Making an activity schedule

When you run a business of your own, it's important to keep regular activity going. This helps entice people to come back regularly to see what's new. Even better if you consistently update on the same days each week! I update my regular blog every Tuesday, which means I always see traffic spikes on Tuesday afternoon. People who read my blog are used to seeing my updates then, so they expect to see a new post every week.

You don't have to solidly schedule updates, though, as long as there's activity during the week. This can be anything from new items, updates to existing items, new blog posts, or general updates to your business.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/SparkleArt

For me, I like to create a list of things to do for my shop, and add it to my regular to-do list. But I'm also a huge fan of lists, so I realize it may not work for everyone!

But what if I can't keep up with my activity schedule?
That's a question I ask myself a lot. But by breaking it down into bite-sized pieces you can tackle in a spare 5 minutes here and there, you can get a lot accomplished!

Everyone's needs are different, but here's a rough idea of what my shop's weekly activity schedule is like.

• List one item in the shop each day, if items are ready
• Photograph items once every 2 weeks
• Clean and crop photos once every 2 weeks
• Change unsuccessful listing keywords on one item per week
• Post something to social media sites once a day
• Shipping sold items and answering questions as needed

And that's it!
With the exception of the photography and photo cleaning, which takes about half an hour to an hour each on the days I sit down to do them, everything on my list can be done in 5-10 minutes.

Productivity doesn't have to be scary, but it does take determination. Do yourself a favor early on and figure out what work needs to be done each week.  The earlier you start with it, the sooner it will feel like second nature.

Outposting your business, and why you shouldn't do it

When you think of an outpost, you probably picture some sort of lonely fortress on a distant hilltop.You'd be right, of course, at least in the normal, everyday world. But what is an internet outpost, and what does it have to do with a crafting business? Keep reading!

Any time you set up a place online where your work can be found, it's an outpost. This blog, my Etsy shop, my Facebook page, Twitter - All of these are outposts.
But wait, you're thinking. Why are you saying outposting is bad when you have so many outposts of your own?
Outposting in and of itself isn't a bad thing, but the idea is simple: Never put all your eggs in one basket, and definitely never put them all in a basket that doesn't belong to you.

It's important to have your own website, and it's now easier than ever to make one. I keep a site of my own for my writing (which you can see here) and it's great, because it's ad-free webspace that's completely under my control. I back up my own content and the only way it's going anywhere is if I decide not to pay the hosting bill. No one closes my site except for me. I'll never have to worry about my portfolio vanishing out from underneath me, it won't go anywhere unless I decide it will!

But why all the outposts, if I have my own site?
Because accidents happen, too. Web hosts suffer outages due to hardware or power failure. Sites get hacked and forced offline until repairs are made. Accounts get suspended because you forgot to change the autobill information after you got your new debit card. Not that I've ever done that one, or anything.

While none of these will put your site out of commission permanently, it's important to keep alternate avenues of communication at your fingertips so that your clients know you're still around. It only takes one attempt to refresh a missing page for visitors to get scared and think their order is lost in the ether, trust me! But if you've also set up communication outposts on social media sites, it only takes a moment to share a message saying that you're aware of the outage and everything is okay, and will be back to working order soon.

Even if you set up shop on your own webspace, always keep a separate communications outpost. This can be social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, or even a mailing list with the email addresses of your customers. Never back yourself into a corner by having your work found only where other people control it.

For a quicker explanation to finish things out, here's a short story: My husband does a lot of art and posts a great deal of it online. Aside from his personal blogs, he also posted it places like deviantART and CGHub. Then one day, CGHub - and everything on it - just vanished. No warning, no explanation, just there one minute and gone the next. Nobody had a chance to back up their work, and several prolific artists found themselves in trouble, because their CGHub gallery served as their online portfolio, showing off their work and drawing new business in. Without warning, they had no way to contact fans or clients, nothing. They lost their entire following in an instant because one site vanished.
All because they outposted their work.

Price-saving packaging: Where to buy your supplies

Packaging items for sale and shipping can be intimidating. It can be a challenge, and it's easy for the prices to get out of hand. But don't worry. It doesn't need to be that way.

