First, a little background. I'm a retired shop teacher. I retired a couple of years ago and my wife and I moved from Western Washington to far Northern Utah. We built a house and shop, and I spent most of the last two years building furniture for the new house, fixtures for the shop and occasional projects for neighbors. In the past I would build furniture commissions in the summer for friends and relatives and was generally able to cover my day to day costs. Now that the house is finished I would like to expand the "business" and try to make a little more money, although I'm not dependent on the shop income for survival. I've been using computers since the early '80s, although I am most comfortable with business type software, not web based or graphic products. I don't do CAD or have any interest at this time in expanding into computer machining or laser engraving.

For the most part I build anything from boxes to medium-large furniture pieces, anything I can move by myself and put in my truck. I'm not interested in handyman work, remodels, built ins or, generally speaking, furniture refinishing or restoration. I don't want to crate and ship stuff, and I don't want to make 100 cutting boards every week.

At this point all of my marketing has been by word of mouth. I don't have a web site, business cards, or any social media presence AT ALL. I would prefer not to work on the web, as that seems like an additional complication and additional work and expense. I have already decided I will not be doing any E-commerce. I don't know ANYTHING about Facebook, Pintrest, Instragram or any of the other mobile phone time wasters that so many people seem to be addicted to. I have a couple of somewhat younger friends, both of whom have some experience in internet based business. They both agree that I need a website, and one of them suggested Wix for both domain name registration and web hosting. The other one suggested Pinterest; the first one said no, I needed Instragram.

I agree that I probably do need a basic web site to show my portfolio and provide contact information, but that opens another can of worms. Do I go with a cheap domain name registration service like Go Daddy or NameCheap, or something a little more high end? Shared or dedicated server? And what in the hell is Word Press?

We have a very small Farmer's Market here in town that runs for about three or four hours every Saturday in the summer. My next door neighbor has been pretty successful selling his turned bowls there for the last few years and manages to keep about as busy as he wants to. I thought I would set up a small booth there with some handicraft type items to attract attention, and have my portfolio handy so people could see what I can make. If that's somewhat successful, there is a much bigger farmer's market in the county seat about 12 miles away I could try. However, I'm not going to go on the craft fair circuit and spend all summer on the road. My parents tried that when they retired, and it was a huge time suck with very little return.

So what to do? I mostly just want to make sawdust, build interesting projects, and not build a life-consuming business organization, as I have other interests outside woodworking, and would like to have time for them, too.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.