Tag: Blog

Selling on WordPress – Part Two

LittleFears29 Comments

Today’s post is more a follow-up blog with some further useful ideas and tips for writers and artists on WordPress. Let’s start with a link to my first post, Selling on WordPress from two weeks ago.

Selling on WordPress – The original blog post

It turns out. I was right on the mark. Selling your own products is something that doesn’t come natively to most of the artists and writers that commented. In fact all of them now I’m reading over them… So, know that you’re not alone with your sales issues.

Affiliate Links

Priyankaspen asked how I embed affiliate links into my posts. I’ve discussed affiliate links before. The income you get from them is woeful. I’m lucky if I see $100 every three months. But I don’t ‘sell’ other peoples products on this website. I occasionally link to pens and paper. That’s about it (click for an example). If anybody clicks an Amazon affiliate link and buys anything from Amazon in that session, you get a few pennies. A word of caution here. We’ve spoken about affiliate links on blogs a few times. Nobody seems to mind odd links, but when you stuff a blog post with them, it’s like flicking a switch that pisses people off. If you stuff a blog post full of links, you might make a few pennies of the post, but you’re guaranteed to lose subscribers.

When you sign up to Amazon or any other affiliate network, you get short links to products. On Amazon.com when you’re signed in to affiliates, you get a bar across the top of each page. I always aim for a text link and embed the link in my post.

Copy the short link off of Amazon, highlight the text and right click, then copy. Go to your WordPress post and highlight the text you want to turn into a link. Click the link icon above. Paste the link into the empty box. That’s it, all done.

Icons

   

Janowrite asked about the icon set at the bottom of my posts. I create the icons myself in GIMP (free image editing software). I then embed the pictures the same way you would any image. Add content, Media, select an image, insert.

Then we add links the same we did with affiliate links. Select the image in the post, click insert link, copy paste in the link you want the image to go too. Handy if you want a book banner you’ve made yourself to link directly to your Amazon author page for example.

Ko-Fi

Forrest asked me about Patreon and tip-jars. Patreon is not for everyone. My tip jar is just a PayPal business link. Setting up a PayPal tip jar is frankly a pain in the arse and far more effort than it should have been.

One thing I do want to change too, though haven’t had time to look at yet is Ko-Fi. It’s a website you set up so people can support you for one-off tips to buy you coffee. Smart idea. Worth a look if you want a tip jar yourself.

https://ko-fi.com

Sales Post

Donna from DMStrachan.co.uk suggested that instead of adding sales announcements to weekly posts, I dedicate a post to new products. So that’s what I did… I’m still adding it to a weekly post… Doh.

Villains & Birdsong

But the focus of the post was far more into the new products. The result is, I had a few email enquiries and I sold three prints right off the bat. So I had some success. A dedicated sales post is better than burying new products. Sounds obvious, but we’re creators, writers and artists. We do have funny ideas about selling our own gear. I’ll get the new art prints on Etsy at full price this week. If anyone still wants a copy at £9 a print, please do drop me a message or email to fears@gmx.co.uk

Another follow up

I will be writing another follow-up blog post on this subject to discuss and link to ideas people had about real-world selling. Until then, looky, icons!

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

Villains & Birdsong

LittleFears65 Comments

Holy crap does she look like a villain! She’s gotta be the leading big bad in the third Little Fears horror anthology. She has no name yet, though it’d be nice to associate her with an astrological sign. I’m not sure which yet. Maybe Libra? Capricorn and Aries are already taken. Also takes the shade for this weeks #Colour_Collective.

In this week, we have further art. I have learned in the past, Etsy sales fail and people whine about price increases if they notice. So I have three new art prints for sale, introductory offer until Thursday 22nd of March, they will be £9 each rather than the usual £12. If you’d like a print, on our trademark (not trademarked) sexy canvas paper, message me in comments or drop me an email to fears@gmx.co.uk

Click an image to blow it up.

Villain

Chirped

Triffids

Some serious seventies shades there. If you’d like any of the above in different colour schemes, we can do that too.

Also, we have another submission to Scribblers Cove, the theme of party. Not for sale, but I likes it, so I’m posting it.

If you fancy any of my older art prints, please do visit my Etsy store.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

Selling on WordPress

LittleFears158 Comments

A wee post about my experience here. I figure I’ve done some experimenting now, so allow me to pass on some experience.

