It's not magic

Enjoyed a surge in views the past week because my card was featured on the Funny Valentine's Card section on Etsy but it's since trickled off. I also changed the photo for one of my cards and that seemed to trigger more views. I keep reading about how important it is to have good pictures. I know it is but somehow it didn't really sink in, after this experience though, it's made me think about taking better pictures more seriously.

I know a lot of times my background of choice is too heavy, too dark and somber looking but it's really tough to get just the right amount of natural lighting. I'm going to build my own little light studio and see how it goes. I found this link yesterday that was by far the easiest to understand to date, check it out.

On the marketing/SEO front, I know I could be doing a lot more but I've got my hands tied right now. Since I'm going to be abroad for awhile, I thought I'd switch from printing my cards professionally to drawing them by hand. Which basically means one copy of each design but at least I can afford the time it would take to draw onto the card stock directly. I never realized how much time it would take just to edit a file to make it print ready. I used to slack a little on my final checks of the files but I've come to realize that it makes a big difference, I learned that lesson quickly too.  A small smudge on the pic will be glaringly obvious once printed out.

Think I sort of understand what type of cards I need to design to make them more sellable. I'm not going to compromise my style and be a sell-out but tweaking it a little might help in making my products appeal to a wider audience. We will see if my assessment is right, that'll be awhile though because I'm going to go on hiatus for the next 3 months or so before I get time again to really sit down to make new cards again.

Enjoying this last weekend before mayhem starts, eyes are closing on their own, time for bed.

Featured!

I don't know if this actually counts for a feature or what the exact definition of feature is but in my mind it felt like one so I will call it as such. The gf pointed out to me that my card was on the 3rd row on the Funny Valentine's Day cards page. I went to take a look and it's so cool to see my card there. Here's the link to that page, click here! I try my best to come up with original cards and it feels like the effort I put in has paid off.


I wish I had more time to put into marketing my shop but I'm going through other stuff in my life now that has to take precedence for the next 3 months or so. I'm going to try and come up with a new card every 2-3 weeks but even that might be a bit of a squeeze.

Planning to list 3 new items soon, just got to have their photos taken nicely. Tried 2 rounds of photo taking but they all turned out pretty dismal. I know it's also because I'm taking it with my phone but I can't justify spending money to buy a nice camera just to take pics of the cards because I'm not much of a photographer in daily life.

Anyway, Friday Woot of the week is getting featured! Also being surrounded by snow during winter is an awesome plus as well.

1st batch of new cards for 2013

Had a whole bunch of ideas for cards but couldn't find the right execution for a lot of them so instead of rushing to print stuff that I'm not that crazy about, I decided to sit on it and let those ideas stew for awhile more.

I did go ahead with 4 designs that I quite like and funnily enough, my favourite turned out to be a card I wasn't too sure about. While most cards have printed out to what I had intended them to look like, some cards don't and it frustrates me a little. I realize that what I see on the computer screen won't always print out onto my cards but I wonder if there is a way I can minimize this difference. One card had tints of red show up where on my screen it looked white. I don't know if it's my screen or if it's the conversion from jpg to adobe illustrator/photoshop file format that causes the red tinge to be more obvious.

Brought the gf along to help me with picking the cardstock since she has a much better eye at these things and she made a great choice for one of the designs. That turned out to be my favourite print of the bunch. It makes such a big difference what cardstock you choose for your design. I wish we had more choices to choose from but we were short on time so we couldn't fuss around too long.

Hoping for sunny weather tomorrow so I can snap nice photos of the cards. Can't wait to list them up.

Fonts O' Rama

Variety is the spice of life, but when you have to trawl through what feels like 7612365123854 font types, you start wishing you only had to choose from 50. I know I'll say that now but when it really turns out to be 50, I'll gripe about the lack of variety. I shall just appreciate the fact that I have a whole bunch of free fonts I can choose from. 

This website seems to have amassed a good variety. Not only is the layout really easy to use, they let you type in sample words to check out how the font will look. Check it out.

Happy 2013!

It's always the same feeling every New Year's day. I still think it's the last year and I continue to think that it's still 2012 for the next month or so and when I hear 2013, I think next year.

If 2012 was good to you, I hope 2013 is better.
If 2012 wasn't that great, balls to it because it's gone now and 2013 can only get better.

Been wanting to print new cards but I keep revising them to no end because I'm not happy with it. Seem to have an illustrator's block, if there is such a word.

My goal for each new month on Etsy was to aim for more views than the last month, so far so good. I tweaked my tags here and there and tried ways to make sure my website the top hit when searched for. Seems to have been effective. I think the biggest reason why I'm getting more views is probably just being on Etsy for longer/exposure.

I'm pretty excited about 2013, hoping to see my sales grow!