... is a one fee covers it all: Rent, power, heat, air conditioning, trash, water, sewer... and there's plenty of parking. Not sure if the tractor trailer loads of books could make it in directly .. but if they have to park on the street the distance to the office is about 25 paved feet instead of the 50 unpaved and sometimes mud that we have now.


Down side -- being away from the cats more. Up and down -- not being able to do laundry and dishes and such between things.

Potential: might could finally do the small writing group/s I've been thinking about... for which our house and location in the sticks are unsuited. How much is a two hour weekly in-person workshop experience worth? When I was tutoring one writing student (some years ago) she was paying $15 and then $20 a session.

Upside, reclaiming large living areas at home.

Comments welcome ...

Comments

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

If you can convince your cats to enjoy the ride, you could take one/some to work with you. Upside for them: more new areas to sniff out. Upside for you: companions, mousers.

[orlacarey.livejournal.com]

Yay that I got LUCV1 when I did then. At lunch I was in the Borders in Silver Spring, MD and saw 2 copies of Crystal Dragon and one of Partner's in Necessity. Already have CD, but I'm thinking of ordering PiN as a gift for someone. I seem to remember you'd rather I buy from you though, so when I have the money I'll place an order.

[sraun]

You missed a downside - cost of gas commuting to the office. How does that compare to the gas savings on the PO trips?

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Depending on length of commute and what needs to get hauled, a bike could mitigate that. If the net distance is very short (under 3 miles), walking can also work. Even if a bike is not an option, a loaded car tends to use more gas than an unloaded one. Also, if there is no hauling requirement, a smaller more fuel efficient car will do the job. Depending on local mass transit, that could help. Monthly passes tend to be a very good deal right now.

Lots of ways around having a commute cost an arm and a leg. If you're trying to cut gas costs, a mix of different methods seems to work best (speaking as someone going on her 3rd year of carless living). The right mix is going to vary from person to person and place to place.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

A bike is not ideal for a number of physical reasons and also because the roads here are shoulderless (or worse, loose gravel shouldered)and subject to snow/ice problems anywhere from October to April. Walking suffers from the same thing; one of the joys of Old Orchard Beach for us is the ability to walk everywhere. I think the nearest sidewalk is ... (lemme check my map)....looks like 6.1 miles from here.

Local mass transit... is a 1999 Buick taxi or its twin. There is no "bus company" per se within miles and miles of here and though there's a "senior mobility service" that is trying to act like a bus from time to time it generally fails for timely travel. Local population density is quite low; even with the building boom of the last five years I don't think there are more than a dozen or so houses in the mile we'd be center of.

See: http://www.city-data.com/city/Winslow-Maine.html for an idea of where we are.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would pretty well leave fuel efficient car as the way to go :). I keep forgetting how empty Maine is.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

OK...

The absolute minimum straight to and straight home Post Office trip is a little over 28 miles; the Post Office and then stop for bird food or hardware goes to 30 miles, the Post Office and then to minimal cat food or people food comes closer to 35. Understand that this is as opposite a direction as possible from Sharon's place of employment ... so that combining a late PO run with picking up Sharon from work results in very little savings and a round trip of 42 to 50 miles. The several locations I've looked at in town would let us combine her going to work with my rounds several days a week. The trip door-to-door of the location in first spot is...6.9 miles one way according to my Delorme, compared to 14.3 miles to the PO.

I do combine trips when I can .. there's just not much more than a hardware store a a minimal IGA in Unity itself...

[magda-vogelsang.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it's at least worth giving serious consideration to the pros and cons (which you've clearly already started doing).

Speaking of Hellspark, I just finished reading it and enjoyed it a great deal. Of course, I also have parrots who communicate some of their moods in a not-unrelated fashion (albeit with less complexity, as least to my non-Hellspark eye). Of course, my conure is also not averse to using vocal communication to get his point across, i.e. "Pet the cute parrot!".

