How to get noticed?

[JosephThomas]

Honestly it looks like too much information for the etsy/pinterest/facebook crowd, but perhaps I'm wrong.

You should offer them a small discount for taking the unfinished option, some people will foolishly jump at saving $25 or $50 if you give them the option to finish the item on their own. Saving that time would be well worth losing $25 or $50, trust me  Nice chairs btw.

[wdwerker]

Another approach to the cut off wall shelf saw marks would be to use a steel saw blade that's kinda dull and slightly bend a little more set into a tooth. This should yield a much rougher cut and appeal to the "rustic " crowd. Slightly exaggerate the uneven stack for a greater impact too.

Or cut them with a handsaw for even more texture !

Its a novel and eye catching shelf !

[Llama]

On 7/29/2016 at 0:08 PM, Aj3 said:

But it was hard to get 5 dollars for one.

Those are awesome. I want one!

On 7/29/2016 at 10:01 AM, Mike. said:

Mel's reindeer

I had no idea what the market would tolerate on them.. All I knew was that I wanted to make a certain amount with them, and had to factor in the cost the gallery was adding. Then I started making a limited run of certain ones, and really made decent money at it. I sold them all out before they were done, which was awesome.

I don't want to be in the reindeer making business, but it's a good holiday item and they aren't hard to make. To Erics point, the choice to make the reindeer out of ebony and some nice burls was a good idea. It gave my reindeer a comparative advantage. Search on google for exotic wood reindeer. My website pops up on the first three returns, and in images I have most of the first hits.

Sometimes you get lucky, and hit a gear so to speak... 

[Unknown craftsman]

@Llama I'll carve some this fall and send you one.What the heck Mouses for everyone! ?

[Dknapp34]

On 8/10/2016 at 3:57 PM, Aj3 said:

@Llama I'll carve some this fall and send you one.What the heck Mouses for everyone! ?

Those mice are pretty sweet!  

[Denette]

I'm here to hit this dead old topic with a  defibrillator and point out that if you use Facebook as an ad platform, you can do targeted ads, and you can manually select where the ads will run on a map.  I went in and manually selected the smallest possible area in the richest possible neighborhood, so I would get the wonderful audience that is people with lots of money.  I didn't throw a lot of money into my ad on Facebook because I don't have an awful lot of money, but I had moderate results.  

[Isaac]

It may depend on your location, but around me, there are numerous local facebook groups that people sell to others basically in the same zipcode or immediate surrounding. Some are organized around specific public schools, churches or cities. Some have more of a yardsale vibe, but if you poke around and throw some of your stuff up there (if allowed by whoever runs the thing) you could generate some additional buzz. Similarly, I see people posting on craigslist with this sort of thing. They typically post their top item, whatever it is that they think is most likely to sell, and within the description they provide a link back to their page where you can view and purchase all your other designs.

I've never attempted to sell anything, so take those with a grain of salt, but they seem to be what others are doing around me, and I think they are free options.

Also, if you want to generate more buzz around your facebook page, you have to keep producing content. Try video taping yourself working on a project, or giving an instructional video about some simple woodworking skill that you are very good at. It will make your page show up on other's pages more often. Even if you just post other woodworkers projects (with proper attribution, of course) and basically just say "what do you think?" that alone seems to generate some activity. People love giving their opinion.

[Llama]

So, @Denette... I would love to know how things are going!  

[Coop]

5 hours ago, Llama said:

So, @Denette... I would love to know how things are going!  

I'm glad you dug this back up. I would like to know as well. Congrats if it's moving along and no shame if you had to change directions! 

[Denette]

 

Gladly! It's been tough to do my full-time job as a teacher at the same time as maintaining a steady business, but since I'm my own worst critic I'll list my projects out for you and let you decide for yourself how it's going.

 

 

Since I started putting things on Etsy I've sold:

 

1 keepsake box made from a bush in my back yard ($30)

 

1 business card holder ($15)

 

4 end-grain cutting boards ($80, $95, $95, and a $105 one that some guy in Sweden pain $210 for because of how much shipping cost)

 

1 midcentury Modern Pencil Box ($75)

 

1 Asian-influenced keepsake box ($35)

 

1 Cutoff floating wall shelf ($5, and it totally cracked me up that anyone bought that thing)

 

 

Outside of Etsy I've had a few commissioned pieces too.

 

 

In September I converted a 100-year-old old library card catalog into a coffee table by making a table top, matching the color, attaching it, and putting industrial style wheels on the bottom. I under charged and got paid almost nothing for that one. $175, of which about $45 was lumber and much of the rest of it was finishing supplies. Whoops. It was still a cool project.

 

 

Most of November found my garage dominated by a 9' long pine countertop that will be the last time I ever agree to put stain on a project without putting up a fight. I did it for my brother and (noticing a theme here) didn't charge enough. Got $200 out of this one, but it was for family so it wasn't that big of a deal.

 

The other big project, the second-biggest project Ive done so far, was the two twin beds that had storage cubbies underneath, the tale of which is yours for the reading if you look for the thread I started in project journals. I charged the oddly patriotic price of $1776, of which $1000 was labor/profit.

 

 

After that I started work on my Roubo, and about a month of work went into that, which, again, is all documented in a thread on the forums.

 

 

Sales haven't been terrific, but if tool purchases aren't factored in, I almost broke even for taxes this year! I'm actually pretty happy with it. I've got a few more projects in the pipeline that I'll be starting on soon,