Some bugs in the drop down menus

Well I did some updating of my website yesterday, and unfortunately I soon thereafter discovered some bugs.

The most heavily updated page was the Blogs Overview page. Re-did the layout & fixed outdated info, etc. Then an hour later I realized I want to re-instate the Bent Realm Chronicles & Samples From Bent Realm Studios blogs. So I’ll need to put those back in later. Also, I realized other changes I want to make to it. Despite deciding that stuff later, that page is still much more complete & improved from the previous version.

I also removed some outdated info from the Services page.

And now to the bugs.[Updates included at end of entry]

Return of the Chronicles

Valiantly, in an effort to simplify my blogging, I attempted to combine both this blog & Samples From Bent Realm Studios with my Artistical Exploration blog. Well for all the things it simplified, arose twice as many complications. Namely the matters that prompted me to have them separate from the beginning. While true that I do not want to over burden myself, it is necessary for what I’m doing to have both a solid home for a directory of samples of my work sort of like a portfolio, and an appropriate place to put all my announcements, release, website issues & other news updates. If I posted all that to Artistical Exploration, the purpose of that blog would be overwhelmed and obscured. So again I felt held back in my posting. I just plain need to have separate topics set into separate blogs, that’s part of why I started my Indy Shopkeeper Chat blog recently, so that discussions of the business end of being an artist/ online shopkeeper and related resource postings did not consume what I am trying to do with AE.

Artistical Exploration is about art, writing & exploring creativity. The rest must be kept in their own homes for the sake of MY own sanity. Originally, I had them separated for the benefit of my readers. Perhaps that’s the real difference in why this may work better now, than before. Or maybe it’s just plain the vast improvements I’ve made in my organization process recently.

2010 was a big learning experience in all areas of my business & the art & writing etc. Which is good, because with that 2011 looks to be a much better year operations wise, among other things.

And so without much further ado, I bring you the return of the Chronicles! muwahahaaha!

This blog will be combining with Artistical Exploration

Over the next week or so both the Bent Realm Chronicles and Samples From Bent Realm Studios blogs will be combining with my Artistical Exploration blog, in my current efforts to simplify many of my efforts. I kept feeling a need to mention posts from each of these 3 blogs within each other then forgetting more often than not, and the efforts began to seem redundant to the point of pretty much halting them to a stand-still. This will be a lot better than trying to direct traffic through 3 different blogs that I now realize ought to be only one. I’ll simply index it as needed and update the other parts of my website to reflect the change properly. This will free up the time spent having a headache over managing the excess ones, for more productive things.

Sorry for any inconveniences. This change should make things a lot simpler for everyone.

My ArtFire shop has officially closed

So you may or may not have heard that recently I won a free for life premium seller account over on zibbet. I was trying out ArtFire, Etsy and Zibbet as venues for my fine art originals & handmade items. I wasn’t sure which would be most me. Zibbet showed so much potential when I 1st signed up in April. All 3 sites were good, useful and showed an ambition to improve themselves and evolve, which is really important to me.

I tried out the premium seller account on zibbet for about two months and loved what it could do, but I couldn’t put up the monthly premium costs. It started to feel like home so to speak. Then not long after that zibbet started to make major progress in their sites development. They started doing 3 month battle plans for site improvements. And they are adding the features I, as a seller, need.

ArtFire and Etsy have been working on improvements too, but I never really felt as connected to either of those sites in the same way I have felt when managing my zibbet shop.

I quickly began feeling like my focus in this area was too split, managing, stocking, and promoting three shops across 3 different venue sites for what is basically one shop was way too time consuming. It was slowing me down making me feel held back. The time spent dealing with the artfire & etsy shops just felt unrewarding and like I was held back, especially by having to split up what are largely complimentary pieces because they were done often within the same couple of days. I also began to feel it was really unfair to my potential customers, twitter followers and facebook fans to continue directing them across three different venue sites for these items. Each shop looking so sparse due to the stock being split.

So when I won the free for life premium seller account on zibbet, aside from being thrilled, I realized I had to decide what to do about this dilemma I’d been feeling.

As I talked about it with a few awesome shopkeepers on my Facebook fan page who I’m really beginning to consider friends – Dea of Handmade by Annie Dea, Victoria of Plum Valley Designs, and Marsha of Pandula Arts Creations, I started to see exactly what I needed to do if I was going to rid myself of that nasty dilemma feeling [You can view that comment thread here]. It was just so awesome how supportive they’ve been to me.

Anyhow, I’m transferring items over gradually from both artfire & etsy, have been past few days and I expect to finish  with the etsy one in a few days. I could do them all one right after another, but my exposure on the zibbet home page and from feed items posting to my main twitter and my Facebook fan page would be better if spaced out.

As of this morning the artfire shop I have is officially emptied out and closed.

It was both a relief and a wee bit sad. I would not have signed up for the artfire if I had not seen worthwhile things there. And well etsy has more headaches attached to it than I’d like. But well zibbet simply is the best fit for me, it was strongly in the lead even before I won that sweet, sweet prize!

