Finally some inspiration

It's been a while since I've been able to come up with a new design for my store. It took actually wearing one of them to help me with a new one. I think I might have to make a whole series. Check out how it looks on the shirts and let me know what you think. :D

Getting my crap together

I've followed one piece of advice and ignored another. Too bad I got it backwards. I've recently been reading up on how to make a CafePress store successful. Almost everywhere I found information, the person said that the shopkeeper should always charge the premium mark-up. The reasoning behind it was the people shopping see the higher price and figure it is higher quality. That is a load of excrement. I was averaging at least one sale a week, sometimes even two. I know, not that much in the scheme of things, but it paid for the store. On the advice of the "experts", I changed the mark-up on all of my designs to premium. No sale for almost two weeks, also not a huge deal. But I changed my prices back to what I'd had before and the same day I made another sale. It could be a coincidence, but I see it as a sign. The "experts" are probably just other shopkeepers who figure the best way to get rid of competition is give lame advice. We newbies, trusting they know what they are talking about, follow like sheep. Well not anymore. Like I told my friend Rivercrow, I'd rather make $2 per shirt and sell 2 or 3 than make $4 a shirt and not sell any.

The first bit of advice still doesn't explain why my Pagan designs don't sell. I believe it's because I didn't follow the second, more helpful, information. I have several very nice designs. But no one sees them. That's because I added them to my store without bothering with a description. Having tags for each design is all well and good. But the description increases the number of times the target keywords appear on the page. Not only does it help in searches on CP, but searches on the major search engines as well. If we can get our designs to show up on Google, maybe we can reach the audience we are targeting. I posted this info on my main blog almost a month ago and blew it off. I plan to spend the next few days correcting that oversight. I will post here if it has any effect on my sales. :D

Milestone

As of about two hours ago, and thanks to a few friends and even more total strangers, I've sold 30 items through my Cafe Press store. My Naruto design is still my best seller. I've let my store sit on the back burner the last few weeks. I still need to add descriptions to my current designs. I need to come up with some new stuff. And need to put content on the website I finally forked out web hosting money for. Though that will all have to wait a few days until I get my first fan fiction story beta read, edited and posted. I know it won't bring any income, but I'm excited to get feedback from other fanfic authors. I've never written before and didn't realize how fun it would be.

Advertising

Here's a link to my squidoo lens, the first of many places I will request or create for free advertising for the Pagan designs in my (and Rivercrow's) Cafe Press store. I am determined to get people to see what great designs we've created. Until I can afford the web hosting for my own site, I will find whatever free options I can. If I have to create free accounts on every site available, I will. Pagans have to know there are quality design options available. No clip art and no tacky lines like "Want a taste of Religion? Lick a Witch." My most successful Pagan design so far is this one:

Artist's Date 2

I know, I know. It's been much more than one week. But with real life always cutting in, I'll need to do as Rivercrow suggested. Don't start all over again and again. Pick up where I left, or I'll never finish. And I really NEED to finish this.

My artist's date this time didn't net any visible results. But it will have results in the long run. I've always been very hesitant about putting pencil to paper and just drawing. It has to be perfect. With as few erasures as possible. Which is very stupid. My logical brain understands that I can't create perfection every time I sketch. It's my right brain that freaks. And that very reaction is why I started AW in the first place. So this date, I got online and spent at least an hour going through basic lessons on drawing. I don't remember any of the art lessons I might have gotten as a kid. I feel like I'm trying to build an artist starting with the second floor. Like I skipped the foundation and the first floor completely. Things that are obvious for other artists, I can't quite wrap my mind around. The logic behind these things make sense. The actual execution is where my brain goes "My give up!" Putting in a foundation just might help me get past my fear of imperfection. That and dealing with loads of self-doubt.

In the next few days, I'll post the answers I got to from a few of the tasks, like naming 5 dream professions, from the first few weeks of the program.

A great feeling

For the first time in a long while, I didn't give up when things got hard. And my persistence paid off. I got past my block yet again and added a new design to my store. Even better, I sold my first shirt to someone I don't know. Not that I would ever complain about friends buying my stuff. It just felt like real validation that a total stranger bought one of my designs. I really need to figure out the best way to market designs and not just for my sake. For now, someone in Tennessee will be wearing my first anime inspired design. I did the happy dance. :)

More flowers

I seem to be partial to the little yellow one. Well, that and they are the ones I got the best pictures of. I don't have any new updates on AW, but I wanted to at least post some more of my photos from the first Artist's Date. The field I got these nice shots in is right behind my apartment complex sandwiched between the apts and a Costco. Behind it is a big dirt and gravel hill probably created when they built the Costco. And near it is a pond where several ducks live, but it's near a freeway. Too much trash made any nice photos impossible. This is why most of my shots are close-ups. Even a couple of my close-ups will have to be touched up due to random bits of trash I couldn't see when taking the picture, but were quite obvious in the photo.

Most the walk was overcast, but just at the end the sun came out to help me get the brighter shots. Everything I've posted so far didn't require color or brightness adjustments, just upping the resolution and cropping. For all my whining, I really do like my little Sony Cybershot. It seems to capture the real color very well. The only bad part of this photo trip was the mosquitoes. The spring has been fairly wet. They were out in full force and I was quite tasty. Next post will be an update on my AW progress and hopefully a new design at my store.