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Tequila Sunset
Forward to Friend | Comments (2) Nightgirl's Handy Guide To Selling Stuff
Well, those of you who are masochistic enough to be regular followers of my blogs will know that for some months now I’ve been making superhero costumes, and yes, I have actually sold quite a few of them. Don’t come gold-digging just yet, though. I don’t charge very much for them, even though (major plug coming up) at least three people that I know of have won best in costume contests in them. So, I read this blog today in which someone was asking for help on Xstreet. I replied, of course, but it struck me that maybe a Handy Guide was called for. Even if it’s not, I’m writing it anyway. Keep reading. It could be fun. Okay, so you’ve made whatever it is you want to sell. How do you get it out there to the thousands and thousands of people who would be beating down your door, if only they knew about it? Well, there are two main ways. You can either sell it in world (which we’ll come to later), or you can sell it on a website, and of course the best-known of those is www.xStreetsl.com. Luckily, it’s really easy. The first thing you need is one of their Magic Boxes. You can get one free by searching xStreet, or just click here to go straight to the listing. You’ll need to rez a copy of the box in world, so make sure you’ve got somewhere safe you can put it. I have two identical ones in different sims, so if one sim goes down, people can hopefully still buy my stuff. My costumes consist of many different items, so I transfer them all into a box. You can buy fancy boxes to put your things in, or make your own. I use a simple cube with the Heroes logo as the texture. Note that although you don’t need to be the creator of items you sell, you will need to have full permissions. Of course, you can set the permissions to whatever you want when you come to sell them on. You can do this item by item – just right click each item in your inventory and select Properties. Then check or uncheck the Modify / Copy / Transfer boxes as required. If you use Cool Viewer, it’s easier. Copy all the items into your box, then edit it. Click the Contents tab, then press the button marked Permissions, and you can change them all en masse. Once you’ve done that, simply take the box back into your inventory. Right click and Edit the Magic Box, drag your boxed item into the contents tab and hey presto! You should get a message telling you that your xStreet account is being updated with the new items. Okay, now comes the fun part. You’ll need a picture of the item. You can’t make a listing without one. Now you could be boring and just post a simple snapshot, but really, this is your shop window. Make it exciting. I use GIMP (a freeware equivalent of Photoshop) to make pretty posters of my costumes. Here’s an example. I try to make them eye-catching, informative and just a little bit funny. Save it in one of the usual picture formats. I use TGA, because I can then use the picture on xStreet and upload it to SL.  Now sign in to xStreet. If you click your name at the top right, it will take you to your account. Click “My Marketplace Inventory”. You should see the new items you’ve uploaded in the Unassociated Inventory section. Click on “Edit My Items”, then “Add New. Now just fill out the form! Remember, your description is just as important as the picture. Try to be informative. Tell people why they should buy your product rather than any of the competition. The xStreet search engine will find words in both the item name and the description, so use keywords that will draw people to your listing. For example, my Zatanna costume above could also be used as a circus ringmaster, or a master of ceremonies, so I included those in the description. At the bottom of the page, you can browse your computer for the picture you made earlier. When you’re done, simply click “Add Item”. I always view the listing afterwards to make sure I’m happy with it. Like the Magic Box, the listing itself is free, unless you picked one of the enhancements. You only pay a small percentage commission if you sell something. And that’s it! When someone buys your item, it is delivered to them in world straight from that Magic Box. You don’t need to do anything! The funds are deposited in your xStreet account. You can withdraw them to your avatar if you want, or spend them. And that’s it for now. In my Handy Guide To Selling part 2, I’ll tell you a couple of ways of selling your stuff in world. Have fun! