Q: What happened to blogging?

A: Thought I could manage kids getting out of school late June, having them home for weeks, and going to cottage with family and guests, all the while maintaining a seamless Patternfish experience for our treasured members. This was foolhardy. Next week kids are in camp for quite a while and we should be able to get a lot of various things done.

Q: You're posting a lot of Chris Bylsma, Louet, Prism, Heritage Fiber Publications, Diamond Yarn... what's going on with these guys?

A: All of those excellent publishers and more want us to have their entire PDF catalogue on an exclusive basis. ([Sob] We'd like to thank the Academy... ) So we're trying to get each of them entirely posted and available as fast as possible, while still introducing other new publishers and carrying on with other existing freelancers and companies, too. We have to say, though, that when someone trusts you to take over an entire part of their business, you want to do it right, and quickly.

These companies and other like-minded ones in process do not want to be in the business of managing PDF sales, doing tech support, introducing new site abilities, and so on. They want to sell yarn and/or design patterns with their time, and maybe have a life outside of business hours. We essentially function as their sales arm and provide them with up-to-the-minute data about this aspect of their business. Since this is exactly what our business goals were in the beginning, this makes us very happy. And it means even more that some of them had tried it on their own and seem much happier with us!

One future side effect of this is that if someone's PDF is not exclusive to us, we're going to have to ask them to upload their own and do their own descriptions. Since this is already the case with every other PDF-selling website we know of, it shouldn't make much difference to the publisher. But insofar as it represents a departure from our full-service-for-everyone approach, we feel sad about it. We will advise as to timing.

Q: What's coming up next in terms of features?

A: Phil has promised something to a specific publisher that's really cool and should be available by early August, and there are other neat things in the pipe for everybody.