800 Sales on ETSY and I Still Have My Towel

April 26, 2011 at 3:59 pm (ETSY 101: Promoting Your Shop)
Tags: creative burnout, etsy, HANDMADE, marketing, NaturalAmber, promoting, selling on etsy, vintage

The first thing I want to say is 800 sales on ETSY for me has not always been the easiest road, some weeks and some months have proven very trying on me but I have to say I still have my towel. Along the way I have learned and shared my secrets on photos, tagging, marketing, promoting, and being an artist on a budget. They are the same trick of the trade that has been spun around like tie dye in many sellers advice threads, and its great advice to take. It’s the mechanics that holds your business together. Along the way I learned another thing that contains so many facets: Passion. This is the heart of your business, you can do all the mechanics right but if you lack this the mechanics don’t matter as much. So how do I keep that passion alive and keep on trying to keep my business thriving?

I Cut the Distractions. When I first started I felt I needed to do everything everyone else was telling me. So I Facebooked. I Twittered. I Myspaced. I Played in the Critique Threads. I did Project Wonderful. I Did Dwanda. I did Artfire. I can go on and on. I was spreading myself so thin, and was so busy with “promoting” tactics I was finding myself hating my business. It was tiring. It was boring. I had no creative time. Plus, it wasn’t working! it wasn’t working because I had spread myself too thin. I now just focus on my blog and facebook, and build the majority of my time in the creative department.

I Work on New Projects. When was the last time you made something new, and not just a new “color” of the item you have been making? Something unique, something different from what you have carried before? It’s so easy to get into repetition and get bored with the business when you are doing the same thing over and over. I am constantly buying different supplies, trying out other mediums.

I Get Involved. Something newer for me is my involvement outside of ETSY with the community. I used to just sell online, but now I am branching out into the community and I am really getting involved with other artists. It’s fun, its refreshing, it makes me feel like this is something more than just a hobby. This is my passion and its so rewarding to be around other people who are just as passionate as you are. Its inspiring. Thats why i love the forums, I love blogs, I love teams… I love the handmade/vintage/the crafty community

 I Wasn’t Afraid To Tear Down and Work From the Ground.  I started on ETSY selling handmade beaded jewelry. I enjoyed what I was doing but the not selling (and the realization that in the saturated market my stuff just didnt stand out) was killing my passion. I wanted to keep making jewelry. I wanted to be successful. So I abandoned my beaded jewelry in Jan 2010 and started from ground up making vintage inspired jewelry. I hit 100 sales in February 2010 after 18 long months and have added 700 sales since then.

I Take Creative Burnout Seriously. I don’t push myself when I need a break, I take a break. I have experienced burnout to the point I stopped crafting for many months, and it makes me sad losing that passion in my jewelry making. Don’t think you have to work everyday, create balance in your life. Take a day off. Take an afternoon off. Breathe. And you will find it flows together more smoothly.