Earning as a blogger, writer or artist is hard darned work. Look at how many blogs and websites litter the internet and then count how many famous bloggers you know who’ve made it big. How many fingers and or toes did you count? So for most of us, the best we can hope for is getting by. Maybe reach a minimum wage. To me, that’s not depressing. It just shows that I need to do more than a website to earn a living. Such as selling prints at local markets (more on alternative earning later).

You all know what I sell by now. Art prints on Etsy. Art prints and Tees on Threadless. Books on Amazon.

The Beginning 

Back in the early days of the blog when I first started selling I had a signature in my posts like this:

~

Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare| Threadless

I quite liked that. It was subtle. I had maybe a 1%-2% per view click rate. That’s pretty high. I’d say there was a 1% rate of purchase from that though. Ouch, right? That’s not good when you’re only making £1 a sale.

The Middle Bit

At some point, I switched over to a series of icons at the bottom of each post.

   

They looked a bit more visually appealing and fitted nicely at the bottom of the posts. They looked awful in WordPress reader though. They enjoyed a 2%-3% views to click rate and had about 6% sales from that 2%-3%. By this my point my blog was over 20,000 subscribers and it was turning into £100 a month or more.

The Recent Bit

I removed everything from the bottom of my posts and left the links at the top of my screen the only links to my wares. The click-through plummeted and died a death. I’m into the less than 1% view to click through here.

What happened? Well, most of my readership on site is WordPress bloggers. Most bloggers use WordPress reader to view websites. So advertising in sidebars, header banners or menus is never going to be seen, let alone clicked. If the adverts aren’t in the post, WordPress bloggers will never click them.

Sales links in blog posts hurt Google ranks

It really does. Google isn’t stupid. If you include the same links in every post you make, Google, Yahoo, Bing and the other search engines assume you’re an advert/bot farm website. They then actively push you down the search rankings. So what can you do?

Make a sale posts

Uuuuruurururuhghgh! Arreeghghgghgh! Nooooooooooooooo!

But they work…

An experiment follows with my recent books. Grey Moon and Seeking Hydra. When I released Hydra, I posted here daily about it being free for five days to readers. Asking people, please leave me a review. Hundreds of copies were taken for free. 10-20 copies paid for. Then I had a roll for a month or two where I sold one or two a day. It picked up 20 Amazon reviews (UK, USA and other) and did OK on Good Reads.

Contrast that with Grey Moon. I posted about it twice before and twice during the first five days of it being free. I gave away maybe 50 copies. Sold 8 copies. Then it died a death immediately after. I think I’ve sold 5 copies since. It has four reviews on Amazon.com and 3 on Amazon.co.uk. For all the effort I put into Grey Moon, it tanked.

(Click here to see Amazon.com review figures)

To follow that up, when I advertise a new Threadless tee, I get the most sales off the post I make about it. The has been shown with Walker and Terror-Dactyl.

So, yes, sales posts do work and are needed, even with freebies. The drawback? If you do a sales post every day, you’re gonna piss your readers off. The flip side of that is that when I have mentioned sales posts here before, the response is always “if you don’t tell us about your products, we don’t know they exist.”

Two more Fears Fears…

I have two other problems I need to address myself with sales. First, I don’t push products past the initial release. Like seriously, I launch a product, then never mention it again. What the crap?

My other issue is that I’m a terrible artist. I write awful. My spelling and grammar are poor. How can I possibly ask people to give me money for my rubbish?… What did you say? Imposter syndrome? Me? Well, I don’t think so mis…. Oh… Crap… Yes, you may be right…

I need to address both of those points, don’t I?

What will I do?

I will be giving more focus to other platforms and not be spending all my time on WordPress. Bluntly, there’s only so much marketing you can do on a blog. Post too many sales posts and you’ll annoy everyone, yourself included. Twitter and Instagram have a bit more leeway there. Even Tumblr you can post more frequently than WordPress. I’ve said I was going to spread myself out more a thousand times and I never do. Now, after my six-month long house sale has fallen through, I need the income. I need to sell. Twitter and Instagram, here I come. Though don’t talk to me about Facebook…

I will also try and do a weekly sales post on the blog. An entire post a week dedicated to something I am selling. Maybe explain or show the process of what I did to create the product. It doesn’t have to be all sell, sell, sell right? But it needs to be something. Posts dedicated to products work.

image of little fears presents spiders book 3, a book of flash fiction and short stories

The Alternative

The other thing to do is find alternative incomes in the real world. I adore the internet in all its messy, troll-filled, poorly spelt and grammarededy ways. But I’ve always felt I need real-world incomes too.

