We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
- John W. Gardner
Due to issues with my webhost, many of my websites are down, or not functioning properly, or going up and down unpredictably. Thus far (knock on wood) Color-Your-Own.com seems to be unaffected.
However, let me lay some simple facts in front of you.
With all websites combined I earn approximately $60 a month from my own sites. My ISP costs me $60, and my webhosting is currently $20 a month. Each of my five domains costs me $12 a year, plus a bit for privacy on the adult domains.
Of those websites, Color-Your-Own.com, Ask Me Anything, and that old never updated vintage Brit motorcycle parts sites earn the lions share of the money. Ask Me Anything is one of the sites that is currently down. Completely. These three, plus Fre-ecards.com combined have over 1000 visits per day.
The practicality is this, set up at a new host would cost about $100. A new, updated script for Fre-ecards.com will cost $150 plus installation. I do not have that money right now. I simply do not have it and cannot get it unless I allow my phone and ISP to be cut off and drop even further behind on the car payments (they would have repo-ed it already, but they don’t really know where it is).
I suppose I could beg for donations or a loan - but that’s never worked before, so why should it work now? 
I’ve never been the sort of person that has people running to buy their LJ subscription, renew their DA account, or help pay anything (I try not to get a complex - LOL). Just not happening. You know, why should they? I’m an adult. I could certainly go get a Real Job and make a lot more money and do this on the side - as if I would have time.
So. I have been for the last couple of months moving in the direction of selling artwork on eBay, as commission work, and on my Zazzle store. I have been moving many of my articles to Squidoo - let them worry about sponsors - and webhosting. Yesterday I discussed having “Moving On” published in print with a representative of Book Surge. Not as an ebook - as a real, hard copy book.
I love my blogs, I love doing line drawings for coloring pages, I love doing the research for Ask Me Anything, but the bottom line on those things is that I spend 30 - 60 hours a week working on my websites for …what?
Many people have written to tell me how much they love Color-Your-Own and how useful they have found it, but none of them have enclosed money.
I’m sorry - but I think it is a very serious possibility that the Color-Your-Own.com website will soon be closed forever. If there are any coloring pages you wish to grab and save on your harddrive - I suggest you do so.
If you are interested in continuing to follow my career as an artist and writer, I can assure you that these sites will continue to be functional - you might want to bookmark them or friend me or whatever.
my MySpace page, my Deviant Art page, my articles at Squidoo, my Plurk account, my Twitter account, my Zazzle store, and my eBay About Me page. None of those things are dependent upon Dreamhost. None of those cost me a dime either.
If you wish to contact me with an offer of assistance, a loan, or any brilliant ideas you may have to keep this website live and on line, feel free to email me at this email - be aware it is different from the email on other parts of the site. That email may no longer be functioning soon, so please use the new gmail address to be sure and contact me.
In good news - Mr. Tyler over at Carvebuddy.com has been busy! He has added the Partridge in a Pear Tree and the Boxer Dog as patterns. I especially love how the Boxer came out - I think he looks better as a carving than as a line drawing!
I’m off to share this info and then to think about what I need to get done, and then back to do it. You have a great weekend, and keep in touch!
Summer Fey Foovay
I am very pleased to announce that Michael Tyler of CarveBuddy.com and I have made an agreement for the line drawings from Color-Your-Own.com to be made into patterns for the CompuCarve and CarveWright advanced woodworking systems. Mr. Tyler (who is a great guy by the way) has already created the kangaroo pattern from one of the drawings. Doesn’t it look good?
I am going to credit this directly to the changes I have made in the last few weeks. My mindset has gone from giving away my art and hoping for pennies from Adsense, to selling my art. And within days along comes an excellent offer for royalties for the use of some of my drawings. Thank you Michael Tyler!
Most of my time this month has gone into working towards becoming a Giant Squid at Squidoo.com. If you get a minute, visit my lensography and learn a lot more about me! Browse, read the lenses I’ve written, and hand out some stars or sign the guestbooks. I’d really appreciate it!
Next month I’ll get to work on some new Halloween coloring pages.
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
For the three years or so that Color-Your-Own.com has been up and running I have attempted to make it financially feasible by carrying Google Adsense ads. More recently, I also added Project Wonderful ads. For all the traffic I receive (over 1000 visits every day!) the click through has not been very good and thus the income from those ads runs about $20 or less per month - no matter how often I update or how many coloring pages I have.
Now I love drawing line art for you more than you can imagine. But I really cannot live on $20 a month!! My webhosting is $20 a month!
BTW - there has been a donation button on the website since the first day the first drawing went up. I have never in three years gotten a penny in donations, so please don’t suggest I ask for donations.
