How to Start an Etsy Shop - Part 3

If there's one thing that will make or break your Etsy shop, it's photography.

This isn't Cragislist, people. Photography is everything on Etsy.Your customers can't pick up or feel your product, so they rely completely on your photographs. Poorly lit and staged photographs will turn people away immediately. Seriously, I can't overstate how important this is.

Good photography will get your item featured in Etsy treasuries or the coveted front page. Good photography will get you featured on other websites as well, because bloggers and Pinterest users love to show off beautifully staged photographs. 

Here's an example. I searched for "fenton dish" on Etsy and found two shops selling similar items. Which one would you be more likely to buy? Which one catches your eye quicker, draws you in, gives off a sense of pride and professionalism? (Usually I would cite my sources with these pictures, but I don't want to embarrass the owners of the "bad" photos.)

Shop #1?

Or shop #2?

Shop #2's photograph is brightly lit, beautifully staged, on a simple background with fresh, appealing colors. That's what your customers like to see. Trust me, shop #2 will get more sales and can ask higher prices than shop #1.

Here's another example. I did a search for "green earrings":

Shop #1:

Shop #2:

Shop #2 is using a macro lens, which means they can get extreme close-ups. This is essential for selling small  things like jewelry, because it really shows off the pretty textures. They also used an interesting camera angle, rather than the standard top-down view most beginners use.

Here's my basic tips:

1. Do not use flash! Use soft, natural lighting from a window or create your own lightbox.

2. Use a simple background. Keep the focus on your item. Most jewelry sellers lay their item on a simple cloth or paper background. When in doubt: use plain white backgrounds.

Look at the background on this. The very first thing you look at it the poster in the background, and then the vases of flowers, and then you're like, "why is this mannequin in an office?"

This is much better.

3. Learn to use a photo processing program. Photoshop Elements is about $100. Google's Picasa is free, although I've never used it so I don't know how well it works. I know that learning these programs can be intimidating, so invite over a computer-literate teenager to give you a crash course. If you're thinking, "why should I spend the money on this?" A photo processing program can improve your photos tremendously and make up for having a cheap camera. It can remove a lot of frustration to know that you can easily fix things on the computer. That's why I didn't put "buy an expensive camera" on this list: if you have a good program and know how to use it, you can make almost any photograph look great.

4. If needed, show your item next to another item for scale. Sometimes, if an item is isolated on a white background, it's hard to get a sense of how large or small it is. So try taking at least one picture of your item next to another item, such as a paperclip, a book, some flowers, etc, to give customers a better sense of the product's size. Some sellers show a picture of their item next to a ruler. That's fine, as long as you have a few prettier pictures to go along with it.

source

So there's my little crash course on photography. If you're an Etsy seller, what other photography tips have you found helpful?

Other articles in this series:

Part 1- Lower Your Expectations

Part 2 - What to Sell

How to Start an Etsy Shop - Part 2

What do you want to sell on Etsy?

Jewelry, you say?

Guess what - there's probably 50,000 Etsy shops selling jewelry. It's the most popular category on the site.

Vintage-inspired jewelry, then?

Look, practically everything on Etsy can be and is labeled "vintage-inspired." What you need is a specialty - something that will set your brand apart from all the others. Try coming up with a specific, one-sentence description of your shop that uses two or three adjectives. For example, my specialty is "realistic and elegant custom pencil portraits."

drawworm - "realistic and elegant custom pencil portraits."

You'll see exceptions to this rule, but generally it's important to stick to one type of thing. "Vintage steampunk jewelry and eco-friendly organic bamboo hand-knit baby caps and reclaimed antique cupcake stands" is a very tough pitch. Think of your Etsy shop as one of those rare, old-fashioned mom-and-pop specialty shops - not as a Wal-Mart.

In fact, I think it's hard to get too specialized on Etsy. Here's some more examples of wonderfully specific shops:

Winterpetals - "Cute and fun fruit pillows"

TransitDesign - "Custom vintage-inspired bus scrolls"

Dimdi - "Charming watercolor animal paintings"

TillyMaison - "Modern, graphic lucite serving trays"

So what is your specialty going to be? What are you really good at? What's your style?

If you have all sorts of things you want to sell on Etsy, but can't decide which to sell, my advice is to go with the higher-priced product. Etsy charges $.20 every time you list a product, and you'll probably want to relist your products fairly frequently. So the cheaper your product, the bigger bite that listing fee takes out of your income. If you can't decide whether to sell $5 greeting cards or $80 handmade pottery - I say go with the pottery!

One last word: if you have the stomach for it, spend some time browsing Regretsy. Warning: Regretsy can be funny but also deeply disturbing and NSFW. So browse at your own risk, but I think that it can be a good reality check. After seeing some of the incredibly ugly junk people post on Etsy, it doesn't hurt to take an honest look at your craft and ask yourself, "does this belong on Regretsy?"