A market stall with my art prints on for example. This time I want to take books with me too. I recall seeing Emily with a pile of self-published books behind her sofa. A quick search only shows cats on her sofa, but imagine that sofa with a pile of books behind it. That’s what I need to do. Get a small print run of the Little Fears books and take them with me to a craft market along with my art prints. You get the idea.

What do you do?

Ooo, look at that. Ending a post on a question. How very professional blogger of me. So how do you feel about marketing on a WordPress blog? Have you tried different methods? Let me know in comments.

Dryad

LittleFears16 Comments

A very art-centric Friday post this week. The lady at the top is Dryad. I used to have a thing for doodling nature creatures. With ivy arms and tree trunk legs. They all used to have flowers for heads or something similar to this. Dryad’s my submission for #Colour_Collective this week.

Texture is sexy

Click the image to expand. I get asked if I can supply larger prints of my story images quite often. Unfortunately, the answer is no. I draw 6 panels to an A4 page. That doesn’t scale up well. But I have been debating taking commisions. I had a go with printing a photo onto a canvas texture paper and doodling straight on top. I do love the effect it gives. Fancy something specific? Want to commision an image of your favourite Fears? Drop me a message.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Shoe

Not a fear, but my submission to Scribblers Cove. Inspired by Daniel Cantus scribbly style.

Little Fears, Big Update: Screech

LittleFears15 Comments

Holy crud-muffins we are nearly into March!

  1. Screech
  2. Etsy
  3. Movigos

Screech

The eponymous dame returns as the lead lady for this weeks #Colour_Collective. Some link dropping here. You can see the original doodle of Screech in this post and I have a course on how to turn simple doodles into digital graphics assets, here.

Etsy

My Etsy store has re-opened. I haven’t sorted out an on-site shop yet, it’s on the to-do list. As you know, slightly strapped for cash right now so I have spent a few days this week doing in-house work for companies I used to work for and doing a fair bit of job hunting. Have a nosey at my currently, sparse but growing, Etsy store.

Shop link: etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears

Movigos

Clickety Click - A #LittleFears horror story in which something enters the room...

We’re back again this week, and Mel has chosen The Eye, a Korean film on YouTube for us to watch. Expect scary Asian ghosts and silliness. Come join us on Twitter for some fun, 9 pm UK time Saturday as we watch and tweet it. Hit me with an @ if you want to be added to the conversation.

For a read up on who the Movigos here, Alex made a Movigos post this week.

You can see my post from two weeks ago to see how we roll, here.

Come join us, it’s a bit of a laugh!

Little Fears, Big Update: Flowers

LittleFears20 Comments

It’s been a while!

  1. Flowers
  2. Art Prints
  3. Movigos
  4. Patreon

Flowers

#Colour_Collective has returned to Twitter and the Fears are here for it! This week the colour is Boto Pink and conveniently, this week’s Scribblers Cove theme is flowers. Two birds with one doodle right there!

Art Prints

My art prints will return to the site this coming week and just look at that paper! My word is that canvas texture sexy. Something I haven’t sold for a long time. The prints are sized UK A4 and will cost £12 each (£3 shipping to the USA). I’ll have a shop page finished this weekend. If there’s an item you’ve seen doodled before or that’s on my Threadless store and you want to buy the canvas print version, please do let me know. I’ll make it a priority for the shop. Also. LOOK AT THAT TEXTURE!

Mmmmm, forbidden texture… Drools

Movigos

We’re back again this week, and Alex has chosen Spooky, a film on YouTube for us to watch. Expect cheap monsters and silliness. Come join us on Twitter for some fun, 9 pm UK time Saturday as we watch and tweet it. Hit me with an @ if you want to be added to the conversation.

Linky for details: weirdshitwithalex.blog

Patreon

patreon little fears

Did ya see her? Blue Bugly was given away to my patrons this week. Something I have been meaning to do for ages. Monthly monsters, given out to paying patrons. Interested in receiving monsters monthly and helping to pay for Hydras feed bill? Head over to our page and support the Little Fears for as little as $1 a month.

Clicky linky: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16974999

 

Bugly – Free download for the Patreons

LittleFearsLeave a comment
I’ve wanted to offer Patrons something for a while. Always unsure of what. I’m trapped between houses/homeless/aimless wanderings for the foreseeable future. So I figure digital goods are best for now, with physical gifts for patrons at a later date.

