First Etsy Sale

Something I've done since my first art fair is "prime the pump" with a purchase of my own as soon as I'm set up and ready to take sales.

Give a little to get a little.

So, finally after getting 14 items in my Etsy shop (which makes it look full at least on the front page of the shop), I thought it was time for me to make a purchase of my own.

While shopping I found a lovely silver crane necklace created to look like an origami crane. The perfect thing to gift the person who hand-folded almost 1000 cranes for our wedding. (People attending our party the night before the big day were able to whip up the balance.)
Then SURPRISE, this week my first sale came through after being on Etsy for less than a month. Three stars are on their way to Brooklyn. With the Etsy fee, the Paypal fee and mailing costs I'm just barely clearing 50%, which is my goal.
I hope to have time to read more of the Etsy blog posts about maximizing all the many tools there to generate sales. Coupons, specials, BOGO offers, etc. There is so much to learn. Some of it can be used in other areas of our art businesses, so it's well worth it to tune in.

If only there were more hours in the day...

Fun New Audience

Now that I know how to search for the "good stuff" on Etsy it just gets better and better. Looking up artist's favorites and seeing who has added them to their favorites, then to the favorites that have chosen them can eat up the better part of a day if you let it. There are fascinating finds everywhere.

On the flip side, when I post an item and someone adds it to their favorites it'll get seen by a whole new group of people I couldn't even imagine before. People from all over the world!

"Menopausal Mind" was a piece I did a few years ago that still makes me chuckle. Even tho there is slim chance it'll ever sell, for only 20 cents I'm giving it a whole new audience. The Edvard Munch decals were sitting around the house for a long time before this perfect use of them over the gold leaf. It's elicited some fun comments from people.

To see it at my shop and read my pithy description, head on over to my Etsy shop right this minute!

Going Etsy

Why have I succumbed?

Community! It's what Etsy is all about.

Heard a very inspiring talk by Mandy of ZillowPillows and how she's made Etsy work for her business. She talked about how it is quirky and offers different methods for shopping besides the old fashioned "category" method most of us are used to. It uses social media and connections with other people to get noticed and recommend what you like. It is indeed a true community of people helping each other be successful.

Different than having our work in galleries and other "catalog" websites, one can control how work gets seen in various photo poses we take and how it's presented and written about. Etsy's commerce site is a super-highway of web traffic and there Etsy and other artists help you negotiate ways to direct some of it to our work.

What was I waiting for?!?

Kept track of my time and it took about 4-5 hours to get a shop set up, create a shop header, anguish over the text, set-up shop info, get a premium PayPal account set up AND take photos of a few pieces to "list." The first item took an hour to list; by the fourth item it took only about 15 minutes.

The shipping piece is still a bit frightening and figure I'll "eat" some costs until I figure it all out.

TIP: even though I took all the photos at one setting, in the first piece I listed the background colors turned out a bit different in each shot after I changed the sizes to their recommended pixels, fixed contrast and SHARPENED them. When I manipulated the photos for the next few items I left all of them open in my Photoshop "project bin" so I could align their placements within the frame and make sure they all had same background tone.

Here's my new Etsy Shop: "NicePots" by Cynthia Spencer.

More to come...

Top Potter in the Valley

Imagine my surprise this morning to see my name in the paper. (And no, not in the Crime Watch!) There I sat innocently sipping my tea, reading the paper version of the Corvallis Gazette-Times, already basking in the glory that the festival I spend so much time organizing got TWO Top honors in the Top of the Valley Poll...and having just blogged, tweeted and Facebooked it all over the place... and Yes, there was my name as Top Potter!!! Ahead of long-timer Dale Donovan and buddies Keith Moses and Jeff Gunn... Ho-ho!

I entered the poll and voted in many categories, but hadn't noticed any of the art, music, gallery categories, so it was a double surprise. The past few years I have barely gotten it together to do one or two shows, keep a couple galleries stocked and have always felt fairly under the radar when it comes to marketing my own work in Corvallis. Quite a honor to be plucked from anonymity to Fame (and fortune?!!) in the Gazette-Times.

Believe me, I'll be milking this for the next twelve months!!!!

Wonder if I get a crown or anything?

To see some of my AWARD Winning Work go to my other blog "Spencer Work in Clay"

Thanks all!