Tag Archives: business

First Art Show of the Season

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Surprisingly successful.

This past weekend was my first art show of the season. It’s at a venue which is usually good for me, but this time, it was surprisingly good. I thought I’d blog a bit about it.

But before I go into a report of this past weekend’s art show, let me begin by explaining how I sell my work. (You know me; there’s always a back story.)

My sales channels

I sell most of the jewelry I make in three different channels:

  • My Art Show Booth
    My art show booth as it appeared this past weekend in Leavenworth. I was fortunate to have an end spot and be open on three sides.

    Art Shows. This accounts for far more than half of my sales, but it’s the hardest work I do. I (normally) pay a free up front for booth space and then, on the day of the show, arrive early with a 10×10 foot tent, tables, table covers, signage, and merchandise displays. I set everything up — it takes roughly 90 minutes — placing my work as artistically and practically as I can. Then I sit in the booth all day — sometimes for as many as five days in a row — to sell what I’ve brought, make more inventory (when possible), and take/make orders for custom items. Then, at the end of the show, I pack everything back up. The benefit: I (normally) get to keep 100% of the selling price for each item.

  • Wholesale and Consignment Sales. This accounts for maybe 15% of my sales and involves a lot less work — but at a cost. My wholesale price is 50% off the retail price; consignment fees are typically 35% to 40%. Even though it costs more, I prefer wholesale sales — once an item is sold, I can pretty much cross it off my inventory and forget about it. (The exception is the trade-in policy I offer for my wholesale clients; if something doesn’t sell in their shop in 6 to 18 months, I allow them to trade it in for another item.) Consignment is a royal pain in the ass. Not only am I letting a consignment shop hold onto my inventory (so I can’t sell it myself), but I need to keep track of all that stuff. And if an item is lost through theft at their shop, I’m pretty much screwed. Or if they go out of business while they have my stock, I have to worry about getting it back. Needless to say, I really don’t do much on consignment. What’s nice about these channels, however, is that they do often lead to a regular stream of sales with monthly income. So there’s that.
  • My Online Store. This accounts for another 10% of my sales. Right now, I’m using Etsy, but I hope to switch to a more professional solution soon. Etsy takes a small cut of each sale — it’s less than 10% (unless the sale is related to a special ad they’ve placed) — so it isn’t the cost that bothers me. It’s being in an online retail space with people selling cheap, imported junk that they’re trying to pass off as their own work. The only thing that keeps me with Etsy is their integrated shipping feature, which not only makes it easy to ship to addresses all over the world, but gives me a discount on USPS postage costs.

The rest of my sales are face-to-face to friends and acquaintances. That’s a tiny percentage of the total.

This Weekend’s Show

This past weekend I was at Leavenworth Art in the Park. This is a weekly art show in the center of town that has been fine-tuned over the past year for COVID. Right now, it’s operating with only 15 artist vendors in widely spaced outdoor booths; when restrictions ease a bit more, I suspect it’ll go back to its previous capacity which was about 20.

Art in the Park
With spacing for COVID, booths are able to be open on all sides.

Leavenworth, Washington, is a small town in the foothills to the Cascade Mountains. It’s a gorgeous location, nestled near mountains that remain snow-capped for much of the year. Its Bavarian Theme is what brings tourists in all summer long. The town also has (or had before COVID) lots of festivals, including a three week long Oktoberfest and big Christmas celebrations. The area has tons of hiking, white water rafting, camping, and other outdoor activities. It’s a nice place to visit, although admittedly a bit too touristy in town for my taste.

Leavenworth, WA
Downtown Leavenworth, WA was completely redone years ago to require Bavarian style architecture. One of the nice things about COVID — there are silver linings if you look for them — is that it got the town to close down the main street to vehicle traffic to make room for outdoor dining.

Elk horns
One of the draws to Leavenworth is entertainment, like this elk horn group. I shot this photo from my booth; it was very close to where the entertainment was.

I started showing/selling my work at Art in the Park in 2019. I attend on a limited basis because my primary work, which is cherry drying with my helicopter, requires me to be close to the helicopter in the Wenatchee area from roughly June 1 to August 15 every summer.

