BUILD 28/30: Mini ETP Notebooks available on Amazon

⊕ show captionAbout the Title Picture: Yes, the Mini-ETP is back in stock on Amazon USA.

For the first day back from Thanksgiving "staycation, I verified that Emergent Task Planner Mini Notebooks are indeed listed on Amazon again! I've got about 250 of them available for now, wit another 250 in reserve.

Is selling physical stationery a viable business?

It may not be possible to sell these profitably anymore because the daily planning market is oversaturated with cheap printed pads that borrow from the organizational principle of the ETP. For most people, they are just fine.

When I first starting making this printed product in the late 2000s, I hadn't seen any else doing what I wanted to do:

• Printing in the USA instead of more cheaply overseas
• Using spot Pantone colors in the design to ensure very sharp line quality
• Using thicker paper that I'd tested with my favorite fountain pen to make sure they wouldn't bleed through
• Using double-wired binding for fold-flat ease of use

As a piece of physical design, I'm still pretty happy with this. I have to be smart about selling this and future designs, to figure out if there is really a business here or if it's just a conversation piece of something else I do. Printing and shipping physical product is expensive, and the profit margins are pretty bad compared to buying in massive printing bulk overseas. Sigh.

In any case, the sales from these notebooks will fund the production of more notebooks if they sell-through. As I'm between freelance contracts, I'm hoping they do and help support a viable side hustle!

Email newsletters

Regardless of the future, I need to set up some email newsletter infrastructure to handle the dsriseah.com domain. I signed up for a Buttondown newsletter account, which seems like a nice solution for solo types like myself, and am waiting to be confirmed. I've heard a lot of good things about this service compared to the more commercial offerings.

In addition to email newsletters, I need to add new email addresses for the newsletter, order processing, and other e-commerce functions.

Notifications

I have a restock notification Google Form on my old website which I use to update people that there's new printed goods available. It's really cumbersome to use, admittedly, and I don't get notified when someone signs up with questions. It's a terrible experience for everyone!

I'm not quite sure how to set up multiple product notification lists, but perhaps Buttondown's paid plans will support that?

BUILD CHALLENGE COMMENTARY

I had hoped that my Thanksgiving staycation would be very lightly productivity, with daily 15-minute check-ins. I vastly underestimated the effect that having guests in the house would have on my focus. It's been great, but my mind is easily distracted anticipating the needs of other people, so my focus has been shot. The past week instead has been an adjustment period for me, getting used to splitting my focus.

Also, there are now cats in the house! One of them finally warmed up to me and has started visiting my bedroom!!!

⊕ show captionBrix the Cat investigates my curry leaf tree saplings.

New Hampshire also got an early snowstorm that forced me to cancel a few appointments.

⊕ show captionWide-angle view of the frozen creek behind my condo. We got about 5-6 inches I think.

Not that bad, by New England standards, but enough to close roads. It's been tough to figure out what snow tires to get for the new-to-me 2017 VW Golf, as my old tire shop has changed quite a lot since 2001 when I last bought them. I ended up buying steel wheels for a 2014 Golf on Tirerack as part of a deal; my new mechanic said that the 2014 and 2017 Golfs use the same lug pattern for wheel mounting and that there is a spacer that will make it fit. I'm taking his word for it because his shop (run by his wife) is laid back and very friendly and I'm sure they'll figure out how to make it work. He already has saved me thousands of dollars diagnosing a tricky thing that the previous owner in Georgia missed...here's hoping the luck continues!

WHAT'S NEXT

I'm not quite sure what I'll do for the last two days of the Build Challenge. Rather than a grand finale I think it'll just end. I got the data I needed, and I think I'm in better shape operationally than I was back on October 10 when I started.

One day at a time!