illustration – Page 47

Etsy Fee Increase

June 17, 2018 LittleFears15 Comments

I know there are quite a few artists out there, like me, hawking their wares over on Etsy. So a wee titbit from this week.

“Effective July 16, Etsy’s transaction fee will increase from 3.5% to 5% and it will also apply to the cost of shipping. All other fees, including listing fees, will remain the same. “

Full update here: etsy.com/uk/seller-news/2018-june-update

If you looked at the forum this week you’d think this was world breaking armageddon time. The horror of a 46-page thread on the topic…

Three things are happening here. The first, we can strike straight off. People complaining about the introduction of subscription packages to help shops. Folk believe they will create an advantage for power sellers. They won’t. They’re awful.

The second thing to address is the increase from 3.5% to 5% on sales fees. A 1.5% increase. That’s going to increase your sales fee per £ from 3.5 pence to 5 pence. It’s nothing really is it? It’s also the first increase in 13 years. Etsy is still one of the cheapest places to sell all but the most expensive of wares.

Then we have the 5% fee on shipping. That’s annoying, but unfortunately necessary. You’ve all seen people pile on to the price of shipping. It still happens on eBay and Amazon to game search. Humans are feckers for finding ways around things and taking things to the extreme of taking the piss.

If the new fees are going to damage your income, consider just raising your prices by 1.5p per £ and incorporate the 5p per £ on shipping into the costs. It’s not a huge amount. It’s also certainly worth paying the 5% for the convenience of selling through Etsy. Although I sell 90% of my prints through messages on the site, Etsy does make the whole sales process easier.

If you want to start selling on Etsy or want a refresher course, consider trying a Skillshare course. For a 100% free course, sign up, skip payment info, and click the link below.

Building an Etsy Shop that Sells: Strategies for E-Commerce Success

Join Etsy’s Parker Gard to learn the ins and outs of creating a successful e-commerce business within an online marketplace.

Class link: https://skl.sh/2meUDhd

You can join for as little as $0.99 for your first two months, and you can cancel any time before the two months are up and you’ll never pay another penny. By joining Skillshare you gain access to thousands of top quality classes, including the epic Etsy class by Melanie Greenwood.

How To Sell Your Art On Etsy in 2017

Melanie delivers a four and half hour epic course covering quite literally everything a newcomer to Etsy needs to know. Plenty of things old hats could do with re-learning too.

Class link: https://skl.sh/2kzchKS

And of course, I have to get a plug into this post for my own Etsy store, etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears. There you can buy prints of my astrological series, the well-chirped birds, the cats at the top of this post and other fearful critters.

Minted Wings

June 16, 2018 LittleFears10 Comments

Playing with colours for #Colour_Collective. The colour is a super light mint green. Using that against a black background looks awful, so we got creative with a colour wheel. I drew this character for a horror story, Tapdancers Dilemma. I think she still looks fearful in purple with minty wings.

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Big shout out to my first $10 patron, Warren from IWrite.

I give a shout out to all new patrons in my weekend posts. A perk for patrons who pledge $10 or more is a shoutout every weekend. So you’ll be seeing Warren, every week, right here. Thank you, Warren.

If you’d like to buy me a coffee or support me on Patreon, click the links below, and help me, help you, wake with a groan, wince and cry of anguish. Cheers!

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Spell Twitter

June 15, 2018 LittleFears76 Comments

Lost Leads – ep. 20

“It looks like she’s angered a lot of people on the Internet,” said Sally.

“It seems that way,” said Lily. “Just look at her Twitter profile.”

“My word her spelling and grammar is awful,” noticed Sally.

“Oh, I hate spelling mistakes on social media,” moaned Lily.

“Me too,” replied Sally. “You mix up two letters and your tweet is urined.”

Photo by Andrea Reiman on Unsplash

Free Fall

June 14, 2018 LittleFears50 Comments

Lost Leads – ep. 19

“It looks like she was planning a skydiving trip,” observed Lily.

“I’m too scared to go skydiving,” said Sally.

“Worried about the parachute not opening?” asked Lily.

“Definitely!” replied Sally.

“Well if it ever happens,” said Lily, “you’ll have the rest of your life to fix it.”

Photo by Danilo Batista on Unsplash

Almond Diet

June 13, 2018 LittleFears44 Comments

Lost Leads – ep. 18

“She’s got a few diet subscriptions service emails,” noticed Lily.

“I tried the almond diet recently,” said Sally.

“Oh, aye?” replied Lily. “How did that work out?”

“Eh,” moaned Sally. “It was nuts.”

“Sally, don’t make diet jokes,” sighed Lily.

“Sorry ma’am,” said Sally. “It was in poor taste.”

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Loud Lionel

June 12, 2018 LittleFears53 Comments

Lost Leads – ep. 17

“Let’s check her emails,” said Lily.

“What’s that one?” asked Sally.

“Household complaints,” replied Lily. “Looks like one of her neighbours has been playing loud music.”

“Oh, I had that,” moaned Sally. “Some bugger playing Lionel Ritchie at max volume.”

“I like Lionel,” said Lily.

“So do I,” sighed Sally. “But it was all night long…”

Photo by Jarosław Ceborski on Unsplash

Making Everest

June 11, 2018 LittleFears31 Comments

Lost Leads – ep. 16

“Here we go,” said Lily.

“My word, that’s a lot of shopping websites in her history,” noticed Sally.

“Looking at her wish list,” said Lily, “I think she’s trying to build a model of Mt Everest.”

“To scale?” asked Sally.

“Nah, just to look at,” replied Lily.

Photo by samsommer on Unsplash

Leo

June 9, 2018 LittleFears34 Comments

Introducing Leo for this weeks #Colour_Collective. Funny thing, based Leo on the Siamese kitties from a few weeks back. Had a look at some lion photos and noticed how much their ears resemble teddy bears. I had to scale back on the pointy-ness, and of course, give him green eyes. I like the look of him in the portrait shot, but zoomed out with the whole body, I ain’t keen. The mane looks too much like a dodgy beard.

So, Leo joins my astrological lineup and this lion changes to a lioness. It’s going to be an all-lady zodiac at this rate. Funny how the Little Fears has gone 100% female over the last 6 months. I do hope I never end up in a ‘men writing women badly‘ tweetstorm.