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (4) A Fistful Of Lindens  It's time for another special event at Heroes, but this one is a positive Bonanza. Yes, you'll need True Grit to get through our Magnificent Three days of Wild Wild West fun this weekend. We'll start on Friday with Maverick Night. Come in your cowboy outfits and see if you win the best-dressed prize. There'll be an all-new Damsel Trivia game, featuring a never-before-seen Damsel Hotspot, guaranteed to make her very distressed indeed. Can you guess what it is? I'll let you know if you're on the right tracks. Maverick was a poker player, and on Saturday you get the chance to show your skills with the cards. This isn't just any poker tournamenet, though. You know we don't do ordinary at Heroes. We'll be playing strip poker, and the winner will get a double prize. Not only will they walk away with whatever we scrape together, they'll get to see all the other players naked! Knowing some of our staff, they'll probably be playing to lose. Will you be flush with success, or will you lose your shirt? We'll wind down on Sunday when the bad boys and girls come out to play for Villains Night. There'll be costume prizes, including a brand new Heroes Clobber outfit, and our fabulous DJs will be on their naughtiest behaviour. Go West - at Heroes! See you there. Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (3) A Nightgirl At The Opera
So anyway, we set up our chairs and tables near the stage. It was in the open air, you see, so everybody had picnics, and we'd got a few bottles of wine, which we shared around, and then, it was time! Well, can you imagine my surprise when the stage was filled, not with footmen, corgis, princes and butlers, but with an orchestra? And not just any orchestra. No, this one had electric guitars in it, which they certainly didn't have the last time I went to Covent Garden. And then the music began, and four singers came out, none of whom even remotely resembled the Queen. It turned out that I was misinformed, and that the concert was a musical tribute to some band called Queen, and the singers were from a stage show based on this band's music. Well, it was huge fun, and we all had an excellent time. One of the singers had on a gorgeous pair of gold stiletto boots and the tightest pants I have ever seen. I've been surfing the net for a pair ever since. I might not have seen Her Royal Highness, but I did have a royally good time! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (3) Here Comes A Chopper...
There's just one tiny problem. And I mean tiny. It's just 15cm long (for the guys reading this, that's at least twelve inches). That means it's going to struggle a little with the hellfire missiles I just emailed Mr Obama about. However, it does mean that I can fly it around my own lounge without fear of shredding the sofa or knocking everything off the shelves. I use the term "fly" loosely, of course. It is surprisingly difficult and I crash. A lot. It also gets tangled up in my hair if I get too close, which I'm pretty sure is not a problem with the full-sized version. And my cat hates it. The nice lady arms dealer told me it was better to let the thing drop from the sky than plunge headlong into an obstacle, which meant that on one occasion it plummeted down and landed on the cat. She was not amused. Stay safe! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (3) The Law Is An Ass
"But Nightgirl," you say, "you're normally such a polite, well-spoken young lady. What possessed you to include filthy language in your lsiting?" Have a look at the email I received. Hello Nightgirl Destiny, There was a problem with your item listing that required us to remove it from the Marketplace.. The specific problem was related to the following area: Adult Item. The administrator added the following comment: ------- The word 'ass' is considered a profanity and considered Adult Content as per the Marketplace - Listing Guidelines, located here: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=22. Please flag your item listing as Adult Content or r ------- Your item will be automatically relisted in the Marketplace and Search index after you fix its listing. -Item Name: Heroes Clobber Assassin Costume Please login to your account and click the following link to fix your item: -Link: Click here to fix your item If the link above doesn't work, you can copy and paste the following link into your browser's address bar: https://www.xstreetsl.com/modules.php?name=Marketplace&file=adminitem&ItemID=1722644 