Okay, so this was only originally a 3-part series… but I realised I had left something out.

I haven’t gotten here just through my friends and networks… but from reading and research too.

So in this post I want to share a list of useful e-books and websites that have helped me!

E-Books

Seven Tips for Etsy Success (free)

I wrote a blog post about this here… in short, you need to read it! Even if you don’t sell on Etsy, there is some excellent general advice there.

This e-book covers:

1: Read, Read, Read (& Weed)

2: Find Your Product

3: How to Set Up Shop

4: Take Amazing Photographs

5: Strive for Repeat Customers

6: Promote on Etsy

7: Market Outside of Etsy

The Unconventional Guide to Art + Money (not free)

‘The Unconventional Guide to Art + Money’ by Chris Guillebeau and Zoë Westhof is a package that consists of an Ebook and a number of audio interviews and transcripts. Some of the artists interviewed include:

• Michael Nobbs
• Karen Walrond
• Dan Duhrkoop
• Soniei
• Hazel Dooney

They all make a full-time living with their art.

My favourite part of this guide was definitely the audio interviews – it was really fascinating, informative, and inspirational to hear how these artists have come to the point of self-representing and making a living.

Hazel Dooney is particularly amazing. She’s an Aussie like me, and is making over 6 figs now… and she’s only about 30!

They do focus on visual artists, but some of the interview subjects were also photographers, bloggers, a scrapbooker, and a mixed-media artist who sells jewellery as well as her art.

Anyways, you can check it out here and find out more.

(I want to make it abundantly clear at this point that I’m an affiliate of this guide… what that means is that if you decide to buy it using the above link, I get a little bit of the profits as a thank you for promoting it. If that’s not cool with you, just search for it in Google, and if you buy it I get nada 🙂 This is actually the first digital info-product I’ve ever bought… and I’d buy it again).

Oh, you also get follow-up support e-mails with this.

279 Days to Overnight Success (free)

This is written by Chris Guillebeau, one of the co-authors of the book above.

It’s a really inspiring read, where he talks about how he has built his online business to a very successful stage. It gave me hope – and the knowledge that it is possible!

I love Chris’ blog – and this ebook – which is another reason I was willing to fork out the moulah for the above guide.

How to Build an Internet Business (free)

An awesome free ebook from one of the most successful online entrepreneurs out there, Yaro Starak. Yaro is a fellow Australian – and from Brisbane, the same city as me, too! In fact, I made my first online money working for him in the editing business he ran at the time – BetterEdit.com – back in 2004/05. He’s since sold it and moved on to bigger things, but he is a great guy, and knows his stuff.

This guide covers things like persistence, networking, choosing the right business, setting up a plan – very much the ‘business’ side of things.

Websites

Easy Etsy – a way to find all of the Etsy related tools and tutorials with out having to search for them. Very handy. This kinda covers many of the sites I was going to mention!

… as does this one! 50 Free Sites To Promote Your Website – this huge list of links from Matt Nix covers oodles of places to go…

Google Analytics – keep track of how many visits your site/shop is getting. Very, very useful. Most of you probably already use this – if you don’t, you should be.

Problogger – for anything and everything about blogging. Go here 🙂

I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of them right now! I’ll come back and add to this post as I find things.

Thank you so much for reading the series – I really hope you got something out of it that helped you!

***

Follow-Up…

I had this question from a friend and fellow jewellery-seller (the lovely Angelene) on a forum earlier today regarding the advice I’ve given in the last few posts. I thought it was a really excellent point, and so I asked her if she was happy for me to post it here and respond. Ange works full-time, and runs another business also on top of her Etsy shop. Therefore, she’s pretty time-poor – a situation that I thought might apply to a good portion of you who are reading this.

Ange asked: “Congratulations Jess! But I have to say… That’s a lot of hours work for the return. Are there plans in place to reduce your working hours to increase the hourly income?”

My response was: “Ange, I think, for me, it’s just a case of working my ass off now to get my name out there, and – in time – my hope is that as my customer base grows, so the hours of promotional activity I’ll need to do will lessen.

I’m in the fortunate position atm to be able to put a lot of time in. I’ve also heard from a few successful folk that if you want to make this kind of biz work, it really has to be your life… and I’m okay with that.

For those with a full-time job and other big commitments, it would be a lot, lot harder to find the time to devote to this like I have been doing.”

I know a lot of you reading this will be in a similar position to Ange – you’ve got a full-time job, kids, another business, health issues or other problems… And that devoting the kind of crazy hours that I have been doing is not possible. I guess that all I can say is do as much as you can, when you can. And give it time! I’ve been working on Epheriell and this blog since October 2008 on and off… and I’m only just now to this point (which is still pretty early in the game!).

Just do the basics – I’d suggest chatting on twitter when you get the chance, keeping in touch with a team of people in the same boat – even just a post or two a day in a forum. Add your new products to your FB Fan Page. All I can suggest are things that have worked for me – from my personal experience. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on what has and hasn’t worked for you in the comments below.

Most of all – keep making, keep growing, stay positive, and believe in yourself. Maybe you’re crazy to think you can build a business to support yourself and your family out of your craft… but if you are, I think you’re in damn fine company!

***

This whole series is now available as a FREE e-book – you can download it right here.

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