Friday, May 9, 2014

Money For A Goal; Aspirations All-Told.

What does it take to make a thousand bucks on Amazon? I get earnings deposited into my bank account every two weeks. As a fairly meaningless measure, I set a personal goal of making one of those payments include four digits before the decimal point.

I have a lot riding on my Amazon business. Selling with Amazon's FBA program (fulfillment by Amazon) is the best way I've found to make money while still being a smelly fuck. All I have to do is buy cheap books and sell them for more on Amazon. If I'm buying books faster than I'm selling them, then my inventory is growing. If I have a growing inventory of good books (I do), my payments will get bigger. If my payments are getting bigger, then at some point I'll see a thousand-dollar deposit. That's what I'm waiting for.

This is getting pretty close.

Nope. I won't be rich soon. This is a measure which fails to factor in many variables. It doesn't factor in what I paid for inventory. It doesn't factor in any expenses. But it's a number that's getting bigger, and pretty soon - if I don't lay down across the tracks - it's going to hit $1000.

Today is the 10th, and it happens to be a payday. My hopeful goal was $860 to reach a personal best. But I sold an owner's guide for the M1911 pistol for a hundred bucks, and the payout tally shot past $900. Only chance will determine if I reach the 4-digit payout. The sales period will soon end - some time tonight, or maybe early tomorrow. They'll wave the checkered flag. Then we will see.

What does this mean?

I'm trying to get out of some sneaky recent debt. When I come up for air, I'd like to see that I have a semblance of a job and a method of making money. Finding books that I can sell for a profit is fun. It's the easiest job I've ever had, but it's not a passion. I want to make enough money to invest in some of the ideas that have been keeping me awake for years. As I advance my situation incrementally, I feel that I am edging toward the opportunity to create something that I am proud of. A business; a product; a community.

I am proud of my erstwhile travel, and I am proud of this little house that I built. Both have helped me grow as a human, but both have wreaked murder on my solvency.

It's the daydreams of product ideas that I want to see light. I have begun to recognize that I am capable of pushing a new idea into existence, and it is this itch under my skin that makes me fill big heavy boxes full of books.

A thousand bucks is a number. I roll my eyes that my mileposts have dollar signs, but the freedom to create and travel keeps me filling up boxes and clicking refresh.

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