Monday, November 10, 2014

Course correction




(Going through my head while taking that second shot? Definitely time for a vacation.)

I had a pacing spell Friday afternoon. I had charged myself with filling in the "about the seller" parts of my Etsy shop, so I started doing that, in earnest. And, as I've done many times already, I got nervous. I started looking around at all the other pretty Etsy stores, at their awesome labels, their unique business plans, their inventory of wildcrafted jams and naturally infused sea salts, and I felt two things. One, I felt I couldn't compete. Two, I felt a little nauseated by the sheer level of cutesy-perfect loveliness on display. Did I really want to do that? Did I even want to try with Etsy, in its over-saturated state of cutesy-perfect loveliness? Is this what I want to be about?

I started pacing. It started snowing. I thought, offhandedly, about having a line of bath and beauty products that's anti cutesy-perfect loveliness. I thought about how much I miss Regretsy. I thought about Thug Kitchen, the recipe blog succeeding through a potent mix of natural eating, irreverence, and profanity. I thought pretty hard about profanity. I thought about the needlepoint samplers emblazoned with the F-word that make me shoot tea out my nose. I thought, y'know, this business thing is going to be a lot of work. If it's going to work, for me, it needs to be fun. 

I thought, fleetingly, about my poor parents, who won't be able to tell any of their friends if their awesome daughter starts kicking ass with profane beauty products. I felt sad for a minute. Then it passed.

I did a little googling. I didn't find anyone out there selling natural bath and beauty products with insouciant irreverence and cursing. Aha, I thought. Empty niche. Vacant market share. Untapped potential. Maybe the women who buy profane needlepoint samplers will be interested in minty-ass foot scrub? Or something like that? I grew increasingly more delighted.

I chucked the idea of this blog as reflector for the Etsy shop. In order for that to work, I'd need way more traffic, and things would need to change. It'd need to be a job, and I don't want it to be a job. I started this because I thought it was going to take off, and I tried to get it to take off for awhile, but over the years I've realized that I love having it as an accessible record of our years, and that it makes me happy, and makes a lot of my friends and family happy, and that's enough.

I will link to the shop, I will talk about shop developments. But this isn't going to turn into a business blog.

Does anyone love this idea? Hate this idea? I'm feeling just a little bit twitterpated, but that could be the caffeine talking. Got a whole morning to burn, and labels to design. Oooh yeah. Gonna get to swear a whole lot. It's going to be so much fun.


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4 comments:

Julia2343 said...

Hell YES!

Texas Leigh said...

Our world is crude enough. Go with your beautiful self. You are blessed as a writer to have a vocabulary that doesn't have to rely on profanity to make a powerful statement. I love your blog and I hate ugly words.

Catherine said...

Agree with Texas Leigh...

Becky said...

I see Texas Leigh's point but in an overly cutesified etsy world one needs to stand out. It IS a lot of work. I understand the need to make it fun. I try to do the same thing. (Gotta list junque today!)

Your shop can be crude/crass without being offensive. That's where your genius word crafting comes in to play. I have confidence you'll find the right balance.

Now link us up so we can start buying and using your amazing products!!!!

(My etsy shop is Sew In Stitches)

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