Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

catshark88

I have an event Saturday to trial our new wizzy Canon EOS 1 Mark 3 (a camera) and then if our indoor photography matches the quality we can get outdoors, there will be a phonecall to Horse & Hound offering our services. All rather nerve wracking/ exciting.

I'm going to apply to AQA next time that they are recruiting, it sounds rather fun and decently paid. Hope Parceline has arrived/ arrives soon.

Dithering_Dad

Hi Caz,

Congrats on the MFiT diary - I think it's a great way of motivating yourself and to keep people updated on how you're getting on. I've added a link to your diary onto the MFiT OP, so if people click on your username it'll bring them here.

Good luck with the challenge!!

cazmanian_minx

A new week and a new month to go with it!

Didn't do too badly on the goals for the week. 90% of the stock is dealt with, I got my AQA total for the month to £52 and half-wrote a story aimed at Take A Break (who pay a LOT better than People's Friend - £200 for 700 words as opposed to £70 for 1,000-5,000 words!)

The eBay business has had a stunning month - highest turnover ever by £500. Given August is supposed to be a dead month for eBay, I'm wondering what's going to happen when it picks up towards Christmas! The bad news is that one item I sell about 100-150 a week of has been out of stock at my supplier for 3 weeks. I've now run out and when I rang them yesterday to find out when it would be available (I've got 200 on backorder) they said probably another fortnight. I've been scouring wholesalers for something similar, but no joy in the UK, so I think I'm going to have to take a deep breath and start searching overseas in the USA or Asia.

The increase in turnover is, I think, entirely due to taking out a subscription to Selling Manager Pro. It's been an absolute lifesaver. Previously I used to load most of my stock into my shop and have one of everything on Buy It Now. When that sold, I'd have to find the shop listing and send one from the shop to fixed price - time consuming and costly in terms of fees. With SMP I tell it how many I have available to sell, create listings in the amounts that I sell in the listing period (e.g. 6 items on a 30-day shop listing, 2 items on a 10-day Buy It Now) and then tell it to keep 1 of each type of listing active at all times while I still have stock available. So it does all the relisting automatically and it knows whether an item qualifies for a relist credit, so it'll relist if it does and use sell similar if it doesn't. It also sends out 'Payment received' and 'Item despatched' emails for me and even leaves feedback once the customer's paid - it's almost as good as having an employee!

Sorry, didn't mean to sound like an advert there Ebay gets so much wrong, it's nice to find something that really works for once (and we'll gloss over it going berserk last Sunday and triple-listing stuff for a few hours, because they're refunding my listing fees for the errors!)

As a result of said stunning month, I've just been able to pay £220 off the mortgage, which takes me under £28,000 :beer: Next mini-goal is to get the total paid off since the beginning of the year to £10k, which is only another £511 away.

This week's goals:

• Track down some more of the bestseller I'm out of
• Place top-up stock orders
• Order Christmas stock
• Finish story
• 10 AQA questions a day
• Register for OU photography course

Catshark - hope the event goes well today, I'm *very* jealous of the camera! I have a second-hand EOS 300D and am wondering if the taxman will agree that I need at least a 5D for photographing stock??!? :rotfl: Seriously, I'd love to upgrade to something that's capable of taking pictures that pass Alamy.com's quality control and I think a 5D would do it without too much interpolation required...

Caz

Move_To_Portugal

Hi Caz

I think a new camera would be an investment in your business, so I would go for it.
Eek I just suggested some one spends some money:eek:

mtp

cazmanian_minx

MTP - I can't really justify spending nearly £2k on a camera body when the one I've got does just as good a job for the job I need it for though

I've reached an executive decision though - I'm going to invest in a table top studio (soft box, light pad, two daylight lamps and a tripod) so I can take better pics of my stock. At the moment I'm reliant on it being a nice day outside so I can stick the beads on a couple of sheets of photocopy paper next to the bedroom window and over-expose to get a clean background! As winter approaches, there are going to be less days I can photograph on, so it's a good time to do it and I reckon I can get the bits on eBay for about £100 (rather than the £350 I found for a 'Jewellery Studio Photography Kit' I found online!).

OH and I are also planning to be totally, totally naughty and go on a once-in-a-lifetime dream holiday to celebrate us both finally being divorced. We want to spend 2 weeks in a luxury hotel in Mauritius where he can play golf and I can go riding and get pampered in a spa and we can both go swimming, sailing, water-skiing, canoing etc. etc. etc. We've found several good options but even with a pay for 7 nights get 7 free offer, it's going to be about £2,500 each, so that's going set me back a few months.

Caz

Move_To_Portugal

That'll teach me to stick my nose in. I know nothing about camera's Caz, no that is far too much money:o

Good luck with the holiday saving

MtP

catshark88

Thanks Caz! The events went well and I have finally broken even after 5 months trading. I was going to send a couple of examples to H&H but I want us to get a little bit more practised with the mark 3 first. The camera is fab but I need to look at lenses cos the pics in the indoor school aren't quite as I'd like yet. I am rather a novice on the technical side of photography, I'm managing on knowing dressage/ horses and having a fool proof camera at the mo! I am looking to learn though.

Could you set up a photography sideline business and expense a camera on that??

cazmanian_minx

Catshark - glad it went well and congrats on breaking even :beer:

I think I'm going to do this course and then have a year of entering competitions (which reminds me, must send my Countryfile entries off...) - if I can get placed in any of them, or have a picture published in any of the photography magazines, then I'll buy the 5D and try out for Alamy.

Caz

catshark88

Sounds a great plan Caz.

Which OU course are you going to do? I'm going to do the creating & sharing better images one. It's about time I stopped looking blank when people ask me about which F Stop I use!

I did the first couple of events with a 300, then bought a 400. It was a vast step up in terms of speed (taking pics & writing to card). I think that it would have been sufficient for the outdoor tests, we just need to get indoor schools sorted! DH is my 2nd (and far more knowledgable) photographer & he just loves having a new gadget to play with.....:rotfl:

cazmanian_minx

Same one as me then :j - I think it's the only one they do actually! Mum keeps pointing me in the direction of the Open College of the Arts, but it's £600+ per course :eek: