The Biggest Storewide Piddix Sale Ever -- This Monday

In three years of selling on etsy, I've never had a storewide sale before, so this should be fun.

Starting at 10 am pacific time this Monday, November 30th and going until 10 pm, I'll be offering amazing deals too good to pass up at least once per hour. I'm calling it my "10 by 10" sale since I plan to offer several sets of 10 collage sheets for just $10 (regular value $30-$35). Yep, that's right, 10 collage sheets for ten dollars. These will be listed with a limited number in stock and when they sell out, they won't be re-listed, so grab one quick if you like it. I may also throw in a couple of $10 CDs. Or perhaps a set of ten full-sized images? Or even a couple of random $1 images or sheets here and there. You'll have to swing by to see exactly what's on sale.

I'll post on twitter and in this forum thread just before I list a new set. Or you can also use the forum thread to suggest different images or collections you'd like to see on sale. Sale items will be listed prominently in the shop with the image above, or you can click here at any time to see if any 10x10 items are currently listed. See you Monday!

Looking for Balance (in all the wrong places)

One of my lovely piddix customers wrote me today asking for advice on finding work/life balance. If only I had a good answer! While I am pretty good at "crying uncle" once I've reached a breaking point, achieving equilibrium before I reach it is a skill I am seriously lacking.

Since my last newsletter went out more than six weeks ago, I've worked mostly 16-hour days, staying up until 3 am most nights on the following:

1. A 70-item wholesale catalog of printed collage sheets. By Thanksgiving you'll be able to find printed piddix sheets in person if you live near Minneapolis and online for everyone else.

2. A free, 12-page pdf titled "Seven Tips for Etsy Success," published this morning on indiefixx.

3. A new, soon-to-be-released collaboration with Annie Howes.

4. Negotiation of several commercial contracts, including one that should land piddix images in Barnes & Nobles nationwide by late 2010.

And so much more...

Lucky for my sleep-deprived-brain, I dropped the collage sheet files off at the printers this week, so things are getting back to normal. But I still fear falling right back into the late-night routine the next time another large project comes up. Anyone out there have any tips to share that have worked for you? I'd love to hear them.

Paper and Ink

Did you miss me? Well, no, you probably didn't. But just in case I'll tell you what has kept me hiding away at my computer for the past two months. My new project involves:

• 60 custom collage sheets
• Quotes from 8 printers
• 20 paper samples
• Packaging design
• 23 versions of new layouts
  
• Dipping prototypes in glue, water, resins and anything else to otherwise destroy them
  

And a total lack of sleep while figuring everything out. I don't think I've gone to bed before 2 am once this month. I have such a love/hate relationship with new projects. They can have a huge learning curve, which in many ways I love, but can also be so frustrating at times while I try to figure out the perfect answer.

And no, I haven't told you exactly what I've been up to. I will save that announcement for when I actually deliver the new product to stores. But I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Check back in a couple of weeks to see how everything turned out.

In the mean time, here's a sneak peek at some of the images from a new Steampunk collage sheet I have been playing around with. Enjoy!

How I (accidentally) Had My Best Week of Etsy Sales Ever

I LOVE reading tips for how to sell on etsy on other blogs, the etsy wiki, and especially in the Storque. Right now my favorite is etsy's Quit Your Day Job series. But at a certain point, to be honest, they all start to sound the same.

So I decided to ask in the etsy forums for some "secret" tips. Ones that were unique, special or worked really well. I included my own secret to get the ball rolling, then asked others to join in. The thread (which you can see here) includes some helpful tips from other sellers, with quite a few folks "marking" the thread to read later on.

Then etsy admin daniellexo chose the thread, which I had titled "What's your best etsy sales secret? Here's mine," to be in the etsy success newsletter. Sales started coming in within hours and continued at a high rate for several days. In the end, I had my best week of sales on etsy ever.

Plus (if that wasn't great enough), I've also been asked to host an etsy workshop at the beginning of December on How to Bring in Last-Minute Holiday Sales, which is quite exciting as well.

