Hey guys, welcome back! I’m glad you’re still with me 😉
Well, as promised, I’m here for my weekly update. I will be honest though, it was a challenging week to say the least. The majority of the challenge came from my day job though, so sometimes life just gets in the way I guess.
Outside of that, I did keep the ball rolling on this “side-hustle-I’m-trying-to-turn-business” though, just not nearly as much as I would have liked. I did neglect my Facebook page this week, and I’m pretty sure the twice-daily pins I had scheduled for Pinterest ran out a few days ago. The promotion side of this thing is very time consuming, at times tedious, and not one of my favorite parts. It’s hard not to get discouraged sometimes when you see the traffic continue to go up in your store, but not a single purchase is made. It’s hard not to think “no one likes stuff”. I’m not going to try to pretend I’m the best at this by any means at this point, but compared to the people mass producing crap out there, I know my stuff is good! And honestly, I really do love each of my designs.
Not a single sale this week, and out of the 10 total sales I have made so far, I start to think that they may all have come from friends, family, and my boyfriend strong-arming his coworkers. I’ve gotten a number of items that I bought to review myself though, and instead of staying discouraged, I have decided to buckle down and pick up momentum! I have devised a new game plan, so bare with me and tell me what you think in the comments below 😛 seriously…that’s not just something people say, this is supposed to be you joining me on my journey, so speak up already people!
I have decided that I will keep my Redbubble store alive. Partially because there’s nothing to lose by letting it run, partially because I keep hearing that the platform can actually take 2-3 months to fully index your work in order for them to really start promoting you, and partly because it’s still my first baby and I’m not fully giving up just yet.
Secondly, I have decided to expend the majority of my energy into a slightly different direction: A direction of Diversification! Don’t get me wrong, this was always the plan, but I’ve decided to move up that timetable and stop waiting for my Redbubble store to take off first. As such, I have the following short-term plans:
- Join the wonderful world of Zazzle!
- Yes that’s right folks, Zazzle. Apparently it’s a very popular but somehow underrated platform which has a tonne of extra perks. I’ll circle back to this part shortly.
- Join the cool people over on Displate!
- Apparently I do need a portfolio to submit with my application for this one though, so I need to hurry up and finish off the gallery on my website I still haven’t shown anyone yet.
- Finally launch my KDP collection
The deadline I have set for myself on these three things is the next two weeks. This coming week I should be able to stop perfectionizing (yes that’s right, I made that word up, but it fits) over my website and actually officially announce it’s existence. I have already created my first Zazzle store, although literally all I’ve done is put in my email address so far. And with the launch of my “portfolio”, I will submit my application to Displate. So far as KDP, I might only get around to that launch the following week. I’ve got a bunch of stock I’ve created there pretty much ready to go, it just needs some finalization, account creation and some uploads, and VOILA! I’ll then have another metric to track that will slowly eat away at my will to live…no just kidding! 😛 I am actually excited about that one, it’s completely different than the print on demand stuff I have been working on, and I think for some of it I can actually call myself an author….with the disclaimer that it’s low to medium content so far only.
I’ve also been thinking about the corporate side of things folks! I’ve been pulling together and building myself content for the last several years with respect to things I learn along the way. My life is a self-taught journey, what can I say? Things along the lines of soft skill building, different management aspects: Nailing that Interview from the Interviewer side, team building, team development, and so on. A lot of what I’ve put together I could actually clean up and sell as digital e-books or presentations. I could then tie this part together with my print on demand, by opening up an additional Zazzle store and target merchandise that would be relevant at the corporate or business level. Stationary, office supplies, file folders, USB keys, notepads, paper weights, clipboards…and so much more. It’s honestly crazy the number of merchandizing options Zazzle has.
So anyways, that’s where I’m at so far in terms of my evil plans to take over the world…I mean my evil plans to build a POD empire….I mean, my current business strategy 😉
It is a lot of work though, and it is quite frankly, a very slow-to-pay-off journey so far. But hang in there with me folks, cause I still think we’re in for a ride. On a separate note, I needed a bit of a pick me up this week so I spent more of my time on the design side of things, and man is this part exciting and so damn cool. I have expanded my “portfolio” yet again! (I should really stop using quotation marks every time I say that, because I guess it really is an actual portfolio and not just a bunch of random crap anymore!).
So last I left off, I had added the start of my Dark Arts collection and Crazy Fun with Patterns. Well I’ve now discovered some very cool (yet still basic) photomanipulation techniques that have me on a kick of messing with the African Animals. Lions and tigers and bears, in crazy and awesome designs, oh my! On top of that, I came across a super cool new brush set for Procreate last night, which let’s you make wicked fractal designs. I feel like I need to give this guy a props though, so I’ll put his website information here: https://www.artanddesign.tv/fractal-brushes
I haven’t posted any of these designs yet, but I’ll get to that part soon. It’s just fun to look at where I started from the very newbie beginning to now, and I find it really exciting to think about where this is going to continue to go.
Anyways, I still have more I’d like to say, but I feel like I need to wrap this up because I’ve really run over my self-imposed word quota already and I still haven’t given you my stats update.
So in short, this is where we’re at this week:
Pinterest:
- Still only 1 follower, 36 I’m following
- Up to 1.2K monthly views so far though! (Still 0 saves)
- 28 created pins – seriously, Pinterest really is pushing those Idea Pins like crazy!
- 304 total saved pins
- Verified Merchant Status: Not approved!
- Ya, I saw this coming. Apparently your Pinterest account needs to be active for at least 3 months, and your mechant domain (in my case, Redbubble store) needs to be active for 13 months. This one ain’t happening anytime soon! I was hoping they wouldn’t realize…
Redbubble:
- 137 designs uploaded
- 6 followers
- 335 favorites received
- 10 products sold (they still won’t include the 8 I bought for myself)
- Total earnings: still $12.57
Facebook:
- 9 likes
- 17 followers
- Ya, I really didn’t do much here this week. Some of my previous posts and reels from the beginning of the week and earlier are still getting some action, but that’s about it. Come on people, I need you to like and follow my page! How else you gonna see my awesome new designs?!