Handmade Books Coming Soon!

I'm working on handmade books written and illustrated by yours truly soon to be available on Etsy! (and here!)I've written and illustrated books before, but never had any success getting them published (my dream of dreams) for me, it has been a long drawn out process: I was taught to have the entire manuscript done (which I did in two cases, but have several others under construction, which can be seen here.) Then send it in to ONE publisher, which was chosen through careful research to determine the most likely to buy your unsolisited manuscript, then in 6 weeks to 6 months, when it returns rejected; as it will (longer than 6 months is a rejection also) you then repeat the process having eliminated the last publisher. The only way to get a manuscript solicited is to have an agent who can only be gotten by being already published: Yay!

Anyway, I recently discovered that Etsy has a book section (most of which is journals, sketchbooks, repurposed books, and used or vintage books. But there are a few actual original books that are professionally handmade, and I will be adding myself to that category.

I've made books before, so I know what I'm getting into. They won't be cheap, but they will definitely be worth it!

Patchwork Art Fair!

My girlfriend and I have applied to be in the Patchwork Craft show in Santa Ana this May. We haven't received word that we've been accepted but the best strategy is to act as if we have so we can be ready. We are going to label all our stuff, and make displays. It is our first show. We will be sharing a booth. We don't have a lot of money, but we want to be sure to cover all the basics. We could get a cash register for about $100, but I think that we can do with out it this first time until we can get an idea if this will prove profitable and how difficult it would be to deal with out one. We plan on having aprons with pockets to keep cash in. I think this will serve. I want to get a calculator with a printable tape to give as receipts. This can be had for $15, which is more doable than the $100 register. It cost $80 each to apply and our merchandise ranges from about $4 to about $50. I figure people coming to a street fair style craft show are probably not prepared to spend more than that in cash any way. We could also get a credit card reader for our phones ostensible free when we agree to a processing fee for each transaction. Again, I would like to start simple and complicate things as we become accustomed to what we are doing. I plan on keeping my prices the same as in my etsy shop. I would appreciate any advice or stories of experience you guys may have.

On Top of Everything I have a Cold.

Well, the holidays are over and I made it out alive. I didn't have a great Christmas retail season, but my business is still in the learning stages. One piece of mine on Etsy was chosen to be in 8 different treasury lists by the people who curated them. Several others were also in treasuries. I think it’s because I joined a team called “Etsy on Facebook”, or EOF. There are thousands of members, many of whom are buyers (not just other sellers) anyone can join, & they have “discussions” where you post your listings and you favorite someone’s listing and hopefully someone will favorite yours. Your favorites (and theirs show up as people browse through Etsy while they shop. the more of your listings are favorited, the better chance someone will who might buy it will see it. Another piece was favorited 14 times the first night I posted it.

That listing is an original landscape I painted specifically to sell as an original on Etsy. Many of my paintings were originally meant to be illustrations for cards or stories, & I don’t really want to sell them. So I decided that I should create some originals to sell at moderate prices. Night landscapes are my favorite non religious subject to paint, but as I am painting to sell, I’m painting things I think people are looking for. I will continue to do night landscapes and spiritual paintings, as well as block prints, but I am trying to expand my repertoire. Landscape (regular day landscapes), and I decided to paint woodland creatures too. I originally wanted to do a painting a day, but that is a tough goal to keep. I’ve painted a couple of paintings that didn’t come out because I didn’t give them enough time or have the right reference to work from or whatever.

To this end I purchased a poshod box with my Xmas bonus (thank you San Clemente Art Supply) it is a Sienna brand that I have had my eye on for some time. I got the medium [there is no small apparently; it’s like Starbucks; ) .] It fits in my new backpack that my girlfriend, Rose, got me for Christmas. I also got a tripod with a gift certificate that I got. (A poshod box is like a French easel that attaches to a camera tripod or can be used on a table top without the tripod) I got my first opportunity to use it today and went out to the hills near my girlfriend’s house. I could never have painted in that spot without the poshod box. As a watercolorist, I have talked myself out of getting it for a long time because any flat surface can be used to paint on (like a much less expensive TV tray for instance.) but on this hillside, I doubt I could have even set up a French easel which isn’t as adjustable as a tripod. The painting came out O.K. I guess. I was irritated that at the end I nearly wrecked it by putting in to heave a brush stroke on a branch of the tree in the foreground. Then I erased half the tree when I wiped it off. It was late in the afternoon and I had to get home, it was getting dark too, so I was really short on time. I fixed it pretty quick which was good, but also irritating because it took me all day to paint but only a minute to fill in what had been wiped away. Still I’m happy with it over all.

Finally, I am also creating bookmarks. One I made specifically to be a bookmark & another I made from an existing illustration. I hope all this begins to pay off soon. I really hope to begin to learn how to make this into my livelihood. This is the year to realize that the artists I know aren’t superhuman, their work isn’t any better than mine (mostly) and that I am just as much of an artist as they are and I should start acting like it. My next move will be to join the San Clemente Art Association.

Wish me luck.

It's Coming Right at Us!

Christmas is fast approaching, and I Have a feeling I'll still be getting ready for it when it's gone. I should be done with cards, but knowing that there's time between now and Christmas makes me just want to keep designing new ones. I'll make the one that everyone just has to have, and that will open the floodgates to the selling out of everything else in the store. That's the fantasy. The reality is I need to figure out how to promote my store(s) cheaply and efficiently. Dropping my life's savings into advertising on Summergetaways.com might get me some eyeballs on my sight, but there's probably a better way to go.

My budget for advertising this year is free. I can advertise anywhere that's free. Actually, that means facebook & google+, which is better than nothing, but not much. So I'm interested in google adwords. I love google. they own this blogsite, the browser I'm using (chrome), the software that operates my phone (droid), my email carrier, and of course google+ (which many people are saying isn't a big deal, but there are a ton of people on there). Of course they also use the search engine that is most popular for finding things, so they have tools to help people who invest in their products. My girlfriend who runs ahtees designs, turned me on to Google adwords keyword tool, which analyses and suggests keywords, the tags that help people find your stuff.

I just joined for the purpose of reporting the cost to this blogpost, and they let you create whatever budget you want. I put in $2 a day which doesn't sound like much, but is considerably more that $0. In fact; it is 2x365 or $730 a year, so that's an estimate based on how much I spend on coffee a day. It's also about $60 a month. This is kind of a lot for me, but I have no idea how it translates into how much advertising it will buy. They say that once my budget is exhausted for the day that my ads will stop appearing. That means that perhaps they wont be seen during high traffic times, but it doesn't matter because it's not tv or radio, only one person is looking at each screen, so the same number of people will be exposed to my ads whether its all in the morning or spread throughout the day. There's also pay per click (again a bid I set that I have no idea how competitive it is.) I didn't intend to get this deep into this subject for the purpose of this post, but I've been hovering over the "join now" button for a while, and I haven't commited to anything yet, so I'm ok so far. I'll let you know when I know more.

I finnished the Santa card, and need to make more shirts, and designs. I'll leave you with this: successful people are the ones who do what they love.