Monroe's Pen Shop, Inc., grew from Mark Monroe's father's love of antique pens. Monroe constructed the original Penshop.com Web site himself, though he now outsources ongoing Web design to a local college student in Edgemont, Pennsylvania, where Penshop.com is based. In the fall of 1999, Monroe is spending money on advertising for the first time since he launched the site in 1997. He has grown the business to $250,000 annual revenues mainly through his participation in the LinkShare affiliate network of merchants. Monroe has added quality pens by Cross and others, as well as styluses for use with computers that read hand-written input, to his original focus on antique pens. Penshop.com has processed online orders from customers as far away as Europe.