My Business

Endlessly amusing to me, I’ve found — over the years — any number of people have offered tips, suggestions, advice, unasked for counsel, and pointers on how I should run my business.

“Should do this free,” “shouldn’t charge for that,” “should charge for that,” and the list goes on. “Should charge other people, but not me, for that.”

There was a time when this bothered me. Then there was the time when I received pointed criticism that meant something. Then there is the vitriol that is merely another’s angst being unceremoniously dumped on me. Yeah, now I have a delete button for that. Always had a delete button, just quicker with it, these days.

One came through, this must’ve been 15-20 years ago, asking me for a daily horoscope, written in my style, my length for every day of the week. Politely put, I just declined.

“But that other guy does it!”

That’s approximately 7 times as much work as what I do now, and what I do now works out to a single, fat paperback per year. Besides, as noted before, this is sustainable.

That “Other guy?” Probably backed by an army of ghost writers, or, more fun, check out last Tuesday for Virgo then next Friday for Scorpio. Sound familiar?

Making then keeping with a pace that is sustainable for me? That’s what counts. My pace is sustainable for years to come and the model itself is scalable. Two important factors — frequently avoided by the advice-givers.

My Business

Because of the relative transparency of my business, I get a number of people who would like to try to be all up and in my business. Won’t work.

“Do this,” or “try that,” and when I hear, “you really should,” I tend to edit out the parts I don’t like, or pieces that don’t apply to me.

For good or for ill, this is what I do, what I’ve done, and this is how I work. Taken many long years of trial and error to arrive at what works for me, but this is where it is.

The one course correction I’m always eager to adapt? Better grammar. Better elocution and improved dialogue. Better delivery of available data. Towards that end, I have an ongoing personal course of study that includes improvement. Some days are successful. Other days? Good practice.

In light of recent events, I should note, no billing data is stored anywhere on astrofish.net, its servers, or files, and I keep no billing data — or personal data on hand.

There is an upfront cost, and the ongoing charge that makes the way the transactions are handled is more costly from a merchant’s side, but the added luxury of me not having to worry about credit card details? I do what I do best, look at charts.

“It would be cheaper if you used (some brand name credit card processing thing), and what I’ve found?

Square works just fine.

My Business