Is there a writer or author just waiting to burst out of you? Are you hiding a secret yen to be a writer? Or maybe you have some technical expertise you want to share with the WWW!

CMV Finder has a suggestion… Check out Squidoo!

Squidoo is a free site that allows users to publish whatever they want, (well, almost), by creating one-page mini-blogs, (called lens). It’s free to use, and you can have as many lens, (that’s what Squidoo calls their pages), as you want. And… you can even make money from it if you want.

The Squidoo concept goes like this;

• It’s a monetized site! Everybody has the chance to make some money. Squidoo provides the free publishing platform for you to write something; an article, or How-to, or product review, and in these efforts you can add ebay or Amazon modules that pay an affiliate commission. You can also; use your own affiliate links, point to your other eCommerce or blog efforts.
• Squidoo makes money too! In exchange for providing you the free publishing platform, the affiliate commisssions earned are split with Squidoo. Basically it’s 50-50%.
• Both benefit by each others promotional efforts. people come to Squidoo through the efforts of it’s members promoting their own interests on Squidoo. And people find your presence on Squidoo from the efforts Squidoo makes to promote it’s concept. Win – Win!

CMV Finder discovered Squidoo while searching for more outlets to promote CMV Collector’s pieces. Squidoo was built to be very easy to use, easy to learn, and very flexible for combining text, graphics, and html.

I even wrote a Squidoo ‘lens’ on Cat’s Meow Village history and the manufacturing process. I hope you will take a minute to check out  Cat’s Meow Collector’s Pieces on Squidoo. It was a lot of fun to combine information and history, along with graphics and pictures in an article segment.

See Our CMV Squidoo lens
The early manufacturing process, from cutting the design on her Grandpa’s jigsaw, to sanding, painting, and finishing in her basement are all discussed in detail. You can even see photos of her and her ‘co-opted’ friends as they work to complete those early pieces.

Making that first Squidoo lens was a lot of fun, I hope you will enjoy it. And if there’s a blogger or writer in you, (create, create!), then I think you will have a great time on this free publishing platform. So go check it out!

And BTW… there are some CMV pieces on ebay this week. You should check them out to see if there are any pieces you’re looking for

Are Cat’s Meow Village pieces going the way of Beanie Babies… no resale or collectible value?

It does seem like it. A quick ebay or Google search  provides tons of available Cats Meow houses at rock bottom prices. Even though dedicated collectors are still buying new issues and collector club pieces at retail value, ($4.95 – $23.95), the collector’s market seems so flooded with CMV retired pieces that values have bottomed out.

Of course there are still exceptions, any particular piece could happen to be the one several collectors need, and the price will go up as expected, but it seems more likely that you’ll see most retired pieces that retailed around $12.95, in the $2 or $5 range in the resale/collector’s market.

A quick search of ebay finds plenty of Cat’s Meow Village collectible pieces starting at 99 cents, and whole multiple-piece lots going for $5 or $6 bucks! Even bulk lots of 10 or 15 Cat’s Meow Village pieces are going for less than $20.00. And a Google search provides plenty of retail websites trying to sell retired pieces at 33-50% of original retail price.

This may be bad news for folks trying to sell their collections, but for those of us trying to complete a series or theme set it means we get great value for our money.

One exception seems to be pre-1990 series. These wooden collectibles were made before Faline Jones switched her manufacturing process to pressed wood and all screen-printed decorations. The early series were made on real wood blocks with the wood grain showing on the bottom, and even though the piece decorations were screen-printed, the piece info and Faline’s signature were hand-stamped on the bottom. These Cat’s Meow Village collectibles generally go for a higher value than most retired pieces because thay are a little harder to find.

Since ebay began changing to be more like Amazon, more and more vintage and collectibles sellers have begun moving to other sites like, Bonanzle, Etsy, or iOffer. You can find many of these early Cats Meow Village pieces at iOffer.com or Bonanzle.