About Fran Civile

I live in beautiful Seattle Washington. After spending 40 years of my adult life working with children, mine and many others in my home and then as director of a not-for-profit childcare
center, in 1997 I decided to test my creativity with a gift basket business.

I had bought my first computer in 1993 and used it mostly for communicating and writing until a few years later when I had a gift basket website set up for Alki Giftbasket Services. I didn’t
dream then that some day I would be setting up websites myself!

Then while working on my gift basket website I would of course surf around and I was seeing people making money with a website, without going through all the work I needed to do for
my gift basket business:  planning for the season or holiday …figuring out what supplies to order … unpack the shipments and shelve the products… phew!

All the while I needed to contact clients I had acquired and make new ones by phone and office visits… make beautiful gift basket arrangements and get them delivered… phew again!

Don’t get me wrong in spite of all the work I really enjoyed my business … contributing to the pleasure experienced by the giver and the receiver added a special quality to the transactions that
surpassed the simple satisfaction of making a profit.

As I met more and more marketers on the phone, visiting their websites (blogs were not the rage yet!)  listening to them tell me all about making money with affiliate marketing or writing ebooks and small reports or providing services for businesses such as copywriting, designing, setting up and maintaining websites, etc. I got hooked and I closed  down my gift basket business at the end
of 2006.

I enjoy sharing information and I think anyone involved in internet marketing needs a base such as a website or a blog sooner or later – I really wanted to publish a weekly newsletter,  a “gazette” and blog and the blog  just happens to be first… I’ve been working online full time for over 3 years and I continue to learn constantly, so I know that there are a lot of people I can help.

I want Apprentice Marketer Blog to be a place where we might reminisce about the extraordinary events we’ve lived through these past 60 years, share talk and plans for a great life after 60…and also be a reliable source of information for any boomers who need to get up to snuff with internet marketing skills that could enrich their pocketbook and their life too.

Fran