It’s been hectic these past few months and a very long time since I even did a random post such as this. But I will keep it brief. I’ve been trying to find a freelance writing job in the video game industry again. Nothing fancy, but just writing news articles would be nice to get. However, with how the industry is these days, I am really not hopeful or even wanting to work with any of the mainstream game outlets (a topic for another time). So I’m just looking for local work and going through my stuff to find things to sell.
Speaking of going through things, I suddenly realized that there could be an archive of my previous online work for two of the sites that erased it all. I was able to recover a few articles from the first website I wrote for and have been posting them on here (why you are seeing a lot of old work popping up). The other site, Maximum PC, might have a lot of my work on there but it will take a long time for me to glean through it all to find the articles I wrote. I’m just glad that there is some real, official proof to show that I wrote for these sites with the dates of when they were posted.
Aside from that great discovery, I have been looking for a steady job to help pay the bills and also been working on creating more designs for my Redubble shop which has led me to have come to a couple of conclusions. The first is that I really hampered myself by trying to target a very niche market that is already oversaturated with competing designs. Second, I am not very good at creating designs. No surprise there since I can’t even draw a stick figure.
However, I was surprised that I actually made my first sale ever this month and it was a mug with the words “NaNoWriMo Life – Eat Sleep WRITE Repeat” written on it. Even more surprising was that, no sooner did I sell the first mug when, 24 hours later, a second mug sold! After 130-plus designs, I finally got my first sale!
So I guess not all of my designs are complete crap! Still, I have a long way to go in trying to drive more traffic to the shop and need to keep learning how to do it. I do want to create two more shops for other markets, but that will depend on whether or not something else pans out.
To go off on a different tangent, I recently made a pitch for a business idea to someone who, initially, seemed excited about it. However, I am not banking on this going through because the idea, a type of restaurant/cafe, is rather risky. This opportunity came out of left field and, to be honest, was forced upon me. So I wasn’t exactly prepared for making this kind of pitch. But I’ll talk about it in another post depending on how things do or don’t develop.
In the meantime, I am currently looking to make some quick cash and so I have to go into my stock of things I have collected over the years. A few years back, when I had been let go from my two writing gigs at Maximum PC and Hot Hardware, there was a stretch where I wasn’t getting any work or making any money. So I was able to eke out enough to pay bills and eat by selling some of my stuff such as Star Trek legos, Marvel figures, old video game guides, Pokemon cards, and other things on Ebay.
Right now, I have a Star Wars Darth Vader Helmet Display that was for a Toys R Us store, back in 2005, that was never hung up. It is taking up a lot of space and I need to get rid of it. Problem is, I don’t know what I should try to price it at, not to mention the issue of trying to ship it to someone if I can sell it. It is large, bulky, and rather delicate. I don’t have the original box it was shipped in, but I have the instruction manual for it and the helmet itself is still in great condition.
The only listing I could find for something similar was on Ebay but the person is asking $1,000 for it. This seller’s display is also not in great condition with scratches, rusted base of the hook, and duct tape on the back of it where there might be a crack? I might just try to sell my display locally but will have to ask for some opinions on this one because, as I stated before, trying to ship this will be a real pain and very expensive.
So if anyone has some advice about what I can do about this, I’m all ears!
But here are a couple of pictures I quickly took of it. Will have to make the time in order to take better pictures but wanted to show you all what it looks like to give a general idea of the display’s quality.
Do you think it is worth the effort of trying to sell this Darth Vader Helmet Display?
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