Something important to remember is that when you have something shipped, you don't pay for the cost of postage alone. There's a reason most places title the shipping cost shipping and handling. Whenever something is packaged and mailed, the cost of shipping is postage, and the cost of handling is the cost of packing materials plus the cost of time to package and prepare something for mailing. The latter two are something generally not offered for free, and if done right, the cost of packaging will be so minuscule that no one will bat an eye.

As an example, when I sell a pair of earrings, I charge $2.50 for shipping and handling. Postage alone on most packages comes out to $1.92 if I can ship from home, higher if it must go through the physical post office. A few cents cover the Etsy and Paypal fees charged on processing the cost of shipping, and the rest covers the expense of packaging.

Now, when I say packaging, I don't just mean the bubble mailer the stuff is shipped in. It also includes gift boxes, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, tissue paper, gift bags, or anything else that might be necessary for making a nice presentation. When you think about it, 50 cents to cover fancy packaging that leaves a lasting image of quality is pretty good. But when gift boxes at the store can cost upwards of a dollar each, how can you offer nice presentation without cutting into your bottom line?

Here's a few suggestions.

Tissue paper
Ideal for wrapping objects, keeping bundles of things together, and serving as a lightweight padding or filler. It comes in a lot of colors, too, which means you can coordinate it with a theme in your shop or other packaging.
Where to buy: PaperMart has some of the best prices I've found.
If you're in a hurry: Emergencies happen. If you need paper in a hurry, try a dollar store. Dollar Tree sells 50 sheets of white tissue paper for a dollar, making them a great last-minute resource.

Gift boxes
Though they come in a lot of shapes and sizes, my favorite is the pillow-style gift box. They're flat for storage, but fold up stiff enough to withstand mailing. Regardless of whether you want this kind or the traditional square boxes, though, the best supplier I've found is the same.
Where to buy: eBay. Stock changes all the time, so I won't provide listings, but eBay has the best gift box prices I've found, often available with free shipping.
If you're in a hurry: Make your own! A template like this one makes it easy to turn any piece of stiff paper or cardstock into a gift box at the last minute. If you're feeling ambitious, you can even use blank card stock and design a custom box to print for every item.

Ribbon, lace and twine
When you think of packaging, you might not immediately think of these things, but they make an excellent accent for trimming and finishing your product packaging. I tie all my gift boxes with a piece of satin ribbon in either my shop's colors, or colors coordinating with the item inside the package.
Where to buy: HomeSew has excellent prices on bulk trims.
If you're in a hurry: Of all places, Walmart actually has quality ribbons and trims at decent retail prices, if you're lucky enough to live near one with a fabric/sewing department.

Organza bags
Very popular for packaging small items without adding a lot of bulk or expense, though if you ship in bubble mailers, you'll need to add packing peanuts to the package to keep an item in an organza bag from being crushed.
Where to buy: While they do have a minimum order requirement of $25, it's definitely worth it to get these from 8seasons. Most come in packs of 100, for under $4 per pack. Just order a few hundred at a time and it works out great!
If you're in a hurry: Check the dollar bins at craft stores like Michaels or Hobby Lobby. They often have 4-packs of organza bags.

Bubble mailers
A staple for any small crafting business, you'll want to get these in bulk, as well. Most items fit into a #0, which is the right size for a DVD case to slide inside perfectly. A size #00 is a little more than half the size, but can be better for very small items.
Where to buy: eBay. Again, no links for this one because of changing stock, but you can usually find lots that work out to under 15 cents per mailer.
If you're in a hurry: Dollar stores are a good bet for last-minute bubble mailers, because while most stores sell them in bundles of 5 or more for at least 5 dollars, dollar stores tend to sell packs of two mailers for a dollar.

Cardboard shipping boxes
You may not realize it, but cardboard is actually pretty expensive. Boxes take unusual specialized machinery to make, glue and fold. I've actually gotten to see one of these machines in person before, and it's pretty impressive, and pretty expensive, too.
Where to buy: ULINE boxes in bulk work out to be the most cost effective. They sell a lot of other packing materials, too, so if you order them all at once, you can save on shipping.
If you're in a hurry: Make your own. Unwanted cardboard can be found at any major retail outlet. Ask for a few pieces and then get creative with a knife or scissors. I've often cut down pieces of cardboard to make boxes for shipping, and while it's time consuming, it's much better than paying several dollars a box anywhere you can pick them up in person.

There are other types of packaging I haven't covered, but since this post is already rather long, I'll leave it with the basics covered here and come back for more detailed information in another, later post.
Until next time!