Sorry if that was harsh. I'm honest because I love you so much.

If you're an Etsy seller, how would you describe your shop's specialty?

Other articles in this series:
Part 1 - Lower Your Expectations
Part 3- Photography

How to Start an Etsy Shop - Part 1

Welcome to my quick and dirty introduction to how to start an Etsy shop. I've divided it into four sections:

1. Lower your Expectations
2. What to Sell
3. Photography
4. Pricing

Let me get something straight: I love Etsy! Running my Etsy shop is fun and earns me a little extra cash. But Etsy is not easy money.

There's always some newbie on the Etsy forums freaking out because it's been two whole weeks since they opened their shop and they haven't made a single sale. A lot of people think that all they have to do is post items for sale and the orders will come flowing in.

Reality: opening an Etsy shop is like starting a blog: no one cares. Just because you open a shop, that doesn't mean that people of the internet will find it. It's up to you to promote yourself, to get the word out there, and to make a good impression. Like any worthwhile goal, it's going to take time and effort. Don't give up if weeks or months go by without a sale. Use that time to work on promoting and improving your shop.

To learn more about promotion and the nuts and bolts of running an Etsy shop, I recommend browsing around the Etsy Business Forums and reading Etsy's Seller Handbook blog. If you're thinking about starting a shop, doing research can give you a more realistic idea of the kind of work that's involved.

One word of caution against the forums, though: while they can be very helpful, they're also full of whiners, continually complaining about Etsy and threatening to take their business elsewhere. But don't let them get you down. Selling on Etsy isn't easy, but it's not complicated either. I'm going to discuss some of the basic fundamentals of selling on Etsy that should get you off to a good start.

The next installment is going to be about what you should sell (or not sell) on Etsy.

If you're an Etsy seller, how long did it take for you to get your first sale?

Cinderella illustration

The Fairy Godmother waved her hand and a mirror appeared. Cinderella gasped. There in the reflection - standing in the same disordered kitchen, among the drying laundry and dirty pots and pans - was the most beautiful princess she had ever seen. Could it really be her?

My final project for one of my classes was to illustrate the above passage in two-point perspective. Here's how it worked. First I did a little sketch of my idea:

After getting some feedback from my professor, I laid out a two-point grid and started constructing the scene on top.

Next I drew the line art on top of my grid constructions.

After getting more feedback from professor and classmates, I started adding shadows. I established the top of the magic mirror as the main light source, and used measurements to establish where the shadows would be.

Then I just sort of experimented with the colors and textures until I got something that worked. And that's the finished image.

My professor really, really liked it, and I am quite proud of that, because he is notoriously difficult to impress. I'm looking forward to doing another Cinderella illustration soon.

Does your home need an embroidered seallama?

I've been inspired lately by some of the wonderful embroidered hoop art I've been seeing on Etsy. I wanted to make one of my own. At first I was going to embroider a skyline pattern, like I've seen in Moxiedoll's shop, but then I thought - why copy someone else's idea?

So I decided to go with a seallama - a mythical animal my husband is very fond of (and I'm 99% sure he made up.) I bought all the materials for $5 at Joann's Fabrics. Next I sketched some seallamas on paper.

Once I had a llama I liked, I drew it on the fabric with a white charcoal pencil. Then I embroidered it, using the pencil marks as a guide. I used white thread for the top half and light blue for the tail. When it was finished, I superglued the ends of the fabric to the back of the hoop, so it will all stay in place.

The whole project took me about an hour. Now the seallama, that beloved symbol of dignity and hospitality, greets all visitors who enter our home.

Memories in details

Here's a custom pencil portrait I did a few weeks ago for an Etsy customer. The customer did not provide the story behind this photo, but you can definitely sense a lot of warmth between the two people in the picture.

I cropped the photo in order to get the maximum amount of detail in the faces. Sometimes customers ask me to leave out the background or leave out certain details like the logo on the baseball cap. I try to leave out any detail that I feel would distract from the faces of the subjects.

But sometimes details can hold important sentimental value. I learned that lesson with this anniversary portrait I completed back in 2009:

In the original photo, the man's tie had a very...um...bright pattern on it, so I decided to leave the tie blank. When I showed the drawing to the customer, she asked me to include the tie pattern. "I know it's a little wild and swirly," she said, "but it's my dad's favorite (designed by Jerry Garcia) and he was quite proud of

how well it matched my mom's dress that day." So I took an extra 5 minutes and drew in the pattern.

The customer loved it. So ever since then I've tried to be aware of what details should be left in or left out. You never know when a necklace or t-shirt might hold special memories.

