In case you haven’t heard of Silkfair, they pitch themselves as a friendlier alternative to eBay and Etsy, though they do allow sellers to integrate their listings from both of those sites. “SILKFAIR makes buying and selling fun and easy.”
The Silkfair Twitter Party
In order to get the word out about their online marketplace, Silkfair hired Amy Lupold Bair – the inventor of the Twitter Party, aka ResourcefulMommy – to host a sitewarming party for them. Amy created a lot of buzz for them. She held an hour-long hashtag party, during which time partygoers were given the opportunity to win prizes. Silkfair was offering free custom stores to the prize winners. There were no qualifiers to this when I found myself a prize recipient. I was getting a free custom store on Silkfair!
My “FREE” Custom Store
It took forever for Silkfair to set up the free stores for all of us winners. And by the time it happened, our free custom stores turned into three free months of having a custom store. Custom stores generally cost $24.99 per month.
With my store set up, I decided I should list all of my old Tupperware from my Tupperware lady days… but life got in the way, and I only listed three things. One of them sold in December. I forgot about Silkfair. I thought my store would revert to a free membership once my prize ran out.
I’m happy to say that I’m doing fairly well here for myself. Santa was good to my son this year. But we had a major disappointment hit the family when my brother couldn’t get my sister-in-law and niece here for Christmas as they’d planned. It would have been the first year they’d made it up for Thanksgiving or Christmas since our grandpa died in 2006. The economy wasn’t really to blame for their inability to make it here… the snowstorm that hit the East Coast was responsible. They only made it six hours into the drive from Georgia to New York before the snow hit and they were stranded in Virginia on I-81. They slept in the car that night and ended up turning around to go back home.
But the real downer was that – not only did they lose their house – but they can’t even rent a new place. I’ll try to make a long story short. My brother was in real estate. He got his realtor’s license and was working in the booming Georgia housing business. Then the economy tanked and no one could get financed. My brother was working but didn’t get paid for about a year. My sister-in-law got laid off from her job. They had an infant daughter to raise and no income. They fell behind on their mortgage payments while my brother looked for more work.
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I’d like to thank The New York Times for my chuckle of the morning. Apparently, tech blogger Damon Darlin and his editor needed a little more coffee before publishing this post today about banning the words “nerd” and “geek.”
And by the way, Professor David Anderegg… I’ve embraced my inner geek. I think geek has become acceptable now. Nerd, however, still has rather negative connotations. Unless you’re talking about the Willy Wonka candy Nerds, because YUM!
In case you haven’t heard, Amy Mengel managed to convince me to get up in front of people and talk about blogging at the fourth installment of Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley, which is being held at the headquarters of the American Red Cross of Northeastern New York in Albany. Thankfully, it’s not just me up there in front of a sold out audience of 150 people… I’m part of a panel that includes Lara Kulpa of Gingko Consulting and Problogger.com, Amanda Magee of Trampoline Design Studio, and our moderator Greg Dahlmann of Uptown/Downtown Media and All Over Albany.
Here’s what other people have been saying about the upcoming blogging panel at SMBTV4:
Can’t be there? The event will be live-streamed on USTREAM from 8:00-10:00 am on Friday morning, December 4. If you watch, though, remember that there’s a reason I’m a writer instead of a speaker. I hope I don’t stutter, ramble, or turn so red that I actually emit radiant heat.
If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, you’re obviously not a writer. NaNoWriMo is the shorthand term for National Novel Writing Month, an annual event where aspiring novelists gear up to write an entire 50,000+ word novel in the month of November. It’s something I’d tried doing before, but always ended up dropping out before I’d really gotten started.
This year? I did it. And I feel like a masochist, especially since I started over on November 14. My first attempt had hit a dead end. I reached 50,086 words at 11:39 pm last night with 21 minutes to spare. So what have I learned?
- Fiction is hard.
- Characters don’t always do what you want them to do.
- Knowing how the story ends doesn’t really help you get through the middle any easier.
- The built-in thesaurus feature is awesome.
- It’s insanely difficult not to edit as you’re writing.
- It takes longer to write 1,000 words of fiction than 1,000 words of non-fiction.
- Family members need to disappear when it’s writing time.
- Asking me “How’s it coming?” when I’m in the middle of typing will make me lose my train of thought – and then get very angry at you.
- Writing 5,000 words in a sitting turns your brain to mush.
- It feels good to be done!
How about you? If you participated in NaNoWriMo, what did you learn – about writing and about yourself?
I can’t help it. Every time I see the cover of Sarah Palin’s new book, Going Rogue, I’m reminded of Steve Carrell’s movie poster for The 40 Year Old Virgin.
I had to flip Steve Carrell’s photo around to get him facing in the same direction, but I’m sure you can see it now, right? 
If you want to pass this around, use the short URL: http://kl.am/SarahPalin
Last night, I attended a networking mixer for the Southern Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, of which I am a member. (I got my plaque last night, too, although I have no storefront in which to display it!) I brought a job-seeking friend with me for company and to hopefully help her get some leads for work. I am so glad that she came along, because it would have been completely insufferable otherwise.