Finding your niche: Making your shop an audience-based business

There's a lot of buzz on the internet lately about audience-based business models. If you're not familiar with the term, I'll explain.

While there are many different models for businesses to follow, most can be summarized by being product-based or audience-based. A product-based business, as it may be obvious, begins with the product you've created, that you wish to market and sell. When you're first starting out, your shop will probably fall into this category. You don't have an audience yet, but don't worry! It's not hard to convert your business from product-based to audience-based. All you need is a little feedback to get you going.

With an audience-based business, you spend most of your time communicating with your fans and then catering to them. Is there one particular design or product that seems to sell better than all the rest? Something you consistently get more compliments on or receive positive feedback for? There's your niche!

So why convert to an audience-based business? You don't have to, but remember that word of mouth is the most powerful advertising tool there is. The more your audience loves what you create, the more likely they are to share your work--and your shop--with their family and friends, expanding your reach more than you may be able to do on your own.

Once you find which of your creations people seem most interested in, the transition from product-based to audience-based business is a piece of cake. All you do is make more items that are similar in style and type to what's already been successful, and expound on what your fans already like the most.

Freshwater Tahitian pearl bracelet
$16 in the project shop

Another way to expand into an audience-based business model is to cater directly to what your followers ask for. If you ask, they'll tell you exactly what they want! Maybe it's a handmade soap in a travel size. A specific color or size of jewelry.  For me, I have a lot of requests for freshwater pearl jewelry and wire-wrapped stones, so that's what I try to cater to first and foremost. Those products are consistently more successful than other designs, specifically because they're catering to what my audience has asked for.

What if you don't have an audience yet? How do you get the feedback you need?
Well, everyone has an audience! Do you have a Facebook account? Try showing your creations to family and friends there and ask which ones they like best. If one item receives a lot of attention, that can give you a great idea of which direction to grow.

And of course, if you really have no one to ask for feedback, I'm always willing to take a look!

Preparing your listings: Photographing products for Etsy

While I spoke a bit about photos when I wrote about listing things on Etsy in my other blog, I never really went into detail like I'm going to now. There's a million and one places you can find information about photographing things for your Etsy shops, but instead of just telling what to do, today, we're going to talk a little bit about why you should photograph things a certain way, and ways you can accomplish it without cutting into your bottom line.

Quality photographs are one of the biggest selling points for your products, but if you're not an art student like me, you may not have an idea how to make your product photos pop. Don't worry, it's not as hard as you think! There's really only 3 things to worry about:

• Your photos need to be clear
• Your photos need to be bright
• Your photos need to be nicely staged

But as to what each of those things means, that's something we'll explore in a moment. First, I want to make something clear, because it's a concern I hear a lot.

You don't need to have a nice camera or expensive software to have nice product photos.
Seriously, it's more important to know what you're doing than to have a camera that costs $900. Of course, a fancy DSLR might help, but only if you know how to use it. One of my friends takes all her product photos with the camera on her iPhone, and her photos look great! As long as you have access to a camera and a few free tools, your results can be great.

Still my preferred camera for family outings

While I'm blessed to now have a Canon T3i for my photos and a copy of Photoshop my sister purchased, I had photos that were just as nice when I used the shabby little broken Pentax camera we mysteriously found in the bottom of a box after moving. Before I had access to the software I use now, I relied heavily on FotoFuze for cropping items out of photos and putting them on a white background. It's free and easy to use, and faster than cutting things out by using computer software and a mouse.

Aside from any camera and maybe access to FotoFuze, one other thing you'll need is a program that will allow you to adjust the brightness and contrast of your photos, crop and resize them before you take them into FotoFuze. Photoshop is the best tool there is for this, but if you didn't grow up with a graphic designer for an older brother and then luck out with a super-generous sister like I did, you can do just as well with GIMP. It's another excellent free resource, and getting better all the time.

Now that you've got a camera and editing software, let's move on to the next step, shall we?

Your photos need to be clear.
It might seem like a "duh" statement, but you'd be amazed at how many blurry photographs I see on Etsy. Never be that person. Retake a photo as many times as necessary to get a clear image. If you have shaky hands and don't have access to a tripod, try bracing your camera against a box or stack of books to keep the tremble at bay while photographing items. This will let you angle the camera and adjust as needed to get a good shot, but will drastically reduce the chance of ending up with a blurry photo.

