After a flurry of star sales for Valentines Day, FreeNameAStar.com has settled down to practically nothing again. I don’t foresee making many sales until Mother’s day. Then there’ll be some Father’s Day and graduation presents and then a long summer and autumn and then Christmas again. If I am going to retire on my web income I have to leverage the star sales to fill in the dry periods.

Here’s what I’ve been thinking. I want to make a separate site that allows users to register to become Star resellers. I would charge $1 per star. A girl scout troop ,or Tupperware party type person could sell the star certificates for $5 each (or $100, or whatever). It would be a good flea market thing, or Church bizarre thing. Charitable groups doing fund raisers could send them out for each donation. All you would need is a computer, a printer and an internet connection.

I’ve thought of this before, but the gotcha was how to collect the money. My new idea is that I could sell stars in blocks of 50 or 100. I would charge $50 for 50, $90 for 100 and $200 for 300 stars. They could get their ID and get their blocks of stars right from a web page. I would just take the money and help a little with the tech support. Every time they sold a star there would be a count down showing how many stars were left, reminding them to reorder. I would have to be liberal about refunds and some cheaters would have a high refund rate. I have to think a little about cheaters.

I also need better art. I have never liked the star certificate format. Currently, it is a frame with a blotch of stars and the logo in yellow across the blotch. I need something better. The next set of cubicles down from me is the county art department, but I have not made any friends with the artists, since I don’t have any real social skills. I have to wait for an opportunity and talk with them and see if they have any ideas. Talking to actual humans is not something that I enjoy, though.