Guest Blog: Special Topics in Calamity Business – Are You An Indie Blogger? You Should Be by Anna Powers

Anna Powers from misosouper shares some tips for those indie businesses that are as of yet uninitiated into the world of blogging. Anna will be back on the next two Thursdays with some more tips.

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by guest contributor Anna Powers from misosouper

You’re a maker. Your handmade creations are thoughtfully designed and lovingly produced. You’ve sold some goods, you’re creatively satisfied; your business seems to be taking off. In the beginning, when you’re giving away the fruits of your labor to friends and family for free and you have no actual sales to your name, there’s nowhere to go but up. One sale turns into two, which turns into ten, which turns into thirty. And then: it’s a slow creep, but you notice that your numbers aren’t moving up. Sales are dwindling—yes, you’re selling, but things aren’t moving at the exponential pace you first experienced. What’s more, you’re staring at a creative concrete slab. That initial rush, that flush of inspiration? Oh, she’s long gone.

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‘Today’ from Creating the Cute

What to do? My suggestion is to start a blog. Yeah, I know; you’re an artist, not a blogger. But consider this: if you appreciate having conversations with others about your work, then you’ll probably like blogging. Because at its core, blogging is simply electronic discussion, which can create a network of like-minded individuals, reinvigorate your design muscles, and open up your blog as a gallery space that will showcase your creative spirit.

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‘her story will never be written’ from Six Hours Photography

Besides making interesting and mutually enriching connections (case in point:  I met Jen through my website), having a blog makes it far easier for people to find you.  For instance:  let’s say I want to find a pair of silver flower earrings on Etsy.  As of today, there are 8110 results; I’m exhausted already.  But if I Google the phrase silver flower earrings Etsy, my search becomes curated to results that have already been recommended by others, either on blogs or social shopping sites, whose users pull a lot of content from—you guessed it—blogs.  (I’m not suggesting that Etsy’s search is useless, or that you should bypass the fun of treasure hunting through the listings; just that in the vast wilderness of the internet,  it’s helpful to be a known—at least known by Google—quantity.)

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‘Computer Love’ from Rosie Music

So what’s the first step?  If you haven’t already, sign up for a free account at Blogger. Blogger will then prompt you to choose a name for your blog, which will be easy if you copy the name of your shop for continuity.  You then need to select a template, which will determine the way your blog will look and feel.  I highly recommend going with the all white standard template, which will make your objects really pop.  (One of my blog crushes, the ridiculously popular Decorno, uses the basic Blogger template and her posts always look refreshingly clean.)  If you keep your blog simple, at least in the beginning, it can truly represent the blank slate on which you scrawl your creative process.

Now for the next question:  what to write?  If you’re excited and not terrified by your newly created space, visit Indie Fixx’s Guest Blog next week, where I’ll post on how to start—and keep—blogging.

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About the contributor: Anna Powers likes to buy stuff, particularly when it’s well-designed, fun, and (relatively) cheap. Since February 2008, she has been sharing her purchases on her shopping blog called misosouper, which is a equal parts snarky, smart and fun.

9 comments

  1. Thank you all for the comments!

    Jamie, Robin, and MaizieDesigns, hopefully I can give you some more ideas in my coming posts. (And p.s. to MaizieDesigns: total sidenote, but my daughter is named Maisie!)

    Marianne, very well said; hopefully I can give concrete examples of all your points. And d’oh about Decorno! I know she’s not a he, but I fumbled my fingers (and brain) on that one. Lady Decorno, my apologies 🙂

  2. I opened an Etsy shop two months ago and have sold 50+ items so far. I would like to keep my momentum and grow, grow, grow so I just started a blog two weeks ago. I am having a ball with it so far-a great tool too. Thanks for the tips and I’ll be checking back next week about upkeep!

  3. PS any tips on getting the etsy mini (the pic and link to your shop provided by etsy) to work? it has never worked for me when i have tried to create a gadget for it in my sidebar on blogger.

  4. thank you anna for this post. this is exactly what happened with my etsy shop. so funny to find this as i was just discussing it with my aunt. i do already have a blog, but i should discuss more about my shop there i suppose. thanks for the tip.

  5. Interesting article. Small correction: Decorno is a she, not a he 🙂

    I think a common mistake people make, especially at the beginning, is having their blog be too much of a soliloquy. It’s better to talk about industry trends and what other handmade artists are up to IN ADDITION to comments on your own creative process. That way, you get love by giving love, and you’re really participating in conversations buzzing around the blogosphere instead of just talking to yourself 🙂

    Marianne
    http://imakejewelry.blogspot.com/

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