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

I got a Crystal Dragon from Amazon not more than a moth ago. Zane Melder of The Edge Books in LA had a LCV1 with him this weekend at ConQuesT.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I got a Crystal Dragon from Amazon not more than a moth ago.

Oh, they're available and being sold elsewhere. Where the money goes after the sale, that's a head-scratcher. I can tell you that it doesn't -- or at least hasn't in the recent past -- made it to Maine. It also appears as if Meisha Merlin stopped counting sales (for the purposes of royalty statements) at the end of December 2006.

The Crystal Dragons on sale through the SRM website were the (heartbreakingly few) copies that were available for Steve to collect at Meisha Merlin world headquarters, back in March.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this weekend I bought Strange Robbie from another Merlin "payout" to the writer.

[reedrover]

A not-so-pleasing friend of mine ruined my copy of Hellspark. Are you selling what you have left?

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Selling what we have left? What?...

Yes, actually, or I wouldn't have mentioned it....
see...
http://www.korval.com/hellspark.htm

PS... i'm really sorry about a ruined Hellspark. We keep 3 copies -- one to loan, and one each so we can both read at the same time.

[reedrover]

Thank you!! I just paypal'ed for 2 copies through my bfire account. You're right about parallel reading. I plan to keep a specific loaner copy of Hellspark around from now on just in case of a sudden need to read it while it's out. I have the original paperback, but it is both difficult to read (small font) and it suffers from the funky uncorrected argument which is discussed in the back of the reprint.

On the subject of parallel reading, you might be amused at how many Liaden books the two humans in the house own:
Agent of Change - 2 1st printing pb's; 1 reprint pb
Conflict of Honors - 1 1st printing paperback; 1 reprint paperback
Carpe Diem - 2 1st printing pb's; 1 reprint pb
Omnibus Edition - 2 hardbounds; 2 qp's. (Though I can't find *my* hb at the moment...)
-- etc. --

Though I do have to ask - are your original paperbacks more cat-attractive than the reprints? My cats have made a sport of pulling the '88-'89 copies off of the shelves while leaving all of the reprints standing.

[reedrover]

P.S. Your Hellspark page is not linked off of the main catalog page in any form that I could find. Is this deliberate?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I think the eight-to-ten weeks during the year which leave your place not overly accessible would be a serious consideration for me. If you plan on doing a lot more storing of stock and posting it out, you need a garage/lockup type thingy as a minimum recquirement. How much would that set you back, and what's the difference to the-office-that-has-everything? (Is there such a thing as business rates you need to figure in?) Plus, an industrial strength dehumidifier - how does this compare? Can you field six months or a year's lease and reevaluate how it's working out halfway through?

I wouldn't figure in walk-in trade, I'd consider it a bonus; though I might consider diversifying a bit - eg a few second-hand books, or board games, or decent pens, or something. If you open the doors to the public, you don't want to have ten books for sale, you want people to hang around a moment.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

My plan, in so far as I have one, is to display all the SRM books, plus the MM books we have extras of, plus other SF/fantasy small press... and likely some how-to books related to writing and publishing. They have a decent bookstore in town (we're friends with the owner) and I don't want to compete directly if I can help it.

We were managers of a storage facility for several years and I'm sure that's not what I'd want for my books. I'd really rather stock and pack from the same spot.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

It just seemed to me that you need to calculate for storage facilities - because unloading paper objects in the rain or snow is, well, the shorter the distance the better, and holding a truck somewhere so you can make several runs in the car is not a business proposition, so an in-town office sounds good to me.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Depends on the economics...overall, which option is more expensive.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be timely, but ask the business school to do a business analysis for you. You'll get to hear about Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis, net present value (NPV? is that the right acronym?), opportunity costs, and tradeoff matrices - and you might end up with a reasonably good alternative, too. Could be fun, and might be useful.

What about broadband? Computers?