I write because I’m not good talking to people, especially people I don’t know very well. And strangers? Forget it. I can’t walk up to someone I don’t know and strike up a conversation. I’ll talk to someone who approaches me, but I’m like a seventh grade girl at a middle school dance, standing at the punch bowl waiting for a boy to talk to me. I’m going to make a generalization and say that many of us who are writers – and many of us who are into social media – are much better off socializing through text than we are through speech. I know there are exceptions. I’ve met some of the exceptions. But going to the Type-A Mom Conference taught me that many bloggers are a lot like me… although a little bit of alcohol, an adult toy giveaway, and some Guitar Hero karaoke can loosen us up.
But at that Type-A Mom Conference, at Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley, and at the local mom networking nights I’ve been to (one of those is being held again tonight) – it’s been easier to talk to people because I have “met” at least a handful of the other attendees online. We’ve chatted. We’re not complete strangers. Saying, “Hi, I’m Christina Gayle on Twitter” or “I blog at Cutest Kid Ever” is quite the ice breaker. The usual response is, “Oh! I’m [insert Twitter or blog name here]! Nice to meet you in person!”
The Chamber of Commerce event last night had no such ice breaker. I didn’t know anyone other than my friend and one or two staff members from the Chamber. The event was held in a banquet room of a restaurant that was too small for the crowd. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so once people sat down, they didn’t move so as not to lose their seats. People conversed in packs, and it seemed as if they already knew each other anyways. There were so many people standing that you had to say “excuse me” at every step, even when up at the hors d’oeuvres tables. It was not conducive to meeting new people and, well, networking. At the networking mixer.
My friend and I ended up talking to the other people who had managed to grab seats at the same table as us, though none of us had skills that really benefited each other. I did talk to a guy near the bar who runs a local business journal and may suggest that people who send him press releases hire me to write them. There are a lot of bad press releases out there. (Don’t we all know it?) I talked with someone else who may want to send me some of his excess blogging work. My friend didn’t find anyone there who was hiring, but the former Chamber president gave her a lead and told her to use his name, so that was pretty awesome for her.
But mostly? It was a very painful experience. Much like that middle school dance, I was hanging out with my best friend, waiting for someone to notice me. She’s far more outgoing than me, so she did strike up a few conversations on her own, which was great. But me? It’s really not my thing. I wish they were all on Twitter so we’d know at least something about each other going in.
I’ve committed to doing the next Chamber mixer, though, since they forgot to call me up to give my “30 second pitch” when giving me my plaque. She found me at my table and gave me my plaque there. Everyone else had been called up to the podium. It’s probably just as well she didn’t, though, because it was too loud in there, and the microphone did not amplify throughout the whole room. Next time, everyone should be able to hear me, since I’m hoping it will be a more suitable location.
Tonight, I’m going to an event where I get to bring my son along for a pizza party and play time at Tumbling Tykes while the moms chat in the other room. I’ve met a few of these ladies previously, and several of us are Twitter friends. This will be a fun mixer.
To all the veterans who have served our country and helped to keep us safe so that we don’t have to live in fear – THANK YOU. Happy Veteran’s Day.
I wish I had thought to ask my grandpa about his time in the service when he was still alive. Now that he’s gone, I only have a few details from the documents my grandma kept. Leaving his name out, I’d like to share them with you. I’ve tried to find out more information about what his unit did, but there has been precious little I could find online. (All information I’ve found pertaining to the 40th Tank Battalion is from WWII.) What I do know is that he was deployed to Germany shortly after the end of the Korean War.
It’s bad enough when you get spam email trying to pitch dubious SEO services to you. It’s worse when the spammers visit the contact form on your Web site to make the pitch. I thought this was a legitimate request for my services via Phenomenal Content. Instead, this spam came from a Gmail address with no company name attached, although “Melodie” listed her URL as google.com:
We would like to get your website on first page of Google.All of our processes use the most ethical “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques that will not get your website banned or penalized.Please reply and I would be happy to send you a proposal.In order for us to respond to your request for information, please include your company’s website address (mandatory) and or phone number.
Let’s pick this apart a piece at a time.
- The spammer listed her company URL as google.com, trying to falsely lead me to believe she works for Google.
- I run a quality copywriting company and you don’t put a space in between your sentences? Fail.
- My Web site is already on the first page of Google for my company name. I bet that’s how they planned to “get” me on the first page of Google. I also happen to be on the first page for “content creation services.” Maybe that’s why they targeted me – if I didn’t know that, they could claim they did it for me.
- I love how “white hat” is in quotation marks.
- Won’t get me banned or penalized? After sending me spam, I hardly believe that.
- Wait, they used the contact form on my Web site, and they need me to remind them of my URL?
File this one under spam. Sadly, even a Captcha field can’t guard against humans who opt for manual spamming techniques.