I admit that my accidental "tip" of getting picked to be in the etsy success newsletter might be a bit of a long-shot. However, in looking through dozens of other threads that have also been highlighted, there seems to a couple of ways to increase your chances of being chosen:

1. Keep all of your helpful information within the body of your forum post. In other words, don't say "hey, I found some great advice which I share here..." and then link to your blog. Many consider this spammy/promotional and it is not taken as seriously.

2. Similarly, this is not the time for self-promotional links to your etsy site, twitter account, or blog. If people want to find you, they will. But again, too many links to your information can be distracting.

3. Pick a great title that both summarizes your topic but also draws people in. Here are a couple of forums threads recently featured in the etsy success newsletter:

• Want to take GREAT product photos, I may have the answer!!!
• Advertising Ideas
• Sure fire way to increase SALES aka marketing for shy people
• Here's HOW I got my work in STORES!
• NEWBIES ~ Here's a few Etsy tips for you
• Sharing my Twitter Strategy : 11,000 followers

4. Strive to have a couple hundred comments on your post. This isn't essential, but will help keep your post toward the top of the forums, and thus more likely to be seen by an etsy admin. You can do this by promoting it outside of etsy (I announced it in my newsletter and twitter). You can also bump your thread up by being an active participant when people ask questions or are looking for follow up.

5. And perhaps it goes without saying that helpful information should be, well, helpful. Spend some time writing up your post. Spell check. Use paragraph breaks. Think about a tip you have that is unique or that has served you well. I'd also suggest subscribing to the Etsy Success newsletter both to get an idea of what is typically covered, but also because there are some great tips shared.

Nope; there's no guarantee that by posting a helpful thread that you'll be picked for the newsletter. But at a minimum, sharing your helpful advice with others will hopefully result in some good karma.

Full Time Crafting Six Months In

Two months before I "Quit My Day Job" in March 2009, piddix had its biggest sales month ever. At the time I had lunch with an etsy friend and told her my goal was to double those sales within a year, and I had enough savings to act as a safety net during the growth period. She commented that it might take the full year to reach my goal; but I inwardly scoffed that it would take that long. After-all, my sales had been climbing steadily for a while, I had taken classes, I was prepared (or so I thought)...

Then "Wham!;" I ran into four months of fairly low sales, which were both scary and depressing. To top if off, my husband was laid off from his job at the beginning of June. It was looking bleak for piddix. I immediately went to my old non-profit organization, one that I sill love and admire, to see if they had any work for me. See, they still had my old position open, and I always had it in the back of my mind that until they hired someone new, I could always go back, with hat in hand, and help out there. Fortunately for both of us (and you'll see why in a minute), they were in the middle of a hiring freeze. They could offer some contract work, which would help me pay the bills for a bit, but nothing permanent.

Rather than be sad or stressed at the news, I found myself rather relieved. At that moment I realized that I truly loved working on piddix. I loved working from home. I loved being able to scan books and play trains with Declan at the same time. Every aspect of the business--from marketing to designing new products--still fascinated me. While I had left a very nice job with wonderful people and benefits, rather than the traditional mind-numbing cubicle work that is easier to leave, I was still having more fun working for myself, on my own terms.

So I intensified my efforts with piddix (thanks Mom and Dad for the extra babysitting) and thankfully, this past August was a new record for piddix sales, and September looks good so far.

I've learned a million things in the process. The two that stand out at the moment are:

1. Know your sales trends. If I had paid much closer attention to my sales trends over the past several years, and done some additional research, I would have noticed that the February through May are traditionally a very slow time for selling supplies, since everyone has already finished up their holiday craft fairs but hasn't yet started on their summer activities. That knowledge would not only have factored into my plans of when to leave my "day" job, but also cushioned my ego, too. Now that I'm tracking the ups and downs better, I can be financially and emotionally prepared for both.

2. Try Everything. A friend of mine calls this the "shotgun approach," since I'm basically shooting a bunch of ideas out and hoping one of them will hit its mark. Or, as a member of my board of directors puts it, I'm wandering around in the dark hoping for brief moments of illumination. I may at some point write an entire post on the 243 things that I have tried in the last seven months--from the hand-letterpressed thank you cards I made to send with my packages (which are still sitting unused on my shelf), to the four different collaborations I've tried (two great, one so-so, and one still in the works). Needless to say I wouldn't suggest this for anyone else. A more surgical, practiced approach would save a bunch of time. But it actually worked well for me. Of the 243 ideas that I tried, about five worked very, very well and are responsible for my current sales record. I would never have found them without the other 238.