[fiopi.livejournal.com]

The one utility I didn't see mentioned was internet access, in the "all in one" fee. Also will you move a computer from the house or will you need duplicate machines? Printers? Laptop?

The thread comments from others and your own calculations have covered most other items I can think of - and if you plan to have the office "interned" a couple days a week instead of you being there in person every day, you could still give the cats the level of service they expect.

Another option for cheap office space can be found in light industrial areas - look around the college near Rolani too. I know a company that sold models over the web (space ships etc) and used a location like that - but we have a lot more unused office parks in chicagoland.

Also - UPS can put you on their regular pick up route if you are a business, and they charge less to ship to business addresses than residential addresses.

All in all, very worth considering, even if this particular place right now doesn't work out.

- Diane P.

Re: What about broadband? Computers?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Does the college have "incubation" spaces? While typically intended for new grads, often the rules permit any member of the college community to use them, and they can be quite inexpensive and useful, since they are intended to support fledgling businesses :-)

Re: What about broadband? Computers?

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Ummm...

Nope. No such thing. The one college has, for example, recently expanded student housing by buying a portion of a convent...and there's been a singular lack of coordination in some growth because the boundaries and politics of the counties and small towns involved. I suspect that if you look at the map of the study area (pdf posted above) and then compared it with a map of "Greater Augusta" you'd discover a lot of overlap. Augusta, being the capital, is more likley to have those kinds of resources. Our eventual target area for relcation has even more...

Re: What about broadband? Computers?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Oh, well, it was an idea. I know some colleges have such setups to encourage their new grads in setting up new businesses.

Re: What about broadband? Computers?

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Again...

there are no "cheap office parks" in the area; the college Rolanni works at is on the top of a hill encircled by woods and residential districts. The business college is off on the edge of things...

Here's a 2005 study (http://www.colby.edu/academics_cs/acaddept/economics/statistical-abstract-of-greater-waterville.cfm) showing the area has circa 60,000 residents and a workforce of around 30,000, with an average wage (in 2004) about $50 under the Maine average. The supply of available office and retail space (as well as housing) is dominated by buildings 75 to 100 years old... and by buildings less than 10 years old which are high rent. While there are some major efforts to upgrade currently unused "legacy" spaces to modern standards ...
those spaces then are too expensive for what I have in mind.

Yes, broadband has to be added in as a cost. As for computers, I'd likely move the "big machine" from home and the "big printer" -- if need be I can access the big machine from home via VPN. Since the one space I have my eye on has been a computer store there's 100 megabit cabling built into the walls and cable hook-up in place.

Re: What about broadband? Computers?

[fiopi.livejournal.com]

Somehow didn't think there'd be much other space around - I've seen enough small towns and rural areas - but had to ask. Only 20 years ago most towns around the far west suburb of Chicago boasted a feed store and gas station and not much else for 15 to 25 miles, with populations of under 10K. Now the developers and rehabbers have taken over.

The computer store sounds cool - pre-cabeled! I do hope you find something that works out.

Cost of writing workshops

[(Anonymous)]

The writing workshops near me seem to be running $190 for six weekly 2.5 hour sessions, class of 12-15. See www.writer.org Of course we're in DC suburbs so everything is more expensive.

OtterB

Re: Cost of writing workshops

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Thanks much on the workshop cost.

The office space I'm looking at would be hard put to fit that many... on the other hand, Greater Waterville has a population on the order of 60,000 and greater DC has a population on the order of 600,000...

Re: Cost of writing workshops

[(Anonymous)]

If you get the office can you still pick up some stock from MM?

Tom

Re: Cost of writing workshops

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

I think picking up more stock from Meisha Merlin, while it might be good for the ego, is something I can't afford right now -- and the more stock I'd pick up the less able I'd be to use the place I have my eye on, I think.

Go For It!

[(Anonymous)]

You all go for it! It will succeed because all that has held your business back was space.

Kelly
TC, CA