Beginner vs. Advanced Portraits

Let's just jump right in here. There are three basic characteristics which tend to show up in the pencil portraits that beginners draw.

1. Strong outlines
2. Light or minimal shading
3. Dull, messy hair

Here are some examples:

"Ann" by Evelinepoodle

The artist got all of the facial features in the right places, and the lips have a very good shape to them. But there are really only two shades here: white and light grey. That's why the face appears flat. Also notice the line around the jaw, mouth and nose.

I don't want to seem like I'm picking on anyone, so here is a drawing I did back in 2002. Although my little brother is instantly recognizable, the drawing still looks flat. Again you can see a dark outline around the jaw, the shading is very light, and the hair is just a mess. I think I put more effort into my super girly high school signature than I did on the hair.

T.H. by MinnemannE

This portrait is a little different because the artist was able to get some dark greys and blacks into his drawing - but there's very few values in between. The face is basically white and black with a little light grey shading. Because there's no shading to render the forms, the artist had to draw lines around the forehead, nose and ear.

Now let's look at some really outstanding portraits, to compare:

Richard Jenkins by anticosmic

The reason this looks so photographic is because the artist used a full range of values: black, dark grey, medium grey, light grey, white, and everything in between. That's what makes the glasses look shiny. The artist also used an eraser to define the edge of the face instead of drawing a dark line around it.

Twiggy by DarthHoney

Do you see a line around the edge of the face? Nope! It's not needed because the skin is much darker than the background, so the edge stands out even without an outline.

Catherine Deneuve by Stanbos

Can you believe this is done with pencils? Now that is how you draw hair. It looks soft because the lines are all flowing in the same directions instead of being sketched haphazardly. The strong highlights and shadows are what make it look shiny.

I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad by pointing out these typical flaws in beginner drawings. I have to continually push myself to use value instead of outlines to define forms in a face, and I hardly consider myself to have mastered it. Hopefully you've learned a little about the kind of thought that goes into a portrait!

An Easy Way to Lighten Dark Photos

before..............................................after

A lot of product photographs on Etsy are too dark, with a grey, dim look to them. It's a shame, because this problem is really easy to fix in Photoshop. I use Adobe Photoshop Elements, but any version of Photoshop will do. Even if you feel really Photoshop-illiterate, don't worry! Here's a simple step-by-step tutorial for fixing your dark pictures fast.

NOTE: Photoshop is no substitute for good photography. It's always best to try and take good pictures in the first place. I'm using a photo of a ninja attacking my drawing of Dr. McCoy. Furthermore, this isn't the only way or even necessarily the best way of lightening photographs. But it's easy and quick, and I use it.

1. First, I load my photo into Adobe Photoshop.

2. Next, I go to the layers menu on the right, and right-click on the layer named "Background." (This is the default layer.) From the pop-up menu, choose "duplicate layer." Now we have two copies of the same image lying on top of each other.

3.Now select the new layer, "Background copy." Then go directly above to the layer properties tab, and click the button to bring down the menu. Choose "Screen."

4. This is the result: a brighter picture!

5. Depending on your photograph, it's possible that it may now look a little too bright. If so, go to the Opacity tab just to the right, and bring down the opacity until the photo looks right.

6. And you're done!

Let me know if you found this helpful!

Photo Examples

Not all photographs can make a good portrait. The final quality of a portrait heavily depends on the quality of the photo provided. To ensure that all of my drawings are as high quality as possible, I always ask my customers to show me their photo before they place an order. Since it can be hard to judge whether or not a photograph is good enough to draw from, I've made this little guide with examples. So here goes!

Drawworm's Guide to Selecting a Photo for a Portrait

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A good photograph should be large and sharp, with soft lighting and clear details in the face. The better I can see the person's face, the more accurate the final drawing will be. (The larger the better, but at least 800px wide is a good starting point.) Here are some examples of good photos.

A bad photograph is small, blurry, grainy or overexposed, with harsh shadows or otherwise poor lighting. Basically, I can't draw what I can't see. Cell phone pics, photo booth strips, and poor scans of physical photographs do not make good drawings.

Vintage photos are often small and blurry, but not all of them. It is important to be able to clearly see the subject's face. Getting a high-resolution scan of a vintage photo can sometimes help with the size and the detail.

"But I REALLY need you to draw THIS photo..." Okay, let's say you have a photo that's kind of small and blurry. If you have a similar photo (similar pose and expression) of the same person that is large and clear, I may be able to use it as a reference for the first photo. It really depends on the photos, however, so I offer no guarantees on this.

"I'm still not sure if my photo is ok." No problem, just contact me on Etsy, attach the photo and I'll take a look!

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If you have any suggestions for how I can make this guide clearer, I'd love to hear them. Don't hesitate to ask questions, either.