So, as always, wish me luck. It's been very nice to have a bit of an emotional and financial boost this past month or so. And looking forward I'm hoping that the "ups" outnumber the "downs."

Confessions of a Completist

I'm a completist. Not so much in the sense that I always finish what I start. In fact I wish that were more often the case. But more along the lines that when I start something, I want to do every single aspect of it thoroughly.

Let's take the example of a great book from 1912 with 300 steam engine parts. Instead of picking the 30 or 40 best engravings, which really should be all that I need, I will sit and scan all 300 ... just in case. In case of what exactly, I'm not quite sure.

So last week when I went to my favorite archive in the world--the one where I travel 1700 miles each way and only visit twice a year--I was prepared. I stopped by earlier in the week for several hours to narrow down my focus to about 100 colored plates that I knew I wanted. I told myself I would be steadfast in my determination and stick to just the 100 best to scan.

And of course you know what happened when I went back with my scanner. I spent the first several hours wandering around in complete bliss, pulling out all kinds of ephemera until I had amassed literally 3000 different colored plates, engravings, chromolithographs, and other fun bits. Then I proceeded to spend the next two hours whittling it down, and then the final few hours madly scanning as much as I could as quickly as I could.

In the end I was exhausted from hauling everything around, covered in a thick layer of red dust from all the crumbling books, and completely content.

Because while I'm not quite sure what I will ever do with this:
I also found these:
And these:

It was a lovely haul, including 31 really grubby botanical engravings from 1846; another 12 German floral sets from the early 1900s; almost 15 bird eggs, another 15 bird nests; and nearly 100 French Fashion plates. Many of the scans I may never do anything with. But so much of the joy is in the discovery. And at least I will have them ... just in case.

A Quick Marketing Idea for Crafters

I recently scored a sweet copy of Bread & Badger's marketing e-book, which I am quite excited to thoroughly read soon. But before I do I thought I would share a quick and easy tip that I have used to receive a decent amount of publicity for piddix.

How to Be a Spokesmodel

Do you have a product that you absolutely love? I've had very good response by offering to write up a testimonial or be a media reference. If you're specific, and even give examples of what you might say, chances are it might lead to something.

For example, several years ago I took an amazing business class through MercyCorpsNW. I really can't say enough good things about my experience. I had mentioned the class in a storque article on piddix and in a blog post, and so I sent the links to my MeryCorps contacts and concluded my email with the following paragraph:

"Also, if you ever need some quotes from participants for filling out the grant reports or anything, feel free to use this: Going through the MercyCorps NW IDA small business program was incredibly helpful for my crafting business, piddix llc. I learned critical information at every class from instructors who were incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, and I came away with a concrete plan for how to sustain and grow my digital image business. Almost immediately I began seeing the results of my new focus, and within three months I had doubled my income from piddix. Thank you so much for offering such a helpful program."

By emailing them articles where I talked about their program, as well as a sample testimonial, the folks at MercyCorpsNW were able to get a good idea of what I would say in an interview. And they took me up on the offer. I was interviewed as one of their "featured business." Plus, piddix was also highlighted in the new printed MercyCorps brochure.

When looking for places to pitch your "testimonial," think a little outside the box and look for organizations that already feature other businesses. For example, both my electric company and local hospital highlight a different customer each month in their printed newsletters. Constant Contact, whom I use for my e-newsletter, publishes regular "success stories" and says they are always looking for organizations to showcase.

And the easier you can make it for them, the more likely someone would be to respond. I often include a link to my "office" flickr photos or media-ready samples. I know from personal experience working as a journalist that you're often writing at the last minute and trying to fill space. Items such as pre-written quotes or readymade photos help greatly.

Finally, if you do include a sample quote or if they ask you to write one up, be sure to mention the name of your business several times. Especially for online posts, this is a great opportunity for them to link back to your website.

While being featured by your electric company may not seem as glamorous as somewhere like modish, think of the thousands and thousands of people who will see your smiling face and learn about your business. Plus, there's way less competition, and you never know who may be reading it.