Text of an email I got this morning from a friend of my mother's:
Hey! I was talking with your mom about a bunch of things that I am trying to get going... I own a career counseling business and I also am doing some crafty magic. 
There are two things that I am interested in talking with you about: 1. Doing some mutual referring on etsy, and/or luring you into doing some card making 2. Blogging and/or self-publishing on Kindle (which is way easier than it sounds
) and actually 3. I want to hire people in a lot of different cities and train them to do resumes with local clients (or anyone else that you know). That can be done from home on a super-flexible schedule. I do a lot of coaching over the phone. Do any of those things sound remotely interesting to you?
Anyway, please give me a call and we can talk more about any and all of the above possibilities!!Some points to mention:
1) This lady lives more than a thousand miles away from me
2) If she's as good a friend of my mother as I understand, she already knows I'm an author (I know how self-publishing works!) and that I make jewelry
3) She has even less background suitable for coaching resumes than I do.
My response:
Hi! I've already got quite a bit on my plate as it is, but good luck to you!I thought that would be the end of it, but I got another email from her this afternoon:
Have you ever thought about including cards or other papercrafts in your etsy store? Would you be interested in having my daughter (she's 16 and a HUGE Dr. Who fan) make some for you and see if you like them? There is an AWESOME "tardis" stamp available right now for free!! We could make some for you "on consignment" and see how they go... she wants to go to Germany for a six week immersion program this summer and NEEDS to make some money!! She could also make cards that "match" the items in your shop and you could offer them as a package... I am working on that with a local shop here in town. Let me know... Right now you can get Stampin' UP products at a 50% discount so it is a great time to buy cool cardmaking/scrapbooking supplies. I don't scrapbook, as we discussed, but I do love the cardmaking!!! 7% of our profits always go to charity... and if you wanted to join our "online referral network" we could mutually refer customers and have it be a win-win!!My reply to that:
If she's interested in selling things on Etsy, I'd encourage her to go for it and start an account! It's really easy to get started and VistaPrint offers business cards for ridiculously cheap. Unfortunately, it's hard to sell copyrighted things (like Dr. Who / TARDIS) on Etsy, because it can get your shop shut down and it's a legal gray area :-(I'm hoping that's the end of it, but (based on her previous behavior around my mom) I'm guessing it won't be. How can I be any more clear that I don't want to go into business with her? If she wants to make bootlegged cards that's fine, but a) I have no interest in papercrafts, only jewelry, and b) I live a thousand miles away, so it wouldn't be reasonable or economical to sell her cards anyway. And c) I definitely don't need her to help me self-publish a book, when I have as much or more experience in publishing as she does!
Mostly I'm posting this as a "what the heck?" moment, but I really would appreciate some advice if y'all can come up with a good angle for me to take. She's not a close friend of my mom's, but my mom is her best friend (if that makes sense) - she joined my parents' church a few years back and it's pretty much her entire life now. My mom is nice to her but quite frankly this lady is a bit odd and has had a lot of frustration recently (bad divorce, can't find a job, medical issues, etc.) so she's at loose ends for something to do and tends to jump both feet first into new ventures which may or may not work out. I have no interest in becoming part of her newest idea.