In a way, my limited time there is a good thing. Leavenworth is 50 miles from my home and the days there are long: 9 AM to 6 PM. Add that to my one hour (each way) commute and I’m looking at 11 hours. Spring and early autumn can be cold, summer can be hot. Parking is a pain in the ass. There are long lines at restaurants and, often, for the restrooms.

The reward of being there, however, is great sales. Folks who come to Leavenworth come to be entertained and to spend money. They shop in town and at the Art Show. They eat and drink in countless restaurants and bars. They stay in local hotels. They are in money-spending mode. And because most of them come from the Seattle side of the mountains, they have a bit more disposable income than the local folks I used to sell to at smaller venues in downtown Wenatchee. A pendant priced $59 isn’t a big expenditure for these folks, so I can actually sell and make money on my work.

This weekend was a great example. Although it was the second weekend of the show, it was my first weekend attending. I set up on Friday morning and began selling almost immediately. By 6 PM, I’d sold more than I had in an entire weekend on my last show. I did even better on Saturday and almost as well on Sunday.

Overall, it was the best weekend I’d ever had at any show anywhere.

Pendant
Here’s one of the pendants I made while I was sitting in my booth on Sunday morning. I made a total of six pendants that day.

It was so good that I spent most of Saturday and Sunday making more inventory. My wire work pendants continue to sell well in Leavenworth and I made five custom pendants for customers while I was there. I also made a bracelet and three beaded necklaces. This week I’ll be making a lot of earrings in my shop.

Now although the booth fee at Art at the Park is remarkably low, the non-profit organization that runs it does take a cut of sales: 21%. So I don’t get all of the money I brought in. But 21% is a lot less than the 35% or 40% I’m paying two galleries to show and sell my work. And I sold a lot more this past weekend than I’ve sold in my three year relationship with both galleries combined. So I’m definitely not complaining.

I’m doing two more weekends at Leavenworth this month. Then I’m stuck in Wenatchee for most of the summer. I applied to a show in Wenatchee in June and another show in Chelan in July. (I had to find a booth sitter for the July show in case rain is possible and I need to stay home.) I’m scheduled to go back to Leavenworth in August and September, but I may need to cancel that because of a conflict with another opportunity that I’m not quite ready to discuss here yet.

And if you’re a Leavenworth tourist reading this, I sure hope you’ll stop by Art in the Park while you’re in town. It’s open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from about 9 AM to 6 PM (or 5 PM on Sundays). I believe it’s also open on Thursdays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Support local artists and makers!

Cherry Drying Season Begins. Again.

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Can you believe this is my thirteenth season?

Cherry drying season began yesterday for me. It was the earliest start I’ve ever had. At this point, I expect to be on contract until the beginning of August.

Cherry Drying
Here’s a shot of me over the cherry trees a few years ago in my first R44.

I started doing this in 2008, the same summer I turned down a job offer to be a tour pilot in Alaska. That job would have had me landing on glaciers, touring fjords, and sling-loading food to dog sled camps. But it also had very long work days, only mediocre pay, and a long season away from home. I was married at the time — hey, everyone makes mistakes — and my wasband didn’t want me to be away from home so long. So when a chance to spend just about a month flying in Washington state came along, I took that instead. Any opportunity to get out of Arizona’s oppressive summer heat.

Want to learn more about cherry drying, including why we do it? Start with this very old blog post: “Drying Cherries with the Big Fan.” Then read more by following the cherry drying tag.

At the time, although I hoped it would become an annual gig, I never in my wildest dreams expected it to become my primary source of income. Back in 2008, I was still writing computer books for a living, just starting a slide down from a career high in 2004/05. I’d had a helicopter since 2001 but couldn’t make money flying it. The first R44 came in 2005, but it wasn’t until 2007 when I got some lucrative wildlife survey work that the business started turning a profit. Cherry drying carried on that trend. By 2013, when I shed my wasband and moved to Washington full time, I was making more as a pilot than as a writer. (Let’s face it: no one is buying computer books these days.)

Business boomed over the years. For a while, I kept building my client base — and the team of pilots who worked with me to serve them. Things leveled off a year or two ago and I generally have the same clients and contracts every year. My team now consists of 5 pilots (including me), most of which come on about 2 weeks after my season has started and leave 2 to 3 weeks before my season ends.

