you're worth it (and I am, too)

Pricing.... it's the MOST difficult part of online selling for me. I started out pricing things to cover the cost of materials with a little profit, but hadn't included much for my time or even thought about wholesale pricing. After asking for help and input on my studio on the Artfire forums, I was given some helpful advice.

1. Lower my shipping charges (Originally $6 for the first item, $2 or $3 for the second, can't remember exactly). I've since dropped that to $3.00/$1.00 with positive results.

2. Raise my prices. What??? Several artisans mentioned that my prices made them think that my work was cheap or not well made, even though it is neither. I was kind of shocked by that, but after checking out similar items from amazing artists like YooLa and Lapis Beach, I was forced to agree and have done as they suggested.

3. Retake some of my pictures. Some of the older pictures were blown out in my attempts to get a bright picture with as much detail as possible. I've since gotten a better camera and am slowly reshooting the offending pictures.

Since receiving that critique I've searched through Google, Artifre forums, and Etsy forums to figure out a better pricing system. Here are some helpful articles and formulas I've found.

* More thoughts to consider

* Detailed article with several pricing formulas

* Talking about Worthsy and why they started it, such a great idea!

* Worthsy - pay more, get more. A special auction site for handmade

Taking a moment here to say how much I love, love, love the concept of Worthsy. I think that as word spreads about this fabulous site, the value of hand made will be better understood, and perhaps artisans will stop devaluing themselves. A friend sent me a link to an artist on Etsy who created wire knit jewelry as I do, but wasn't even charging enough to cover the cost of materials, let alone the time invested. It saddened me because they were hurting themselves and other artists who are charging a fair price.

Also, this week's featured item, a magnetic spice rack from Salt City Spice, matches my kitchen exactly, and it's functional art. I just decided that I need a new spice rack, hehe.

All of this brings me to my most recent endeavor, cotton teddy bear hats. I posted this picture and a brief blurb about them on my facebook page and got an almost immediate response. Someone wanted to know how much they were. Good question. When I first made them I wanted to price them at $20, since that was more in line with hats I've made in the past. But, after wrestling with those adorable ears for several hours, (I make my own patterns and those ears were surprisingly tricky) I realized that that wasn't enough to compensate for my time. Even after making several hats, the ears still add another hour to the time it takes to make one. *sigh*.

But... is that a price that the market will bear? (because it doesn't matter if I'm charging $10 or $100, if no one buys) By doing market research I found that most similar hats were priced between $20 - $40, with the average being around the $25 mark. So, on target for me. Time will tell if lovers of BooJay will agree with my market research and time invested.

I hope this has helped you in some way, whether it gave you a better understanding of what goes into that cute hand made item at your local craft fair or online, or as an artist, to give you confidence to price your items what they're worth.

Quick and Dirty Product Photography

I've been reading through the forums at Artfire to learn everything I can about setting up an online shop. I've discovered that there are three main components to a successful shop:

1. Great product.
2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Basically, keywords. I need to have the right keywords to show up on search engines.
3. Amazing pictures

I have a good product, and SEO will take time, trial and error to master, but I can do awesome pictures!
Except, my current pics aren't great.

The background is the focus, the actual item is too dark, and not enough detail is shown.
So this was my project today:

Welcome to my new "photo studio". Yes, my camera is actually screwed onto a lamp. It's a quick and dirty way to get a clear picture without using a tripod, mostly because I can't find mine. There's also some white cardstock, which was my background, and a jumble of pretties that I had just finished photographing. Please ignore the scanner; that's my husband's. For some reason his office type stuff always ends up on my table.

This is that same necklace, photographed today in my "studio".

Here's how I did it:

1. Used a tripod, or in this case, a lamp. The point is, your camera needs to be rock-solid steady or you'll get blur. Blur is bad.

2. Took advantage of natural light. I took the pictures around 11 a.m. and did not use a flash.

3. White balance. I have a point and shoot camera (Panasonic Lumix, don't remember the model number but it's 8mp) and I went into settings > White Balance > set  and focused on the white paper to set it. Having the proper white balance helps remove odd, unwanted tints from your picture.

4. Set the camera to MACRO. (This is the little flower setting) It captures the most detail and is to be used for closeups only. (Less than 24")

5. Didn't use zoom, just took the pictures close to the object to allow for as much detail as possible. If you do use zoom, don't use digital zoom. That will make your pictures fuzzy, or add "noise".

6. Finally, I took several pictures of each object, from each angle. That way, even if I got a bad picture I wouldn't have to reset everything up to try again. Hopefully.

 Everything I've learned about taking pictures has been through trial and error and perusing blogs and websites. Hopefully this has saved you a little time and a few errors. :)

New stuff

I'm so psyched to be participating in a Facebook auction hosted byMom to Bed By 8 this week! I submitted a couple of pixie hats, a purple slouchy hat, and a wrist cuff. I'm hoping for some helpful feedback and a few sales. :)

You should totally check it out! There's a TON of stuff for sale or giveaway, from many different places... hair clips, bath and body stuff, knitted items, and more.

Other than this bit of marketing, I've been knitting and prepping another pattern for sale. (The as-yet-unamed eyelet baby beanie and a blossom.) I'm amazed at the amount of work that goes into prepping a hat pattern, with its limited sizes. Heads are the same shape, so the only differences between sizes are height and circumference. I can't imagine designing an entire sweater... the math makes my head hurt a little.

For you knitters out there, I'm Booski on Ravelry, and my pattern shop is BooJay Knits. That's where you'll be able to find the eyelet beanie if I ever get it finished and named.