A February gift for you in thanks for your continued support, Blue Bugly. She weighs in at 5,000 px by 5,000 px, 300 dpi, and is available for you to use in any non-commercial projects you have going on. Use her as an avatar, stick her on a t-shirt, a postcard or sticker for your turtle’s shell. Or create a unique wrapping paper out of her. Whatever you fancy.

If you do use her, let me know, would be great to give you a shout out on the blog and social media. She’s available to download now for everyone sponsoring me for $1 a month or more.

Clicky linky: https://www.patreon.com/posts/16974999

patreon little fears

Grey Moon – Free for 5 days

LittleFears31 Comments

The Little Fears presents: Grey Moon, has now been released! Boom! And in case you missed the post title, the ebook is free for five days. The fifth book in the Little Fears presents series follows an all-female cast of Little Fears as they figure out their place in the world in-between, explore love and discuss picnics with alpacas. All within the confines of the Grey Moon bar. A wee bit of shpiel for you.

If anything is going to save the Little Fears from awful punch lines, it’s not an alpaca with a duck on its back. In Grey Moon, Great British groaners are the order of the day as the assembled Little Fears make their way through 84 tales of ornithology, penguins, rum, love and splinters. Reala offers an Animal Cracker; A pigeon races an aunt; A Roman makes a scene; Yuffie gets hitched; Fuen walks 500 miles. Written and posted with scruffy illustrations daily on LittleFears.co.uk. These brief vignettes (50 to 100 words) chronicle the continuing adventures of the Little Fears. With only a sense of whimsy and a deep love of old British comedy, Grey Moon will make you groan, cry and laugh until a bit of wee comes out, in a truly original, unoriginal, work of art and fiction.

Sounds typical Fears aye? This is the last book I wrote without thinking in terms of writing a book. If you’d like to grab a copy, go to the Kindle edition, it should show as £0.00 to buy. Grab it at that price and its free forever. If you enjoy it, please do leave me a review. Y’all know a 5 star helps an author.

Grey Moon USA edition: http://amzn.to/2C58nS0
Grey Moon UK edition: http://amzn.to/2nMfNoS

Many Movigos

LittleFears9 Comments

Another wee invitation for everyone. As many of you know, Alex, Layne and I watch things over the internet together on Saturdays and twatter about them on Twitter. Our numbers have grown. They now include Amberly, Ward, Eric and Mel. We have departed from being the Three Movigos, to the Many Movigos.

This Saturday at 9 pm UK time, Amberley the hater of lemonade and R Whites bane has chosen our double feature. Twilight Zone episode, Nightcrawlers. Followed at 9:30 pm UK time by I am Not Allowed to Fall in Love read by CreepsMcPasta. We’ll prattle along as always during the showing. If you’d like to join is, poke me on Twitter and I’ll be sure to @ you so you get in on the conversation early.

Informative informational bit

Video Links

Twilight Zone: Nightcrawlers
I am Not Allowed to Fall in Love

Twitter Accounts:

Alex @SynBoomstick 
Layne @Chew_On_Glass
Lemonade @IamAmberley
LittleFears @TheLittleFears
Mel @GutierFiction
Ward @cleverward1
Eric @ericshayhoward

Times

We hit play on Twilight Zone at 9 pm UK time, it lasts for 20 minutes. We then have a quick dash to loo break and hit play on the creepypasta at 9:30 pm UK time, which lasts for 15 minutes.

9 pm GMT – UK time
4 pm EST – New York time
3 pm CST – Central time

We time ourselves hitting play using so we can be a bit synchronised. The odds of us all getting hitting play at the exact time are hahahaha no sorry don’t go there lol rofl just no. But we can be close!

Onlineclock.net

Any questions, let me know. Poke me on Twitter for an @. No guarantees about demonic entities coming out of TV sets to get you are given.

Hashtag

Hashtags are super important. They allow anyone who writes a blog post about the event to scroll down a unique hashtag and see the whole twatter’sode in real time if you click ‘Latest’. Also, on occasion, one of us loses notifications. Disaster!

You can insert a hashtag by either going to the hashtag in a web browser and composing a tweet under that tag. The tweet will automatically have the hashtag in. Try that here, and say hello to the #MovigosPastaNight. (Linky) Alternatively, you can copy the hashtag and paste it into every tweet.

So I ask, if you join us, please use the hashtag in every tweet, #MovigosPastaNight.