Mr Bleu
My R44 Raven II helicopter, “Mr Bleu,” parked out at his summer cherry drying base. I put on his blade cozies to protect the blades from forecasted hail in thunderstorms this weekend. Beyond him is a Hiller belonging to another pilot who isn’t working with me; all my guys fly R44s.

My formula is simple: work as a team to serve all the clients equally. Keep all pilots flying as much as possible, no matter which client calls. If only one big orchard needs drying, put multiple pilots on it to get it done fast. Don’t contract for more acreage than we can cover within a reasonable time. Oh, and make sure all of the orchards are in a tight little area so pilots don’t waste time deadheading from one orchard to another.

With few exceptions, my team is different every year. While I’d love to work with the same group of guys every year — 2016’s team really stands out for how well we worked together on the rainiest year I’ve ever seen here — few guys seem interested in doing this every year. They don’t see it the way I did: as a paid vacation with some time off for paying work in a place with lots of recreational opportunities. (Hell, I bought a boat here — before I moved here — so I could get out on the river during my cherry season.) The ones who do see that — Gary comes to mind — come again and again. Most others drift away, so I wind up building new teams every year.

Things will get busy for me in mid-June, when my guys start showing up. I’ll show them the orchards — probably from the air — give them Google Maps references with orchard locations, and probably fly with them so they know what they need to do. Then I’ll leave them alone until rain looks likely. When the calls start coming, I’ll start dispatching — by phone and on the radio. We’ll all keep flying until the work gets done or it gets dark, whichever comes first.

Of course, I’ll have my GoPros hooked up for most of my flights, collecting new footage for my YouTube channel. Folks really seem to love cherry drying videos — which is something I can’t quite understand. There’s really nothing exciting about the work.


This video from 2016 is my most popular cherry drying video so far, with over 735K views. As I write this, it’s averaging 2,000 views a day.

While the season is on, I’ll find an orchard where I can get permission for us to pick our own cherries. Last year, it was a block full of Rainiers that didn’t get picked because they just didn’t get red enough. (Can you imagine?) On really nice days with no chance of rain, I’ll lend my kayaks or maybe my bicycle out to the pilots. Or maybe I’ll take one or two of them out on my boat. Because we’re all on call during daylight hours 7 days a week and the days are so long, there’s no opportunity to party. We always have to be ready to fly at first light.

Did I mention that none of us can leave the area during the entire time we’re under contract? It’s almost like being under house arrest for me. For them — well, if they play it right, it’s that paid vacation I mentioned above.

Near the end of the season, I’ll have one of my end-of-season BBQs. I’ll smoke up a few racks of ribs and roast a chicken or two. I’ll invite my guys and maybe a few other pilots I’ve met during the season. Then, as the cherries are picked out and the contracts end, the guys will leave, one by one. By the end of July, I’ll be the only one left to cover the few orchard blocks that are yet to be picked. When they’re done, I’m done.

And that’s it for me for the year.

Well, not really. I still do charter flights and tours. And the occasional photo flight. And yes, I still go flying just for fun.

But once my last contract has ended, I usually spend some time trying to get my life back to normal, taking trips out of town and trying hard not to check the weather every half hour. I usually go on vacation, too. In 2017, I finished just in time to go to Oregon to watch the total eclipse of the sun. Other years, I’ve taken my camper into the North Cascades, Canada, and the Olympic Peninsula. Last year, I took a photo cruise among the San Juan Islands. This year, I’m going to Alaska for 10 days. (If I play my cards right, I might go out and land on a glacier with the folks I almost went to work for all those years ago.)

And that’s my cherry drying season routine. Did I know back in 2008 that it would become such a vital part of my financial well-being? Hell no.

But in all honesty, I never expect anything to work out the way it actually does. I’ve just learned to go with it. And I’ve got no complaints about this.

Passenger Weights: Do the Math

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Don’t give in to client pressure.

Mr Bleu in Wenatchee Heights
Here’s Mr Bleu parked on hillside in Wenatchee Heights.

