Wow!  Is this the future of hardcopy books??  I don’t think it will completely replace Barnes and Noble or Amazon but it does add convenience and self-service to the  book industry.  Check it out here in an article in the online version of the Boston Globe.

What will they think of next?  At least the didn’t take away the coffee shop aspect of enjoying a visit to the bookstore but no more browsing before you buy, huh?

Are you ready to toss in the towel on your Internet business?  Do you see your dreams of succeeding fading.  Are you tempted to think,  “I’m too old;  I am too plain, fat or past my prime…”

Have you come to the end of your hopes to ever come out on top?   Well, think again.  This story is inspiring for anyone in any pursuit that you just keep your dream and see it through.

Who is it that I am talking about?  Susan Boyle who recently shocked the judges and audience of Britain’s Got Talent (their version of American Idol) with her stunning performance.  The faces of all who saw her as she first walked on stage was to say the least, unimpressed, even cynical.

Did she make the house “rock”?  Watch the video.  And think again — I don’t know who said it first, but, may I say, JUST DO IT!  Ignore the scoffers and pursue your dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

I am conviced I am an entreprenuer – heart and soul.  I love thinking up how to make an extra buck or 10. 

Some years ago, my family made and sold baked goods at a local farmer’s market.  You know -breads, cookies, muffins – stuff like that.  Nothing out of the ordinary, although we used only natural ingredients and organic whenever we could.

I was always experimenting with replacing the “badies”: white sugar, brown sugar, white flour, refined grains, etc. with healthier ingredients.  So our cookies were made of whole wheat flour, butter, Sucanat, and such.

But the item that set us apart was a granola type bar that I modified the recipe to be all wholesome ingredients.  We called it the Olympic Munch bar.  I could go on and on about how we developed the whole business and I will bring it up from time to time as this blog rolls on.  But for now, suffice it to say that I have successfully built a real business.  I have cried, cheered, screamed, all in the same day.  Owning your own business does that to you.

As of today, though, I sold my “baby”.  The Olympic Munch bar has been sold and is in the hands of another more capable family. 

Good bye, munchie.

I have been asked by several folks how to get UPC barcodes for products they plan to sell to retail or wholesale businesses.  It really isn’t a big deal now that I look back but I did take some digging on the ‘net.

First, I googled “buy barcodes” and found lots of info.  You can buy a UPC company prefix from the official site – GS1 – here:   http://barcodes.gs1us.org/dnn_bcec/Default.aspx 

What is a company prefix?  It is the first 6 digits in the 12 digit code.  When you register with GS1, you buy the exclusive 6 digit company prefix and then you assign the remaining 6 digits to your products.  You essentially get 999,999 potential barcodes!  These will cost you from $150 to $1,500 depending on your company’s revenue.  It takes you about two days to get the company prefix and you get the data generator to generate your barcode image which will be in a TIF format or some other form that you can treat like any other image you can then incorporate into your products’ labels.

Now, unless you are needing dozens of barcodes, what you may be more interested in is buying individual codes from someone who already has a company prefix and is willing to sell you one or more of their own to you.  After all, they originally had 999,999 unique numbers and may have only used, say, a hundred of the them). 

I purchased mine from Mozian and was quite satisfied for the price of $29.95.   http://www.mozian.com/upc.html 

After purchasing, my barcodes came the next day via email and I then imported the files to my Print Shop label.  The barcodes were larger than I needed so I converted them into an image I could cut and paste; shrink or enlarge.  You can do this easily in print shop or Adobe Photoshop.  Just make sure the vertical lines stay intact (mine are no more than 1/4″ high and maybe an inch long).  You can make them fatter, taller, thinner or whatever but make sure all the lines are there. 

Make note of the actual numbers at the bottom of the code so you can put them in, too.  These are for when a barcode doesn’t scan for some reason and the store cashier will enter them in by hand (We have all seen this happen from time to time).  Hint:  Make the numbers big enough for those of us who are nearsighted!

There is no big mystery.  The GS1 or Mozian may ask you what kinds of products you will be coding but that’s no biggie.  Obviously, Mozian, who originally bought their company prefix code from GS1 in order to have codes for their music, has sold hundreds if not thousands of codes to folks like me who sell granola bars.

Hope this helped get you started.