Resuscitate Or Let It Die?

I have this website that many of you know about. It's a place where I sell my scripts that I've written over the years for church dramas and homeschool dramas. I set it up a couple years ago because I figured, I have all these scripts sitting on my hard drive that I have no current use for, and there has to be SOMEBODY out there who would love to use them.

So, I spent the time one summer to create the website. Acting Out Christian Dramas. You can click there to get to it.

Just the process of creating this site was seriously out of my comfort zone. The research involved! Research is actually one of my least favorite activities. I very much enjoy taking information and doing something with it -- I really hate the process of hunting the information down to begin with. But I had to research places to create websites, sites where I could upload the documents safely, ways for the financial transaction to happen online . . . for some of you, this may all be "duh" kind of stuff. But for me, this was a major learning curve.

And then I went through all the grunt work of actually designing the pages (simple as they are), choosing which scripts, creating free "previews" people could download, uploading various things at various sites . . . oh, good heavens. This was a time-consuming process, both to learn how to do and to execute.

But I got it done. And I was rather proud of myself just for doing it.

As I said, that was about two years ago. In the meantime, I have a Facebook page for the website with about 60 likes. And a decent number of those people are folks I have never heard of -- I don't know how they found the page. I seem to get hits on the website pretty frequently.

But in the end, I've only sold a handful of scripts. I'm pretty sure that's because I do very little to market the site; other than putting out a link once a month on the Facebook page, I don't do anything with this. Frankly, it is quite low on the priority list. It's not that I don't want to sell my scripts. There are just other things more important.

And honestly, I hate marketing just about as much as I hate research. When I had my Creative Memories business, that was the part that weighed on me the most. It's the part I hate about teaching in the classroom. I don't like to have to "sell" myself or my "product." If you want what I have to offer and think it will benefit you, great! Let's talk. But I don't want to have to try to convince you that you need what I have. Ugghhh.

Yes, I know. If I intend to be in the script-selling business, I have to buck up. Marketing is what it takes -- just figure it out. And that's why I'm wondering if I really want to be in the script-selling business. I keep hoping that there will be someone in my life who actually has this skill set and maybe enjoys the selling process who will step in and offer to make this work. That's not happening.

Although my website is free, the site that stores the documents costs me $15 a month. Because of some quirks that happened last month when my credit card got changed, my subscription to that site will be cancelled in five days unless I go give them my new credit card info. I'm trying to decide if I'm just going to let it die a quiet death.

Because I'm just not a business person. But more importantly, I don't know how badly I want to be one.

My Next Adventure

I’m excited today.  And nervous.  I’m announcing my new website:  Acting Out! Christian Dramas.  I’ve had so many people over the last couple years tell me I need to sell my dramas I’ve written, so I decided to give it a shot.

Let me tell you what you’ll find here.  There are three full-length plays that I wrote for the middle and high schoolers in our homeschool drama program; the last one was a musical.  There are three one-act (30-minute) plays I wrote for the younger homeschoolers.  And there are scads of sketches written for Sunday morning services to introduce sermons.  A few of the shorter sketches are free – you can download them right now.  Everything else has an excerpt you can download to get the idea before you buy it.

I’ll be adding stuff as I continue to write.  I’m encouraging people to sign up for a monthly email, so when I add new stuff, you hear about it and can take a look.

I don’t mind telling you: this is a serious stretch for me. I’m rather nervous about opening myself up for public criticism of my work by people who don’t already know and love me.  More than that, I’m quite the techno-idiot so just getting this all together and going was stressful.  One service to give me the website platform . . . another to deal with payment . . . another to deal with the digital downloads . . . and I may need to use another for the monthly emails.  Good grief!!  I’m certainly learning a lot; I’m just not sure any of this is stuff I wanted to learn.

I’m not necessarily looking to make a lot of money at this.  (Although, of course, I’ll be thrilled with any money I do make.)  I just figure, I have all these scripts just sitting on my laptop now.  SOMEBODY out there could surely use them.  SOMEBODY out there may be desperately looking for a two-act play with a Christian theme for teenagers to perform, simple to stage, flexible in cast size, fun and entertaining . . . and here I’ve got “Pilgrim’s Progress”, sitting dormant in my files.  Mainly, I’m hoping I don’t lose money on this venture.

I learned while running a Creative Memories business in New Jersey how much I hate sales.  I hate promoting myself and my product.  I’m kind of hoping others will do it for me.  J  So, here’s my request to you, my faithful readers and friends.  If you know anyone who might have use for my scripts (churches, children’s and youth ministries, Christian schools, homeschool groups, etc.), please pass on my website to them with a kind word about the work therein -- especially those of you who have seen my work staged and can vouch for its quality.  I so very much want to know that God’s using this stuff out there somewhere.  Thank you!