Yesterday, I got a call from a potential client for my charter services. He’d seen my Two Winery Tour on the Flying M Air website. The tour starts in Wenatchee and goes to two wineries for wine tasting: Tsillan Cellars in Chelan and Cave B Winery in Quincy (or George?). The flight costs $995 for up to three passengers and includes up to 90 minutes of flight time, as well as pilot wait time.

I’ll admit it here: I’ve never actually done this tour. I’ve taken people to both wineries, but never the same people on the same day. I think it’s just too expensive for most folks. So when this guy — I’ll call him Hal — wanted to do the tour, I was very interested in making it happen.

There was some back and forth about where I’d pick him up. At first, he wanted me to come get him at a friend’s place in Leavenworth. Of course, I had no way of knowing whether the landing zone would be suitable without actually going up there — 40 road miles each way from my home — to check it out. And then there was the fact that it would add to my flight time and I’d have to charge him extra for that. We finally agreed that I’d pick him up at the airport in Cashmere, which was only about 5 minutes out of my way. I’d make up the flight time in the air.

My final step was getting the passenger names and weights for my flight manifest and weight and balance calculation. For some reason, I’d assumed that it was just him and wife or girlfriend. I was wrong. It was going to be three guys: Hal at 225 pounds, Mike at 180 pounds, and Nick at 215 pounds. Of course, he was guessing at Mike and Nick’s weights.

“Wait a second,” I said as I jotted down the numbers. “I think we have a weight issue.”

“Yes,” he replied. “I saw on your website that the maximum passenger weight was 600 pounds.”

I added up the numbers he’d given me and arrived at a total of 620. I was trying to understand how he thought 620 might be lower than 600. And that didn’t even include the fact that he was probably lying about his own weight — everyone does — and had guessed incorrectly about his friends’ weights. I was willing to bet the total weight was at least 40 pounds higher.

“I can’t do it,” I said. “We’d be over max gross weight with the fuel I’d have to carry for the flight.”

He suggested just going to one winery. I could take less fuel.

I didn’t need to do the math or consult my pilot operating manual’s performance charts to know that it wouldn’t be much better. I was thinking about the two landing zones (LZs), both of which are in semi-confined spaces. I didn’t think I’d have a problem landing, but I knew I’d have a problem taking off, especially if I had a tailwind. Both LZs were surrounded by low but considerable obstacles — fences and/or rows of grape vines — that I’d have to clear on my takeoff run. Beyond those obstacles in certain directions were tall trees, making them impractical for departure routes.

As I always did when I considered the situation — flying heavy on a summer day from an off-airport LZ — I thought about the 2007 crash of a Robinson R44 Raven II in Easton, WA. In that crash, the pilot had attempted a takeoff on a hot day with three full-sized passengers on board. I can almost hear the low rotor RPM horn screaming in my ear when I read the description of the helicopter wobbling in flight as it struggled to gain or altitude over rough terrain. She just didn’t have enough power or skill or friendly wind to help her get airborne. I hope it was the crash that killed them and not the fire. I didn’t want to be in an accident report like that one.

Watch My Helicopter Videos on YouTube

Time for a shameless plug…

Flying M Air Logo

If you like helicopters, you’ll love the FlyingMAir YouTube Channel. Check it out for everything from time-lapse annual inspections to cockpit POV autorotation practice to a flight home from a taco dinner at a friend’s house — and more.

So I said no, I couldn’t do the flight.

Hal seemed surprised. He told me he’d talk to his companions to see if he got their weights wrong. I knew he got them wrong, but I also knew that he’d understated them. I knew the only way he’d call back is if one of them decided not to go. But he didn’t call back. And I admit that I’m kind of glad.

A hungry operator who is willing to bend rules and ignore aircraft limitations might have accepted the flight. But I’ll never be hungry enough to risk my life to make a client happy.

No responsible, safety-conscious pilot ever should.

Another Ridiculous Charter Request

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Honestly, given the situation, what else would you call it?

N630ML
Here’s the late great Zero-Mike-Lima parked out in the Arizona desert in March 2007.