If your photos always turn out blurry, keep in mind that it may be your setup causing things to go wrong. Setting up in the wrong lighting can cause a camera's sensors to go wonky, meaning most point-and-shoot basic cameras will automatically adjust exposure time and give you a blurry or grainy photo as a result. Natural daylight is always best for photos, but if you just can't work out a photo shoot by an open window, setting up right underneath a good lamp will do the trick, too. Using flash photography usually helps eliminate blur, but use flash only as a last resort, because it can cause ugly glare and cause colors to look all wrong.

Your photos need to be bright.
Proper lighting goes a long way to making a photo look good. Without any post-processing, which usually includes adjustment of the brightness, contrast and color saturation, a lot of photos tend to have an ashy gray cast to them. Upping the contrast and brightness in your editing software makes this a quick fix, but be mindful that it doesn't distort the color of the photo as well!
Colors should be clear, clean and crisp, and the background for most photos should be white, but we'll come back to that in the next section.

A product photo taken in an indoors light tent

Indirect daylight is always the best light source for photos. Indoor lighting gives things a yellow cast, and direct sunlight risks overexposure in your photos. It can take a few tries to get the lighting just right, so don't get frustrated if your photos aren't amazing on the first try. Even with several years of experience photographing my items, I still take between ten and twenty photos of each item and am lucky if I get five that are usable! Also remember that every photo will require editing, so what you see on the camera won't be the end result. Most white backgrounds in photos will look dingy yellow or gray until you correct the colors with a little quick editing.

A great solution for indoor photography is to build a light tent. While it sounds fancy and complicated, you can get similar results just by draping a white sheet where you can shine a lamp in through either side. If you're working with small items, you can find a great tutorial on building a cheap light box for product photography over here.

Your photos need to be nicely staged.
Sometimes, when you're staging your photos, you might not even realize you're doing it. For me, staging can mean something as simple as arranging a necklace chain into a swirl instead of letting it lay however it falls. Anything you can do to make your photos more visually pleasing is considered staging.

Every photo needs to be staged a little, even if most of your photography is happening on a white background. There's two reasons it should be happening on white, by the way. For one, you want most of your photos to be very clean and clear with minimal distraction. For another, having products on a white background will make it infinitely easier to crop them out for placement onto something else, like a collage, banner, or advertisement.

A little staging goes a long way when working against a white background. A great benefit to staging for photos against white is that you can include something to spice up a visually boring product. Items like soaps and candles usually aren't very exciting to look at, but you have the option of including something to represent the ingredients used or the fragrances offered. A candle can be staged with a flower or handful of berries beside it. A soap can be staged with an attractive (but not too fancy) soap dish or wash cloth.

A simple backdrop box

Advertisement is why a small number of your photos should still happen against a backdrop, possibly with more staging. One great way to make a backdrop is to use patterned scrapbooking paper, which can be purchased on sale for a few cents per sheet.

I created a simple backdrop stage for my products, using similarly-colored pieces of scrapbooking paper and the corner of a box. It cost less than sixty cents to put together, but the end result is great photos for advertising that take next to no effort!

Advertising photos can be used in a number of ways. These are the photos that make something look more tangible, the kind you might find in a catalog or brochure. These photos are more visually interesting because part of the idea is to create an attractive overall image that fits with a larger design scheme, as opposed to drawing attention specifically to a single item being portrayed. Generally speaking, though, your white-background photos should compose at least 75% of your product photography.

With those things in mind, now is a great time to start taking pictures of your products and getting your shop's lineup ready to go. That's what I'll be working on, this week!

A good example of simple product staging.

Setting up shop: Things to consider when starting your craft business

I'm ready! Let's get started! I want to make things! I can't wait to make my first sale!
Those are the first thoughts I have when I consider the official launch of my crafting business. Maybe yours are similar.

I'm as eager to get started with business as anyone else who wants to be self-sufficient with their income. But here's where I have to be reasonable: You're probably not going to make any money the first week. For that matter, you may not even get your first set of items up for sale!

So what gives? I thought the whole idea was to start selling the stuff we're making? Well, it is. But before you get started with the listing and selling part, you need to do some ground work to make sure you're ready for the outcome.

One day's worth of orders. I was so unprepared!

