The Saga of the Manga Bin

I accumulate manga. As one series can go into 20 books, storage is a big problem of course. My bookshelves were crowded, so I went to the manga bin. How it looked at first:


Mostly, I threw manga I had read into this plastic tub. It kept the manga mostly corralled, but some pages were folded and it was hard to find the exact volume I wanted.



It took me 30 minutes to clean out the manga bin to create the above neater manga bin. It has less storage, but it is easier to view the titles.

I was listening to Here and Now and listened to the author of How the Mighty Fall. The upshot of his interview is that slow and steady attention to the core of the business keeps a business strong, and that getting greedy and losing sight of the cold hard facts are a recipe for business failure. The losing sight of cold hard facts is of course a big problem in artisan business, since artists tend to be slightly less than down to earth.

The whole interview reminded me of Deluxe. In the pursuit of growth, they forgot the importance of quality. I'm not going to be inspired to buy a $300 dress when I know they use the same poorly paid labor as the makers of a $30 dress are using.

So today's business lesson is to keep it simple. I'm trying to get my photo skills back up to pair. In my haitus, I lost my beading thread, but I think I have spotted it.

I like twitter much better than facebook. On facebook, you get to see pictures of babies, and parties you are not invited to. On twitter, you get to post 'this is not the salad of my people' and people will chime in with jokes. People who you don't know irl, so you can joke easily and chat. You can read other people's thoughts on the earth. I'm not saying I don't like being able to see pictures of people from high school's babies, or being able to freak out my brother, but I also like being able to be my true self and talk about things I like too. ^_^;

Natural herbs and vitamins can be harmful. This is common sense for most people, knowing the dangers of burning poison ivy, although this has been overridden by vast marketing about the wonders of all natural sprite or how all our health problems can be cured by eating organic pizza. [pro tip: that won't work. greasy pizza made from organic cheese and organic pork may be yummy, but it's still greasy pizza]

The whole 'we have real sugar in our food' marketing going on is an example of this. Sugar is sugar, whether it's made from corn or beets. You can be healthier by eating less sugar,yes, but beet sugar is still sugar.

A lot of the natural trend is just hype, not hope.

Note that the language used in the article that caused people to boycott whole foods was not our traditional anglo saxon loanwords, but stuff about how people who get sick can just eat gluten free organic cake.

I very much disagree with this post on black entrepreneurship. I live in Memphis, where we have black owned restaurants, black owned hair shops, black owned banks. I also hang out on etsy, where we have etsy artists of color, many of whom are black. I don't think our work ethic is worse than the work ethic of other racial groups.

I come from entrepreneurs. My dad is a landlord. My granddad sold produce on the side of the road. My dad's grandma also used to do that, although she didn't grow all the produce herself. It's not true that there's no history. We've been doing for ourselves since reconstruction.

Personally, I think it's important to support small business because it makes the biodiversity of the business landscape stronger. Since we're small, we don't have stock holders trying to make us water down our product so we can have profit increases every 3 months. We can innovate.

Also, supporting small business supports families and the community. When you buy soap from a mom, you could be making it possible for her to stay at home where she wants to be. You could be supporting a student in their education. I know I don't stack my earnings up in a secret swiss account. I'm out buying from other businesses and pumping up the economy.

etsians have drama I don't understand. I was going to make a whole new fall collection because I was so inspired by the construction of the Hermes handbags in Deluxe, but I guess I should do my last work for school rather than getting all excited over new patterns, designs and influences.

Man plants flowers in unused newspaper boxes- gives beauty to the urban landscape. I'm planning on doing sidewalk chalk graffiti if it doesn't rain. I'm hoping to draw some squid on the sidewalk. If someone doesn't like chalk graffiti, they can just wash it off.

Bayousalvage is awesome, btw.

Notice the stats here- 43% of people under 20 are ethnic minorities. It's a big world out there too- I find that I sell internationally. The last package I sent went to Germany.

I've been off the forums, so I did not see the whole shadesjewelry being kicked off etsy controversy.

His goodbye post.

Pussdaddy is not any help in two posts.

I'm glad that I don't really do make to order- I only do customs under special request. So my stuff always goes out within two days- three if there's some problem with me[this is why I use encidia- so I can mail things when I don't feel like going out] due to the fact that it is already made.

Personally, I don't care if this Gala darling is bankrolled by her parents or not. To create a successful business,you must have time, money and maybe some drive. The more of each you have, the better, but the more time or money you have, the less drive you need. As a person who does my best when I'm having fun, that appeals to me. Lately I've been so concerned about my 30 hour a week unpaid job that I haven't been able to do as much jewelry making as I want to do. I find that goofing off brings creativity to the fore. When I work hard, I just want to sleep on my days off.