Thread: Where is Chandler's website

Can't find Joe's website store - help!

Originally Posted by tombuesing

Can't find Joe's website store - help!

http://shop.writerferret.com

Joe,

Can you explain the name of your website address. I mean, to me it is so obivous, Joe Chandler=writerferret...

RT

Thanks!.......(10

Originally Posted by rtaylor61

Joe,

Can you explain the name of your website address. I mean, to me it is so obivous, Joe Chandler=writerferret...

RT

Been wondering that myself.

To be honest, I don't have any idea. GFoster set the site up for me, and used some of his server space for it (I guess), so I guess that's got something to do with it. Where the name came from, I don't know. He did me a big favor, so I didn't ask too many questions.

I'll explain, since it's running on my server

Writerferret is my "nom de guerre", the name I use under some of my writings. I'm not sure if I've ever talked about this before, but I write quite a bit and have managed to sell a little bit of it in the past. I ran a blog for a couple of years and wrote 800-1000 words a day every day as a daily "column". I had quite a few constant readers and managed to clock up something like 16000 hits or so on the original site I used before I moved it.

I wanted to break into writing professionally, and the best way to get better is to practice every day so I did. I later on managed to sell a few of my columns to a couple of different places but haven't quite made the full "leap of faith" it takes yet to write full time professionally (haven't fell into a good opportunity yet, either, to be honest). However, if any of you know of any writing opportunities (no gig too small, lol) I'd love it if you'd keep me in mind. You can see samples of a lot of my stuff just by googling "writerferret" or "writer ferret" or you can browse the archives at http://writerferret.motime.com (my original site).

Since I have a server and domain, I figured I'd help Joe out since he's a good guy. So, one day I just set up a complete store on my site and registered the shop as a subdomain of my own (that way I don't have to pay extra). I started it by preloading the store with his latest razor "for sale" list as well.

I skyped Joe and showed him what I had done and got his reaction, and then we set up all the shipping and payment options. I explained to him how to resize pics and post his stuff, and basically turned him loose. I have to say he was surprised and grateful, and I enjoyed surprising him. I'd told him a few times that he ought to get an online presence and finally I just did it *for* him instead of reminding him, heh.

Now he's making millions of dollars, buying bottles of 30 year old scotch and dating a different redhead every night...

I subsidize and pay for his bandwidth usage since it's part of my own hosting plan. That's not a big deal for me because to be honest I don't use anywhere near all my allotted bandwidth anyway so his traffic doesn't impact me much, although his traffic is quite a bit more than my own I also maintain the domain, and still have access to fix things if they should break. I do it because Joe's a good guy and I'm glad to be able to do nice things for nice people. Right now I've restarted my blog (I had it disabled for quite a while) and plan on getting back into the swing of writing after the wedding is over. I also use the site to serve up my recipes for the beer I brew and to share that information at http://www.writerferret.com/brewing

I am considering starting up a podcast as well, and if I do I'll use that domain to serve up the podcasts and use that in conjunction with a daily column type thing again.

There is a banner on the site for my hosting service, and if you decide to click on that and sign up for hosting I get a small kickback, but that's it. I don't get anything else. The hosting service I use is really good and has quite excellent plans, so if any of you do want an online presence and your own hosted domain I'd encourage you to at least look at them (and if you sign up please go through the banner on Joe's store so I can buy kibble for my dog heh).

I am hoping, though, that if other people need commerce sites set up they like what they see at Joe's place and I might be able to pick up the occasional contract here and there to help other people set up their sites. That's not the primary reason why I did it though, honestly I just did it because I felt like helping Joe out and I wanted the experience of setting something like that up.

As for the origin of the name "writer ferret" that I use, well, that's a secret. If anyone figures it out, I'll confirm whether you are right or not, though.

-- Gary F.

Very interesting, Gary. I'll take a stab at the name. Writers do research, i. e. - "ferret" out material for their writing. Is that it? I've only written one thing myself, a play about our local history which I directed with a group of sixth-graders performing it. I did a lot of "ferreting" on that one.

Nope, sorry

-- Gary F.