One of my most successful craft ventures was selling Christmas ornaments with my sister to help raise money for my maternity leave. My leave from work would be unpaid, which meant I had to find a way to scrape together an extra 6 weeks worth of income by doing something on the side. It was wildly successful, and I was wildly unprepared. At 8-and-a-half months into my pregnancy, I spent every hour I wasn't working my day job scrambling to complete over 100 hand-painted ornaments, as well as wrapping, packing, boxing, sealing, marking and shipping each one. It was wonderful and raised the money I needed in less than two weeks, but I was unprepared, so it was a nightmare, as well.

Never again.

You're starting a business. Have everything ready before the doors open.

There's a lot of little things that you may not think of when starting, things you lose track of because of excitement. But making sure everything is in order before you start means everything will be more fun and easier to manage. If you spend the first few days of your new venture taking care of the business side of things, it'll save you a ton of time and frustration in the long run, too! So what kind of things do you need to focus on first?

Make sure you can ship your products reliably.
If you're like me, you're mostly selling online, which means everything leaves your house by way of the mailbox. Before you sell anything, stop to consider how it's getting to its new destination.

• Have you ordered boxes or padded mailers?
• Do you have bubble wrap, wrapping paper, packing peanuts?
• Do you have enough tape?
• Are you shipping your items in gift boxes or bags?
• Do you have enough for everything you've made?
• Are you printing postage from home?
• If so, do you have an accurate postal scale?
• Do you have enough printer paper for invoices, packing slips and postage?
• Do you need a paper cutter for any of those?
• Does your printer have enough ink?

All of these are things you need to consider before anything goes up for sale. Running out of any of these unexpectedly can make everything more difficult and more costly than it needs to be. You can get a case of 25 bubble mailers at Office Depot for $20 and tax and have them instantly, but you can get 250 from uline.com for $21 and shipping if you think ahead. So in the first week, be sure to create an office inventory of shipping materials you'll need and make sure you'll have it on hand!

Keep taxes in mind and plan accordingly.
Sorry, folks, but selling from home doesn't mean you can skip out on income taxes. You'll officially be considered self-employed, and have to mind your taxes accordingly. You'll want to make sure you have your paperwork in order before you start. You will need a file cabinet and folders for your invoices, receipts and spreadsheets.

If your business requires you to buy materials from places that charge sales tax, consider applying for a state tax exemption. Presenting your exemption ID to local retailers means saving a few pennies on your supply costs.

Keep all your receipts for any business-related expenses. These can be anything from cost of materials being used to the cost to rent a booth space at a convention or craft show. If you're selling on Etsy, Etsy's fees can be claimed on your taxes as venue costs. If your receipts are printed on thermal paper, like you get at most big box retail stores, be sure to make a photocopy and staple the original receipt to it. Accidental exposure to heat can cause thermal paper receipts to become illegible. I know people who have kept sensitive receipts in the freezer, just to be sure, but that's not necessary for your business. All receipts should be stored in acid-free containers or folders, too, to help prevent discoloration.

Different states have different laws, but there is a minimum income threshold before you have to pay taxes on your earnings. In Tennessee, I don't have to report my earnings until I make over $400 with my home business, but I still keep funds set aside until tax time for just in case.

Consider sales tax, as well. Tennessee requires me to collect sales tax only on sales made in this state. Etsy adds state sales tax to the total for me, but if you're offering items at a flat cost while at shows or craft fairs, that cost will be coming out of your pocket at the end. Plan accordingly and keep careful records of how much sales tax you've collected through the year and where you need to send those collected funds.

And then, of course, we have one of the most important things to worry about.

Start making products well before your launch.
While you can still make sales by only having a few things in your Etsy storefront, their algorithms favor shops with a lot of stock. I've heard many people say that having 100 items is the sweet spot, and that their sales don't increase too substantially beyond that point. To get started, though, you probably need to have about 20 items ready to list when your shop opens.

Why? Well, your storefront just looks better if you have things for shoppers to browse, rather than seeing everything you offer at a glance. The longer people look at your page, the more memorable it becomes, and the more memorable it is, the more likely shoppers are to share your shop with friends or buy something, themselves.

While preparing your shop you'll also want to make sure your product photos and presentation are high-quality and uniform, but we'll address that next, when I'm tackling the task for this venture!