I see such potential in zibbet and the way the site is… I look forward to seeing this site grow into a magnificent powerful thing. It’s already among the top 5 handmade venue sites as far as traffic is concerned, and I only see it getting better. And I really like the way they do things , also it’s kind of neat getting in there as early as I did,  the evolvement I have witnessed in the 4 months I have been a member of zibbet has been downright inspiring.

I’ll be trying to update my website accordingly over the next few days to reflect these changes as well.

So wish me luck in all this. I see this change as really freeing me up to be even more productive.

Who else does either zibbet, etsy, artfire or all 3? What are your thoughts on these sites? What about sellers who have multiple shops in general how does that go?

Last Day of 50% off original art sale

Today, Friday July 17th, is the last day of the 50% off in my fine art/ handmade shops, as part of my Christmas in July sales.

My Etsy shop

My Zibbet shop

My ArtFire shop

Some original art pieces are as low as $7.50 right now, which for an irreplaceable original is excellent!

Starting tomorrow morning it goes up to 30% off. Then, on the morning of July 25th it goes up to 20% off, and that’s good through July 31st.

The sales were inspired by a group effort, which I plan to post more details about that soon. The spirit of the thing was so cool to be a part off that I decided to be really generous with my discounts.

Use the search tag ‘XmasJuly’ to find others hosting their own sales on zibbet. On Etsy search ‘christmasinjuly’ or ‘cij’ . And for ArtFire they have a thing for it in their trending menu.

_______________________________________________

Zibbet is currently offering their premium sellers account for 30 days free thru 7/20. After that it’s $9/month. Enter the code: MONTHOFF here

Shipping Prices Went Down, Yay!

Just lowered my shipping prices in all 3 of my fine art/ handmade shops! Check them out-

my Etsy shop

my ArtFire shop

my Zibbet shop

 

The new shipping prices are:

regular size drawings- $5 for the 1st item $3  with another item on

small drawings- $3 for the 1st item and $1.50 with another item

The shipping prices had previously been :

regular size drawings- $7 for the 1st item $6 with another item

small drawings- $5 for the 1st item and $3 with another item on

 

I had yet to have any other type of items available in these shops but I expect to at some point. These prices would also apply to similar services.

So take advantage of this new pricing and buy you some art!

_______________________________

Oh and while I’m thinking of it : zibbet is running a special – get a premium seller account free for one month thru 7/20/2010 go here and enter the code – MONTHOFF

I like zibbet it’s pretty nice, and it keeps getting better.

Rats and grumble!

Rats! Totally had several posts with updates lined up. Each of them needed a few more finishing bits. Then life’s knack for raining chaos down on my head when I’m already busy minding my own business came along and did it’s usual thing. When it rains it pours, that cliché is an insanely accurate.

So things have not gone according to plan for a couple months due to several outside forces beyond my realm of control (what a small little realm that is too). The biggest thing, with regards to Bent Realm, that has not gone according to plan is what I have gotten to do on the computer. Aside from a multitude of random stressful situations events and disruptions, there had been internet connectivity headaches, and phone problems. It has reached the point where I decided we’re going to change providers. Astonishing how much time such things gobble up. Eh, not having a cell phone on me is holding me back anyhow.

There was a surprisingly great element to all that went on. Why it should surprise me I’ll never know, since it is amongst the natural order of how life works. Out of the ashes of the time eaten up so quickly by all these things, I learned a lot about how to run my stuff, about what I specifically want and there was still quite a bit of work done in the background.

Among the things that came out for the better is my filing system. Previously it consisted of some piles that were moved about too often and computer whatnots that lacked a standard method of management. I figured out what to do with my sad little stockpile of index cards and index card holders, too. I have some workable schedules outlined. They possess the flexibility I require to, you know, survive the randomness I wind up flittering about through, the kind of flexibility that allows me to go with the flow.

Yes, schedules was plural. Fear not it isn’t madness. Having separate schedules for separate activity types keeps it from being overwhelming. As well as keeps it clear what needs to be done for what each week. If I’m in art mode I just pull out the art schedule and work that without being distracted by writing deadlines or website maintenance, etc.

Topic and column ideas for blog entries have begun to grow. And tons more went on in the background.
I heartily expect all these numerous progress bits to show up on my website at a nicely increasing pace. As I took this business I’d been developing in the background for the last 16 years (since junior high) to the more publically pro level in January, I fully expected the first six months to be this sort of massive adjustment period where I basically flopped around to find my footing. Fortunately I tend to have pretty healthy and realistic expectations, unfortunately though, not everyone else does.

Blows my mind every time someone tells me they’re just being realistic when in fact they’re being defeatist. Guess it’s hard to be cognizant of - how one’s repeated behavior and attitude patterns affect and shape their reality, when being aware of one’s own flaws and capacity to hold themselves down is more painful and insurmountable than most are prepared to deal with. I’m not immune to repeating behavior that gets me in trouble, but I’m definitely cognizant of it and continually trying overcome my worst nemesis - myself. Meh, who knows with people. I digress.

At any rate, despite all the setbacks much progress was made. My grip on what goes where, where I’m going and when I want to be where is far firmer. That sentence sounds like something out of Alice In Wonderland…
So off I toddle to accomplish the rest of my goals for the day. Wish me luck.

  












_______________________________