Pimp My Hundred Bucks - Part Fourteen

I would like to call this entry, “The Art of Going Backwards”.

I knew this week wasn’t going to be a good one. It’s the end of the Summer Break here in New Zealand and scores of children and awkward teenagers are flocking back to school while parents, myself among them, have returned to their jobs with wild abandon (yeah right)... in other words not many people are thinking about reading at the moment and my stock has had a lonely and boring week on the shelf with the fleas…

That’s right, fleas! After returning from my glorious holiday in Oz we found our house had become occupied by the blood sucking kangaroo of all parasites, the flea, and for some reason they seem to love the room that I keep all my books in! I can’t seem to put a paperback away without becoming the dinner to at least 8 of the things dining in the all-you-can-eat restaurant of my legs!

I’ve tried a bug bomb, but having been exposed to all that literature seems to have made them intelligently cunnning and they put on their little gas masks just in time to survive my attempts at mass genocide!

Of course that’s just silly, but I have more fleas than customers right now and it’s depressing me!

But at least I have more books than fleas!

Currently I’m enjoying the pleasant view of more than 222 books listed on Trademe and more than 350ish in stock! What? 350ish? How did that happen?

Enter Buyer’s remorse…

I’m afraid I broke what has been a cardinal rule throughout this entire venture thanks to the little subconscious part of me that likes to wreck everything and press the self destruct button whenever I get bored.

And that’s just it, I have become bored. Turning small amounts of money into bigger amounts of money can be very exciting, but when you lose momentum and the going goes slow, it can suddenly go dull and before you know it you’re thinking about that box of 100 Science Fiction books some guys selling on the internet for only $90 and you might, like me, just press the “bid now” button in the hope that someone just might outbid you because you know that it’s probably a dumb idea…

But then you don’t get outbid and before you know it you’ve just bought 100 books at .90 cents each, which actually is quite good but that $283 you had worked so hard to earn all of a sudden shrinks by $90 and you’re left wondering, what on earth did I just do that for?

The cardinal rule that I broke was that up until recently I only replaced that which I sold in any week by two. So if I sold five books this week I would purchase ten to replace them with. In so doing my “business” has grown naturally and manageably. In this way I grow with the beast, matching its new claws with the whip of my experience, but when I make drastic decisions like this one, manipulating its genes with the growth hormone of a hundred more books, who knows what Jurassic Park like disaster could befall my goal?

So you see, fleas are the least of my worries right now, because this week I only sold eight books and have replaced them times ten plus! Have I committed financial suicide? I feel like Jack with his magic beans, all I can do now is list them and hope for a bean stalk to grow. Except I know from experience how very hard, or rather time consuming, it is to list 100 books! Not sure about magic beanstalks though.

This week I sold:

What I didn’t learn in School but Wish I Had by Jamie McIntyre - $4
Two Sixes by Max Brand - $3
The Dead Zone by Stephen King - $3
The Ice beneath My Feet by Diana Patterson - $5
The Good News Bible - $8
Deep Six by Clive Cussler - $3
Warlock by Wilbur Smith - $5

Giving me only $39 to brag about. Not that I’m ungreatful of course!

So when all is said and done, accounting for listing fees and success fees and considering the massive amount I just blew on a bunch of nerdy science fiction books I am left with only $204.26, thus proving that I am a master at the art of going backwards.

Of course there is the old adage to hang my despair on, that sometimes you need to go backwards to go forwards and let’s not forget the other gem, that more often than not you will need to spend money to make money. Who knows, maybe I’ll fob them off at $5 each and reach my goal way sooner?

On the other hand, while my bank account travels backwards my blog site has been enjoying a record number of hits in the past few weeks! Seriously, I’ve gone from 40 or so hits a day to about 180 hits every 24 hours and while I’d like to say it’s because my blogs are just brilliantly awesome, it’s actually more likely because I’m getting spammed by people whose English is almost as good as a carrots!

Here are some examples from the week just gone, I’m sure you will enjoy them as much as I haven’t:

“Very shortly this site will be famous among all blogging and site-building visitors, due to its nice articles” – Anonymous

“Nice post. I used to be checking constantly this blog and I am inspired! Extremely helpful info particularly the last part J I take care of such info much. I used to be looking for this certain info for a very long time…” – Anonymous

“Hi to all, how is the whole thing, I think everyone is getting more from this website, and your views are nice in support of new users.” – Anonymous

“I’ve learn some just right stuff here. Certainly price bookmarking for revisiting. I wonder how a lot effort you set to create any such magnificent informative web site.” – Anonymous

“I’ve been surfing online more than 2 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before” – Anonymous

You get the picture! There were about 50 more, although I might be hyperbolizing in that point a bit. Most of these comments would have been awesome if they didn’t come complete with links to utterly unrelated web sites!

Anyway, I guess I just mention that in the hope that in the weeks to come I will get some actual real comments to counter the weight of all the fake ones!

Until next time, please hit the like button below, this will have the same effect on my ego that squeezing the little basket ball on a 90’s pair of rebooks would have had!


Click Here to read this series from the beginning!

Click Here if you would like to follow my progress on Facebook!

Click Here to read this series from the beginning!

Click Here to read my awesome last series, Pimp My Twenty Bucks

Click Here to view my Trademe Listings

For some great money related articles please visit workingathomeinternet.com for some great monetary wisdom... see you there!


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