This post by Jennifer Flaten
I love making jewelry and it is gratifying when someone else loves one of my pieces enough to buy it. What I don’t love is the endless tweaking, editing and what feels like endless promotion it takes to drive traffic to my site. Etsy is a huge selling platform and it is easy to get lost among all the other sellers.
I think that authors feel the same way, you love writing your book, you maybe even love editing your book, but what you most likely don’t love is trying to drive traffic to your website (or other selling venue) to buy your book. Social media is great for helping spread the word about what you create, but man is it a giant time suck.
Today, I spent a considerable amount of time retaking pictures of my items. I am not even close to done as I haven’t even started retaking all the earring photos. I like how they look, I just wish I could get it done faster. Right now, I am letting my camera recharge and hoping that the sun stays hidden so I can get some more nice cloudy day natural light photos.
What do you find the most draining? Promotion, editing? Or something else?
Visit my etsy shop (and check out those nice new pictures)
Writing Wranglers and Warriors 
Wonderful post, Jennifer! Yes, the driving of traffic to sites, the promotion of my books, is what I find very difficult. I have a nice website, my books are on Amazon, and I’ve many speaking engagements and other publicity-related stuff; I am also trying to learn more about capturing emails and providing give-aways, as well as doing other types of work to sell my work of words — there’s just enough time in the day to get it all done! Oh, if only all we had to do was create and bask in the joy of our outcomes! 🙂 Here’s to many jewelry and book sales!! 🙂
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Initially, it’s just getting it done that is the problem. Then the promo! why can’t it just happen automatically?
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I hate marketing. It’s a lot of leg work, and it doesn’t always produce results, but I tell myself if I can succeed in sharing the book with a few people who can get something out of it, that’s good enough for me. By the way, my new memoir is now available for purchase from Amazon, Smashwords, and Createspace. To learn more and order a copy, go to http://www.abbiejohnsontaylor.com/memolir.htm .
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Do you sell your jewelry only from a website or do you also go to festivals and arts and craft shows in the area? Back when I was still a weekly newspaper dude, I’d go to festivals and see lots of arts and crafts booths. Do artisans actually make sales at festivals and shows?
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You’re spot on, Jennifer about the drain of time spent on promotions. Sometimes it’s even the thought of doing more promoting that’s exhausting and draining. I hope your new photographs help to sell your gorgeous jewellery. The jewellers who sell at the Craft Fairs I go to have a hard time. They all sell different styles and pieces but it’s difficult to get them sold- though we only ever have about 3 jewellers max out of maybe 20 crafters at any one venue. good luck!
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You are correct, getting others to recognize and buy your work is a huge time user. Still if this is what you want, you do it. Doris
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I hate doing promotion and am horrible at it. I always feel like I’m infringing on people too much but I know I should promote more.
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So interesting to read all the comments and know how much we all share in some things. I am planning to ramp up my Mary Kay business as well as my writing business and nice to know I’m not alone in the work of marketing, and it definitely is work.
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I would definitely have to say I hate promotion much more than taking pictures, although I totally understand how frustrating that is, too. It’s all about getting everything just right and both can take hours of time we’d rather spend creating!
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I agree promotions suck and I suck at promoting. Since it is something I don’t like to do I often find other uses for my time. I admit I don’t promote my work enough. However if you promote to much people tend to stop paying attention.
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