I moved my business from Phoenix and Wickenburg, Arizona to Washington state back in 2013. Since then, the helicopter (my old one, technically) has been back in Arizona only once: for 4 months in the winter of 2016/17 to get its overhaul. It was in pieces for most of that time. I picked it up that February, flew it locally for about a week just to revisit my old haunts and give friends rides, and then took it to California for a frost contract. From there, it went home.

(I bought my new old one in Arizona in April and flew it home the next day.)

When I moved to Washington state, I updated my company website to remove all mention of the flights I do in Arizona. Why? Because I don’t fly in Arizona anymore.

I still occasionally get calls from people wanting me to take them to the Grand Canyon or fly them around Lake Powell. They claim they found one of my brochures or saw me listed on a website for helicopter tours in the area. They didn’t bother checking the website.

Today’s email message, however, sent to me via a form on my company website, takes the cake:

I have to have surgery in Phoenix and I live in Wickenburg AZ. the doctor doesn’t want me to travel for two weeks by road back home. We have friends in PHX, but it would put a strain on our friendship, plus I have a business in my home that I need to attend to.

Would you consider flying me to Phoenix and then back to Wickenburg? And if so, how much would it cost me?

After reading it three times to see what I was missing, I composed the following response:

Sure, I’d do it. But since the helicopter and I now live in Washington State (where we’ve been since January 2013), it would cost quite a bit. It’s about a 10-hour flight just to get to Phoenix from here, an hour for your flight, and then 9 hours to get back to Washington from Wickenburg. 20 hours at $595/hour? Even if I gave you a nice discount, I couldn’t take a penny less than $10,000. You could take a nice 2 week vacation at the Biltmore in Phoenix for that.

Sorry to be such a smartass, but you contacted me via a form on my website and I’m pretty sure my website makes it clear that I no longer operate in Arizona.

Good luck finding a local ride.

No, I didn’t send it. No need to make her feel as foolish as she is. I figure she’ll either forget about me or call. But it definitely is blog-worthy.

And can someone explain to me how her doctor would approve a helicopter ride but not a car ride?

Maybe she should call LifeNet.

One Reason Independent Bookstores are Failing

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A quick story about a visit to a bookstore.

Yesterday, I spent much of the afternoon in Ellensburg, WA. Although less than 30 air miles from my home, it’s a 77-mile drive that takes about 90 minutes. Needless to say, I need to have a reason to go there when I do and I want to make the most of my time while I’m there.

Yesterday’s mission was to check out a gallery where I hope to show and sell my jewelry. That part of the trip went reasonably well, despite the fact that the person I needed to see was not there. It also led to me checking out a nearby museum that might also be a good place to sell my jewelry and two shops that I didn’t think were a good match at all.

I listen to NPR (National Public Radio). Say what you will about “liberal media” but NPR’s shows are intelligent, thoughtful, and informative. The local station, which goes by the name of Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB), is turned on in my kitchen almost all day every day. One of its sponsors is a bookstore in Ellensburg — the town apparently has at least three — and since I’m normally a bookstore lover and want to support NPR, I thought I’d go check it out.

I first went into the wrong bookstore, which was small but neatly stocked with new books, cards, journals, and gift items of interest to readers and writers. I wound up buying a book about vegetable gardening that basically provides a calendar-based schedule for garden tasks. (I hardly ever walk out of a bookstore empty-handed.)

I was actually leaving town when I caught sight of the bookstore that actually supported NWPB. I parked and went in.

Old Books
Browsing disorganized old books might be fun if you have an unlimited amount of time and the place is air conditioned. Or maybe not even then. (And no, this photo is not from the bookstore I visited. It’s a stock image from MorgueFile.)

This was not at all what I expected. The space was larger than the other shop but it was mostly full of dusty used books. I admit to flashing back to a used bookstore I used to visit in the 1980s way down near the financial district of Manhattan. That shop was smaller, more crammed, and dustier. Walking into this shop was like walking into the disorderly garage of someone who happened to collect old books. I realized immediately that there would be nothing of interest to me there, but I figured I’d give it a browse.

The guy behind the counter looked exactly like a stereotypical gamer or computer hacker. Perhaps in his 30s, he looked as if he might live in his mother’s basement, where he spent way too much time interacting with a computer screen. He asked me if I was looking for anything in particular and I told him I was just checking the place out because I’d heard about it on NPR.