This is why I’ve announced in the last month or so that I would not be updating the site as often. I simply have to find another way to make an income sufficent to support myself, my goat, my chickens, my cats…
But here is my question, would you pay a small fee - either something like $12 a year for unlimited access, or maybe a few pennies per drawing you want to download or access?
I have a Squidoo lens that is all about Color-Your-Own.com that gets a lot of daily traffic, more than the blog, so I put a poll up there. Please drop by and vote? Or feel free to email me, as always.
Summer Fey Foovay
With hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast, once again both people and their pets are threatened with evacuation and/or disaster. A survey showed that 44 percent of the people who refused to evacuate during Katrina did so because they would not abandon their pets. Even though federal incentives have since been put into place to encourage provisions for pet evacuation as well as human, little has been done. These organizations are on the ground, right now, helping those with pets see to it that their animal companions are being cared for during this challenging time. Please help with a donation.
United Animal Nations, uan.org MuttShack Animal Rescue Foundation, muttshack.org Animal Rescue New Orleans, animalrescuenreworleans.org Humane Society of South Mississippi, hssm.org Humane Society of Louisiana, humanela.org Houston SPCA, houstonspca.org Pets America, petsamerica.org Hopeful Haven, hopefulhaven.com Code 3 Associates, code3associates.org Louisiana State Animal Rescue Team, lsart.org Thank you, and blessedbe Summer Fey Foovay International Fund for Animal Welfare, ifaw.org
Sweet Pea
19?? - July 30, 2008
My beloved Sweet Pea passed away during the night and was gone by yesterday morning. I honestly don’t know what was wrong with her - something internal. She had an appointment at the vets, but went down before we could get her there. We buried her with appropriate ceremony out past the second Mesquite bush on the left, here on the ranch. She is survived by her daughter, Cinnamon, her human Summer Foovay, and various other friends in more than one species.
When I originally bought Sweet Pea and her daughter, Cinnamon, everyone assumed it was because of Cinnamon. Silly girl is the ditzy blond of goat-dom, and just knows that everyone is her friend. But as time went on, Sweet Pea became “my favorite goat”.
She was savvy. When the water spigot made rattlesnake noises, she pushed her way between it and Cinnamon, and shoved Cinnamon to the other side of the pen. When dogs loomed on her horizon she took immediate and aggressive action. When allowed to choose between grazing free or being fed, she always headed for the pastures. She took her job as head goat seriously, never wandering far from Cinnamon or the other goats when we had some goat company and always keeping a close eye on how they were doing - even though she found “those boy goats” very annoying. She quickly took the boys, twice her size, in hand (hoof? horn?) and taught them who was boss goat.
She loved to be near me, and if I was outside and she was not confined, could be counted on to be within sight. She really only wandered for two reasons. She thought she still belonged on the big ranch next door. And she had to keep an eye on that ditz, Cinnamon - who believes the whole world is her home. Left to herself, I suspect she would have slept on the back porch as long as she could see me through the window.
One of our favorite Kodak moments (when no one had a video camera, of course) was the day the goats followed me over here - before we moved here - and strolled onto the porch. Of course, the dogs went crazy and went after them. Around and around the house they went - but it would be one round with the dogs chasing the goats, and then a round with the goats chasing the dogs!
Sweet Pea and Harry had an ongoing relationship that I can only explain as that one between the little girl and the boy who pulls her pigtails. Every time she saw him, she went after him. Every time he saw her, he’d run right at her. The day she was so ill, her last day, Harry would not come into the house at all. I had moved her up into the yard so I could keep an eye on her. He lay in the shade beneath the back porch, not close enough to bother her, but close enough to be able to see her. He refused to leave that spot, even when it got quite hot in the afternoon, and his buddy Klyde retreated inside. I think he knew, and was just keeping her company.
We buried her yesterday morning, and then I had to go to town - my biweekly food buying trip. We simply were not able to put it off. I did the bare minimum, and that did not include much in the way of Twitter, Plurk, email, or blogs. Don’t expect much above the minimum from me for the rest of the week, please. I don’t have anything with a hard deadline that I can think of, but if there is something you must have, remind me.
The update on the coloring pages website is all done but the shouting. I have a couple of tweaks, and I need to finish scanning through the pages to make sure all got updated properly. I’ll start adding new drawings again next week.
And if you’d like to do a little something in memory of an old goat - hug your critters today and go by and donate some free kibbles here, and here. Or if you know of a goat rescue who could use a few bucks, donate to them or to your favorite charity.
Sweet Pea probably arrived at the bridge, ran crazy for a few minutes, then settled down to graze until I arrive.
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
Sorry - no new coloring pages today. I’ll be working on updating the rest of the “old” pages to the new look - and possibly trying out a little software that just might make it possible for <a href=”http://color-your-own.com”>Color-Your-Own.com to offer printed coloring books.</a> I spent two long days in town last week. A lot of work built up around the house and ranch that needs to be done - some of it quite urgently.
