Writers4Relief update:
I owe everyone an update on my project. Right now, the website has 3 pages up and by the end of the day I expect to have integrated my Shopify store into the website, with a current list of my books and prices showing. I have enabled PayPal Business for merchant services. As it grows, the website will feature authors who have provided support by sending stories, poems and essays to use to raise funds for the relief agencies.
Which is another to-do: I must prepare a letter to send to interested writers outlining why we're doing this and how it will work. Basically, in exchange for something that we can publish or something published that we can sell, writers will receive marketing support that might otherwise cost quite a bit of money, including Biographies, web-links, blog backstories, excerpts from upcoming works, and Buy Now links to their existing books and publisher pages. And of course, they will be provided an accounting of sales and donations, and be publicly thanked for doing something to help ease the suffering of disaster victims. A heroes list, kind of.
In addition, I am having made T-shirts and coffee mugs and stickers for all purposes. While learning how to synch a Shopify card reader, for onsite sales at book fairs and charity events, I am doing things I wished I had learned 15 years ago.
I will be applying for a Kickstarter grant once the business plan and resources are completed. If you think you would like to support this Kickstarter project, let me know at ncrab4you@gmail.com. It will be necessary to fund the project and its marketing campaign for several months to get it to support itself. People can't help if they don't know what you're doing. And at a certain point, I need the project to be self-sufficient so I can get back to writing. I need it to be something that can be run at a very high standard by people younger than me with the same driving interest: Let's Do Something.
