Busy Lately

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because I am running out of time. I ran out of money many months ago, and have been borrowing money from a bank in Canada to keep me and Thai Culture Publishing afloat. It's a new company and isn't profitable yet. I figured it would take a year.

Things weren't helped by one of the founders deciding her ex-boyfriend needed money more than the company did and embezzling more than 50,000 baht. What hurts is that I treated this girl as a daughter, as she was pregnant, and didn't want to tell her aged father. I gave her free room and board for three months, bought her a baby bed and other baby needs, and generally acted as her substitute father, and she paid me back by stealing money. "No good deed shall remain unpunished" is very true.

She also hurt the start-up of Thai Culture Publishing, as she did this in the first few months after the company was formed last July. We lost three months as well as the money. We started over again in September, with a new partnership, and had to pay the start-up expenses all over again, including new CDs and new packaging.

The good news is that the new Managing Director, Kanokporn Boonjan, has proved to be an excellent choice: highly motivated, eager to make this a success, and good at marketing besides. The company is a limited partnership, owned by three Thai people; I am neither a shareholder nor partner, I am merely their mentor: Ajarn Doug

In any case, I have to return to Canada and get a job somewhere, anywhere, just to make some money to pay down the bank loan and continue supporting the company until it's on its feet. The company is making progress; they have sold more than 500 CDs now, but have only been paid for 60 or 70 because the big book distributors here act like elephants on the sidewalk, treating small suppliers very badly. Thai Culture Publishing is coming close to breaking even this month (April), and may break even or make a small profit in May.

So around May 8 or so, I will be on my way back to Ottawa, a 36 hour trip, which I will probably break up with a couple of hotel stays in Seoul and Vancouver.

In the meantime, I have pretty much abandoned Thai software development, and have been working feverishly, 18 hours a day, on web sites and Internet marketing. The Thai Culture Publishing site now has half a dozen products listed. I have also set up an Alzheimer's site, an eBooks site, and a Windows Stupidities site, all of which will hopefully generate some additional income in the long run.

In the short run, I have been experimenting with various advertising and promotional techniques to try and generate some immediate cash, but so far I have spent a lot of money for very little gain. Sigh.

This is a particularly stupid time to leave as we are finishing the development of Speak Easy Isaan Lao and Tricky Dictionary Thingy. The goal is to get these out the door before I go, but I am not sure that's possible. If the book distributors take these up, they will generate money 4 or 5 months from now.

I have repackaged Speak Easy Thai into a subset, about 120MB, that can be downloaded as a free trial. As of today, 68 people have downloaded the trial. One person subsequently unsubscribed from the mailing list. I sent out an e-mail suggesting people donate US$25 to get the bonus files; one person did, and 66 people didn't. So what does that mean?

The program works but is crippled without the extra sound files and images. So either people aren't using it, or found it too complicated, or aren't motivated enough about learning Thai to actually pay money to do it. Sigh. If 20 people had donated, I could have paid the bank this month and would not have had to return to Canada. Such is life. Sphere: Related Content