I know so many of you are animal fans, that you will be sure to want to know about FreeKibble.com and FreeKibbleKat.com. You can drop by daily and answer a little pet trivia question. Regardless of if you are correct or not - some free kibble will be donated to shelters that are dealing with a major influx of pets caused by the current foreclosure rate. This was the brainstorm of a 12 year old girl! You kids make me feel so inadequate some times! 
Blessedbe
Summer Fey Foovay
At the moment, all of both sites are working - so you can get your coloring pages at either the new domain or the old place. Updating almost three hundred pages takes a little time - but I think you’re really going to like the new look and navigation.
At the moment I am punch drunk and cross-eyed from making tiny adjustments - LOL. I’m going outside to piddle around and water my chickens I think. I’ll come back in when I can see again.
I believe I will have the update finished in time tomorrow to start adding new coloring pages daily again. I will be deactivating the old location probably tomorrow - so be sure and remember to update your bookmarks to the new coloring pages domain.
You may not be able to access various parts of Color-Your-Own.com for an hour or two starting now. I am finally moving the site - really moving it - to it’s own domain at Color-Your-Own.com. I have owned the domain for over a year, but had it set up to redirect to the original location - a folder on my Demented-Pixie.com domain (thus the URLs addresses you see with http://demented-pixie.com/color-your-own/blahblahblah). I did not want to mess up anyones bookmarks of particular pages, and of course there are a million links out there to the former address.
I think the time has come, though, as Color-Your-Own.com has grown in size and popularity, to move to the domain and change all the advertising and links. You’ll notice all the drawings now have the new URL on them (when they come back up).
Remember if you have particular pages and the index bookmarked, you will have to update your bookmarks. I hope this doesn’t upset anyone too much. Nothing else at all will change, just the URL, and this blog will be staying right where it is.
Thanks and sorry for the mess.
Summer Fey Foovay
Today I am asking you to please help me, and other artists who share their work with you on the Internet.
There is a bill making it’s way through Congress. Bill #2913, the so-called “Orphan Works” bill. This bill would allow any company to use artwork without compensating the artist if they have made a “due diligence” effort (which is not defined in the bill) to locate the artist.
What this means is this. Your child colors one of my coloring pages. She does such a lovely job, you scan it and put it up on your blog. A couple of people see it and like it so much they copy the image and put it on their webpage or blog without crediting the source. A company exec sees it. He likes it, too. But no one gave credit, so he doesn’t know whose art it is. Oh well. The company puts it on a million t-shirts. No one, not me, not you, hot your child, gets a dime for the art.
I also do clip art. I ask for credit, but not everyone remembers and I’m not going to go around knocking heads over it. So someone likes, say, my drawings of boxer dogs. She puts one on her MySpace page. Again, a company exec sees it. He might even write her and ask who the artist was, but she doesn’t remember. Out go a million boxer dog stickers with my art. I don’t get a dime.
Your artistic 12 year old son draws a neat dragon. He scans it and shares it on his Deviant Art page, but as advised by his wise parents, he doesn’t have any personal identifiable info on his account. Again, a company exec sees it. He can’t identify or contact the artist (your well protected son). Oh well. A few thousand posters are sold with the dragon your son drew. No one gets paid for the art.
What can you or I do if that happens? Not much. Try to hire a lawyer who can fight against a big corps law firm, when there are a million loopholes left in the law. Not much chance we’d win.
I am trying to make a living, however humble, with my art. I provide coloring pages and clip art free to individuals, families, non-profit organizations, and often even other small business people like myself. Even the smallest royalty would be a great windfall of income to me. Or if you want one of my boxer dogs on a sticker, you can buy it through my own little Zazzle store where at least I do get a small royalty.
Never mind me, the bottom line is artists deserve to be paid for the use of their work - just like you deserve to be paid for the hours you put in at your job, whatever it may be. We do not deserve to be punished for sharing our work freely by allowing big corps to make a profit without paying us a dime for our contribution to it. How big is that contribution? Do you buy a t-shirt with a boxer dog on it because you like the picture of the boxer dog, or because you wanted any old t-shirt that size?
So, please, help me, help other artists. Take one minute from your day today and sign this petition. Take maybe an hour (it took me 30 minutes this morning) to write your congress members (You can find out who they are, and how to contact them here) and ask them to vote against this bill. Most of them have no idea what it is really about, or what the implications are for artists. You can read more about the bill here and a more detailed report with further links here. Or a really scary (for me as an artist) detailed article on what this bill will allow is here
Thank you so much for your time, and for your help. I’ll be spending a couple of hours on this today, sharing these links at all my blogs and social sites, and then I can get down to drawing some new coloring pages for you.
Summer Fey Foovay