Regards, Xstreet SL Support That's right. I used the word "ass". I know you are all shocked, and I am heartily ashamed of myself. In fact, I'm doing it again here, and I really ought to mark this post as mature, or Admin will come down on me like a ton of bricks. My only excuse is that I wanted as many of you to read this as possible before that happens, to save yourselves. Please, don't make the same mistake I did. If you must use the word "ass", unless you are using it in the British sense of a donkey, remember to mark your posts as mature. At least that way some good will come from my heinous crime, and innocent minds will be safe once more. Yours, penitently Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (10) The Silence Of The Fans
There have been a number of posts recently, on various forums, about the Lindens' new guidelines for merchants on xStreet. Specifically, the debate centres on this sentence: "Branded items may be listed or sold only by the brand or intellectual property owner or its authorized agents." You can find the complete listing here. How does this affect you? Well, if you've bought one of my costumes, it may now be illegal under the new rules. Likewise if you own an SL replica of your favourite car, or if you wear sneakers / trainers that are "inspired by" a well-known brand. The Lindens have appointed themselves as the guardians of every single copyrighted or branded product that it is possible to make in SL. Why are they wrong? Who is being hurt by replica costumes or other products. It's not as though Porsche, Gucci, Nike or Marvel have outlet stores in Second Life. And no one can seriously tell me that if you're in the market for a Porsche, you'd settle for buying one made of pixels instead, so they are hardly losing trade because of the fan-created items. Indeed, it may even help them by raising brand awareness and promoting goodwill. The Lindens' solution to this is to recommend that merchants apply for permission to use the brand. Well, I don't know about you, but for me this is a hobby. I do it because it's fun. I design costumes because I enjoy doing it, and I sell them for next to nothing because I want other people to enjoy them too. It's my little way of paying tribute to something that's given me a lot of fun. I have neither the time nor the money to go through the process of obtaining offical approval. If i'm told to stop, then my costume shop will close, it's as simple as that. If you take part in any sort of roleplay activities - superhero, Star Trek, anything that's based on real life branded items or characters, then watch out. The end is approaching. Someone told me that Lindens are even considering rifling through residents' inventories and removing items that breach these guidelines. Whilst I am pretty sure this can't be true, it's a measure of how worried people are. Okay, that's enough for now. Normal service will be resumed shortly. Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (3) Nightgirl At The Museum This is me as Christine Keeler in the famous portrait by Lewis Morley:  And here I am again, this time in a Helmut Newton photograph entitled Bunny. I dedicate this to my lovely but still absent friend of the same name. That's Bunny, not Lewis, by the way.  And finally, here is the bizarrely named Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, by Salvador Dali. The people at the exhibition made some appreciative noises when I posed for this one. I have no idea why. Although one did shout "Go Nightgirl", so maybe they were just fed up with me by then.  And that's the end of your lesson for today. For your homework, tell me what famous painting or photograph you would like to appear in, and why. Hugs Night xxx Forward to Friend | Comments (5) Birthday Nightgirl
Of course, the fact that you've opened this blog will give you a clue that it's my age you should be looking at. I'm another year older but probably none the wiser. So help me celebrate. If 52 of you visit my page, my counter will reach the magic 10,000 mark, and that would be a really nice thing to happen. In the meantime, help yourself to a slice of cake (chocolate of course) and make sure you don't sit on the Joker's whoopee cushions. I'll be having a little celebration at Heroes on Friday. Come along and join us if you can. Everyone who comes will get a free outfit of their choice from my Heroes Clobber range, as my present to you. Have a great day everyone! Night xxxx Forward to Friend | Comments (7) I'm A Heroine Get Me Out Of Here!