“I remember when the lady from NPR came over,” he said. “The bookstore across the street used to be a sponsor. She came over here and told us he didn’t want to support the liberal media anymore. So she asked if we’d take his spot and my dad was here and said we would.”

I hadn’t seen the bookstore he referred to. The one I’d gone to was on another block.

As I looked at the old books, I got a bit of a brainstorm. Years ago, for my birthday or Christmas or some other gift-giving occasion, my wasband had bought me two Mark Twain first editions. He’d remembered me saying that I wanted to build a library of “nice quality books,” and thought (for some reason) that meant expensive first editions. So he’d gone to a bookstore probably a lot like the one I knew in lower Manhattan, and had bought two books that may have cost him hundreds of dollars. Book that looked just as old and dusty as the ones all around me that afternoon in Ellensburg, books I was afraid to open because I might damage them.

I wanted very badly to sell them but didn’t know of any bookstores that bought and sold collectors items.

This one might. So I asked if they ever bought first editions.

The shop guy seemed to search the database in his head for an answer. “Well, it depends on the topic and whether it’s in demand and — ”

“Mark Twain,” I said, trying to cut to the chase.

“You want to buy them?” he asked, obviously not understanding what I was getting at.

“No, I want to sell them.”

He looked uncomfortable.

“I don’t have them with me,” I said.

He relaxed.

“How about if I send you more information about them and you let me know. I can send titles and dates and photos of the covers and title pages. Just give me your card and an email address.”

“Okay,” he said. And he went back to his desk. I assumed he was getting a card.

I browsed. The book sections did have labels on them, but the books within each section were not in any order at all. So, for example, when I checked out the Art section, topics bounced from photography to painting to crafts to photography to architecture to painting… You get the idea.

It was taking a long time and the shop was hot. There was no air conditioning and it was nearly 100°F outside. When I left a little while later, I realized that it was cooler outside than inside.

I wandered back to the desk. He was writing something at the bottom of a sheet of notebook paper. It was taking a long time.

“All I need is your email address,” I said.

“Well, I’m just trying to redo the website right now,” he said. “I want to set it up so I can update it and it won’t cost so much money. So I’m putting in these forums and I want to use that for company communication.”

“You don’t have an email address?”

“Well, I do but on GoDaddy, I have to go through all these screens to get to it and they keep trying to sell me stuff and it takes a really long time.”

“Can’t you just set up Outlook or Apple Mail to access your email account?”

He looked up as if I’d just told him that it was possible to use a microwave to boil water right in a coffee cup. “Maybe I could,” he said slowly. I could see the dim lightbulb over his head getting slightly brighter.

Meanwhile, although I was wearing a thin cotton dress I was sweating like a pig. I wanted out of there but I didn’t want to be rude. “Just give me your website address,” I said, holding out my hand.

He went back to writing. About a minute later, he ripped off the bottom of the page and handed it to me. There were five lines: the bookstore’s name, the bookstore’s phone number, the bookstore’s complete street address (minus zip code), an email address, and the complete URL for the bookstore. He had basically hand-written a business card.

I took it, thanked him, and headed for the door otherwise empty-handed. “I just gave out my last business card,” he said to my retreating figure.

“I’ll email you with the book information,” I told him. And I walked out into the relief of a hot breeze.

Much later — this morning, in fact, as I looked over the torn-off notebook sheet I took out of my pocket — I thought about the death of bookstores. Unless this one had a solid client base, it wasn’t long for this world. How could it be? Not only did it have to compete against Amazon, the bane of all bookstores, but it had to compete against bookstores that actually had a clue about how to draw shoppers in, display a variety of interesting products, and sell things other than dusty old books.

Will I email him about my Mark Twain books? Heck, why not? You never know. I sure hope he tries Outlook for email because there’s no way in hell I’m going to participate in one of his forums.

—

Postscript: In searching the web for a public domain image I could use with this blog post, I stumbled across this article on Narratively: “Dear Dusty Old Bookstore.” If you have a greater love for old bookstores than I apparently do, you owe it to yourself to read it.