Hope I didn't bore you all too much with my adventure in online schoolwork! I had a lots of fun with it (once I remembered how to student and got over my complete lack of confidence in my drawing skills, that is), and as you may have noticed, it resulted in at least one new item to eventually add to my Etsy catalog! I plan to keep on taking Coursera classes, although I'm pretty sure getting graded on my blog entries was more of an exception than a rule, so they probably won't intrude here.
Now that the class is over (mostly - there's still this week left for last round of grading and whatnot, but no more assignments), I'll be returning the sidebar to something resembling its old self - perhaps I'll make a set of pages with links to various project updates, with the class posts making up the first page. I'll probably also make a couple other small changes as well, which I'd like your thoughts on:
Firstly, something I've mused about before but never acted on: I'm thinking of adding a PayPal "Donate" button... Because I started this business with NO outside startup funds or anything, there are some big limits on what I can do. It's hard to pick up commissions if you don't have any examples of similar work to show people, and even just the materials for some of the stuff I'd like to develop are pretty expensive - prototyping and product development alone on a spiral-boned corset (which I REALLY want to do) are cost-prohibitive for me - and that's not even touching the expense of building an inventory. So I'm thinking that a "Donate" button (or maybe a GoFundMe link?) could function as a crowdsourced small business grant. Whether or not I actually have enough people following my various social media for this to do any good remains to be seen, but it can't hurt.
Secondly... how do y'all feel about ads? I'm not a big fan of them, and I'd rather not have my blog and (possible eventual) YouTube channel cluttered up with them, BUT... I'd rather have ads than a day job. Since I'm pretty sure I don't generate enough traffic to even pay for my Netflix account, however, I'm leaving it up to you guys. What do you think?
Well, that's it for now, but with a little luck & determination, maybe I can keep up the whole "posting every week" thing now that the habit's semi-formed! I have some cool stuff I've been working on lately, so I should have plenty of fodder for keeping you up to date. :)
Jordan and I are having this exact problem getting our projects (my series and his animated film) up and running. Granted we both have (quite low paying) jobs, and I am a full-time-and-a-half student, so these are just passion projects. You can have a go at the donate button, but they really only work if you already have loyal consumers (you may do, I'm not sure). I have >300 tumblr followers, but when I asked for moneys the only people who responded were people I was very uncomfortable taking money from (i.e. my dear, real life friends). When it comes to ads, I haven't looked very deeply into this yet, but I happen to know (because I have friends who have done it) that it is POSSIBLE to only run ads that are relevant to the interests of your target audience. I will definitely be looking in to that when we get the series up and running.
ReplyDeleteWe were, at one point, reduced to having a yardsale. Which ended up being a fantastical failure. (Don't tell my parents but) I'm contemplation just getting us a production credit card (probably a Disney Visa) and dealing with it later :P
You're probably not young and dumb enough for that move, so, maybe a kickstarter?
I love the IDEA of doing a Kickstarter, but if I recall correctly from when I idly looked into how they worked a year or so ago, they are a LOT harder to make work than the hype would have you believe. The biggest obstacle is that the projects are curated to some fairly strict standards - ie, you have to have a specific thing you're working on, rather than a general "moneys would make this business run better" situation like I have. Plus, if you get some donations, but not enough to meet your goal, you don't get any money at all. :/ If I get to a point with where I have all the sketches and plans I need for, say, a line of combat-ready corsets as mentioned above, and manage to math my way to a solid estimate of prototyping costs? HELL YEAH I'm doing a Kickstarter.
DeleteBUT... One of the reasons I'm thinking of doing a "Donate" button is because it theoretically would be more steady - a small trickle of $5 or so every now and then, rather than a big lump like I'd get through Kickstarter. Thinking short term, that's pretty awful, because "every now and then" may well mean "once or twice a year," but looking ahead to a (hopefully) growing fanbase, that trickle may be be enough to keep me in sewing machine needles and cone thread when business is slow. It might take YEARS to get to that point, but I figure, why not start now, when "slow" is the default position? Plus, I figure that having a button will be a lot more conducive to random-stranger donations than asking directly in a blog entry (although I'd totally accept money from my RL friends... I'd do the same for them if I had any money to give, and since I'm producing a commodity I can always pay them back via discount). Metaphorically speaking, I figure the "Donate" button is tossing pocket change into a hat, where a blog-solicited donation is pressing a $20 directly into your hand - same basic action, totally different vibe.
And yeah, I wouldn't even be considering ads if I couldn't customize what they were for. After doing some digging on the AdSense site, I think what you do is choose what general category of stuff you blog about/want to have ads for, then a bot combs your site for keywords to narrow it down further, and you may or may not have final say on a general short list of ads. So theoretically, it's possible I could end up hosting ads for stuff I ALREADY pimp via word-of-mouth. Which would actually be kind of cool.
As for other options... making real money off of a small yard sale is a lie created to keep us from overburdening Goodwill's intake staff, as you discovered (also, I like my stuff too much), although I may end up selling of some of my old textbooks and duplicate paperbacks on Amazon Marketplace. Unfortunately, all the books that may actually be worth some money are ones I don't intend to part with... damn my nerdery.
I'm totally young and dumb enough to GET a credit card (next time my bank offers me one - I have no credit score), although I'd probably only use it if I was sure to make the money back and then some within a couple months... if I had a day job, that would be no problem. Heck, it would actually be a GOOD idea, in a way... slowly but steadily paying off credit card debt is how you build a good credit score (important for things like buying houses and cars and stuff), so if you're confident you can budget a monthly payment for a while, that's a pretty solid choice.
Thanks for the comment! It was good to talk this stuff out. (And spill some salt in Morgan's general direction for me, will you? ;) )