We went to Cornwall this year, which is right down in the bottom left corner of England. Or the top right, if you are using an Australian map. There are lots of sandy beaches in Cornwall, manned by rather hunky lifeguards and populated by surf dudes, though that in no way influenced my decision to go there. You can also find some great castles there. We visited Tintagel, which is reputedly where King Arthur was born. Personally, I would have thought being a King he might have been born somewhere that actually had a roof. And maybe some walls. But I could be wrong. We also went to one called Pendennis, which looks amusingly rude if you hold your thumb over the middle of the word. Funnily, the castle was round in shape, so maybe Henry VIII did have a sense of humour. I did some scuba diving too. Here's an artist's impression of what I looked like in my wetsuit.  But don't worry. I haven't been neglecting my superheroine duties! On the way down, we stopped for a walk along a river gorge, and just ahead of us a woman fell down a steep twenty foot bank into the river. I ran about a mile up a steep hill to fetch help while the rest of my family helped her husband pull her out of the rather fast-flowing river. She lost consciousness at one point, so just maybe we helped save her life. My call resulted in two fire engines and an ambulance turning up. I was tempted to feign a heart attack in order to get the kiss of life from one of them, but that would have dented my halo a little, don't you think? Anyway, it was an exciting start to our holiday. So now I am back, and in case you are wondering, yes I do have white patches. I even found time in the evenings to do some more costume designing, and that's why you'll now find new Poison Ivy, Riddler and (at last) male Robin costumes on sale at HeroMart and on xStreet. Why not check them out? So, what have I missed? Anything exciting? Do let me know. Kisses Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (8) House Points
We're sharing with Suzy and Jodi, and in order to accommodate two houses, Suzy has had to do some extensive ground work. Luckily she is almost as adept with a bulldozer as my club's shady landlady, and the end result looks really good. In the picture above you can see our new house. I wanted a castle, but MajorP muttered things about small rooms and enclosed spaces, so we went for this light and airy Deco-style beach house. She's an outdoor kind of girl, you see, and I can't deny her anything. Actually, this is two houses. I bought a low prim one from xStreet, but it really wasn't quite big enough, so I ended up rezzing two of them back to back and removing their rear walls. The resulting shape is quite pleasing, and you can only really see the join when you trip over the slight shift in the parquet floor. Better yet, it's still only a third of the prims that our old house used. We've also shifted our lighthouse, which MajorP uses as her "Rumpus Room". It looks much more appropriate now that it is situated next to the sea. I have bought a bucket and spade and will soon be hollowing out, in complete secrect of course, an area under our house which will become the all-new Nightcave. In case you were wondering, and because I can never resist an opportunity to promote, the costume I am wearing is based on one of Batman's arch enemies, Harley Quinn, and is the latest I have made for the Heroes Clobber range. You can buy it at the club or on xStreet for a mere 75L, the same as all my other outfits. Is there a costume you'd like me to make? Why not drop me a line and let me know? Please feel free to visit us on Daleks. I'll even tell you all about the real Daleks, which look like this:  Kisses Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (2) Crime Shoppers It may even have been suggested that this lack of blogging may be symptomatic of a wider malaise. Isn't that a lovely phrase? I stole it from my daily newspaper. Anyway, speaking of theft, and indeed other nefarious activities such as plots of world domination or destruction, my friend hinted that my distraction had played right into the hands of the criminal underworld, who even now are running rampant and unchecked by the forces of good, i.e. Nightgirl. Me. There may be some truth in this, but in my defence I have been doing a few calculations. Well, just one, actually, and only a pretty wild one at that. Of my range of costumes, I have sold just over ninety through my Heroes Clobber vendor and on xStreetSL. Excluding people who bought more than one, and those who bought my pyjamas (who presumably just wanted a good night's sleep), I reckon that still makes more than eighty new crimefighters, caped crusaders and people of steel on the streets of Second Life. I'm sure you'll agree that's a pretty impressive result. Probably it's better than our government managed in the whole of last year. So with this in mind, I'm proud to announce my sixteenth costume. This one is inspired by the magician superheroine, Zatanna. She doesn't look much like a superheroine, does she? In fact, I think she looks like a showgirl. But that's okay! Because it means that you aren't limited to wearing the costume in places that smile on superheroes, or are holding a best in superhero contest. No, with this one, you could be a circus ringmaster! A magician! A maitre d' or a master of ceremonies! Maybe even steal the show at a black tie event. It comes with the usual array of choice and extras, and even a dinky little wand that produces sparks but not much else. Happy hunting! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (0) Making An Exhibition Of Myself Well first, I've been busy working on some new costumes. The first is a Black Canary costume. Now that's a bit of a memory for me, because the first outfit that I actually paid lindens for in SL was Black Canary, from Heroes Unlimited. Now mine isn't as nice as that, but it does come with a couple of variations, a free pair of seamed fishnet tights (which are quite sexy, though I say so myself!) and like all my costumes it's only 75L. You can find it on the Heroes Clobber vendor in HeroMart or on XStreet. I've also had my first commission. Someone asked for a costume called Angela, from a comic series called Spawn, and I said I'd give it a go. It was very hard. Every picture of Angela is different, so in the end I had to do my own interpretation. It uses a lot of prim parts, including some very big, non-functioning weapons. It's also available at HeroMart. Even more excitingly, I've been invited to have a stand at SL ComicCon. This event runs from 23-26 July, and it's really exciting. If it's anything to do with comics, you'll find it there. It's well worth a visit, and you'll find a link on my profile page under my favourite places in SL. Anyway, here's the stand I built. It's got a working Damsel Hotspot and several other things that I think are what make Heroes special.  On the middle floor, I've also got a Heroes Clobber vendor. You can see the Angela costume displayed on it in this picture. You can also pick up a Heroes costume, completely free!  Have fun! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (1) The One With The Random Musings
Garbo Garbo is the sweetest person you could ever hope to meet. She's also one of the bluntest. If she says I've got something right or done it well, I feel good because I know she'd have no qualms about telling me if it weren't so. We've been working on several items which will hopefully be on sale shortly at Heroes. She must get so fed up with me, but she has the patience of a saint. I usually go up to her with a design for something, and an idea of how it should work. She then writes the scripts. Her heart must sink when she hears me says "Oh by the way, I've had another idea about XXX..." because it means I've altered the specifications of something she's making. However, we do work well together, and some of these products are going to be quite unlike anything you've ever seen before. Because she is so clever, I called her costume Brainbox.  MajorP You all know MajorP, my beloved wife. Well, she's been feeling a little down lately. Her best friend Bunny had a pretty major operation a while ago, and is taking a sabbatical from SL. We don't know when she'll be back, if at all. MajorP is very playful, especially at Heroes, and the person she loves to play with most is Bunny. Caliente trades insults with her all the time, and she enjoys it a lot, but somehow it's just not quite the same. I made P a costume to cheer her up. For obvious reasons, I call it P-fection.  Cherry Cherry is my DJ Manager at Heroes, and I literally could not do it without her. You know the synergy thing, 2+2=5? Well, Cherry and I are like that when it comes to events. I would never run an event without talking to Cherry first, because I just know that whatever idea I've had, she'll make it better. She's also probably our best and most popular DJ, and that's saying something because we have a superb team. If you've never heard Cherry in full flow and watched one of her particle storms timed to perfection, you have really missed out. We are very alike in many ways. The other day, she told me she was nervous, and when she told me why, it was like she was looking into my head. We have an auction coming up on Friday. Buy your very own Superheroine for two hours. Both of us have put our names down to be auctioned, and we are both terrified. Not about being sold. But about what will happen if no one bids on us. Anyway, Cherry uses the name Cherrybomb when she DJs, so that is what I called her costume.  If you'd like to meet my friends, or maybe even bid for Cherry, Garbo or me at auction, why not visit Heroes this Friday. I guarantee you'll have fun. Kisses Night xx  Forward to Friend | Comments (2) Golden Buy!
That's right, the costume pictured here - which will henceforth be known as Rather Good Woman in a feeble attempt to avoid a potentially ruinous lawsuit - was selected from literally a few others to be garnished with praise and adulation at a recent ceremony. Actually, I cannot tell a lie. What really happened was this. I usually write to people who buy my outfits on xStreetsl just to thank them and express a hope that they have fun with it. Well, one of them took the trouble to write back and let me know that she'd worn it for a recent club event and had won Best in Costume! Okay, so it's not quite an Oscar (TM) but I still felt pretty chuffed, and I would imagine she did too. After all, she probably won considerably more than the mere 75L that the costume cost her! And it gave me the excuse to use the truly awful pun in the title of this blog. Sorry! Night xx Forward to Friend | Comments (4) [<< Prev] [Next >>] |
