New: discussion forum, and ersatz bookstore!

While this isn’t the most interesting weblog entry evAr, it’s kind of fun to keep track of the progress we’re making on our website.

Several weeks ago, at the beginning of July, we began this “build a website” project. Silly me, thinking it might just be a couple weeks in the making. Ha!

While the homepage is still fairly ugly, it’s got a couple of new features attached to it. This probably sounds pretty trivial, but given my limited ability to stick with a project for very long, I’m actually kinda proud of the progress I’ve made. All the artwork is finished, so the next step is to get it plugged in and running smoothly. Then that demon, content. What to put on it? LOL

First, I figured out how to create a virtual bookstore (thanks, Amazon). At the moment, there is only a plethora of books by and about Aleister Crowley (I was testing out the “add” features). I’ll probably wind up deleting everything and starting over.  But if you want to buy anything online from Amazon, let me know, and I’ll make a listing. Every little bit of revenue will help us build our shop that much faster!

Second, I installed phpBB, thinking that it might be nice to have a shop-centric, OKC-centric forum. I don’t know how serious people are about it, but they always indicate it would be nice to keep in touch and learn about what’s going on in the realm of Ande and my shop. I think people want a no-BS zone where they can come and play nicely in the same sandbox, too.

I was always proud that people thought of my shop as a neutral ground where they could come in and not be judged based on what group they belonged to. I don’t care about that stuff. I’m a Capricorn and I love to sell things. I care about my customers and as long as they are respectful while in my lair, they are quite welcome to believe and practice and befriend anything or anyone they please.

So the Once Upon A Silver Moon forum is up now, and will be a good place to let me know what kinds of stuff you want, what you want to learn about.I can make sections on herbs, stones, hoodoo, incense making, perfumery, and other crafty things.

We can have private boards for local groups, which are password protected and invisible to anyone not in them, so please enquire if your study group, grove, coven, or grotto would like a subforum.

As a shopkeeper my focus is not on limiting what’s available but to expanding it. I’m not a Wiccan, but a lot of folk start off that way, so we’ll carry Wiccan stuff. The new store isn’t going to be as limited as the old one — we’ll be more attractive to New Age Christians this time (well, I certainly hope that’s the case). We will definitely bring back the apothecary! The old shop was very pagan-centric and left out a lot of people who didn’t feel comfortable shopping there. The new one will be more inclusive because it’s just good business to be that way.

So, thanks again for following our progress, and be assured it is coming together. More slowly than I thought but I’m working on some aspect of it every day. Making product for shows, doing shows, painting artwork for the home page, working on my webstore, listing products, developing new lines, working out prototypes, making up new packaging, and learning, learning, learning! If I had a partner it would help, but once again I’m doing it all on my own. I’m only one woman, so it’s taking a little more time than I had expected but it is coming along pretty well.