Archive for the ‘bookselling’ Category

Monday, October 5th, 2009

I love the lovely peeps on Etsy!

Have I mentioned that I have, not one, but two beautiful storefronts on the delightful site that is known as Etsy?  Well, I have, so there.  They are: TheBadLibrarian (selling vintage books, prints, bookplates and paper ephemera) and BetaBitch (selling hand-crafted and vintage jewellery).  Come and visit, stop and sit awhile!

My latest Etsy news is that I have been featured in my first ever Treasury!  My item here was selected by AstraeaApparel (who is obviously a person with the highest degree of superior taste.  And, just for good measure, here is AstraeaApparel’s shop.  She usually has some gorgeous items of clothing in cotton, hemp and wool, although her shop is empty at the moment.  Keep an eye out

Retro housewife illustration

Retro housewife illustration

and don’t hold back, peeps, you know you want one.

If you’re ever looking for the perfect present for someone picky, never forget to have a snoop around on Etsy.  If you don’t find the perfect item for your friend or relative, you’re sure to find half a dozen for yourself.  That’s one of the perks of shopping for gifts.  The other is coffee and cakes in your local indie coffee shop.  It’s traditional, even if you’re shopping online  – you can’t buck tradition!

Bye Bye Ebay, Ebay bye bye…

Monday, October 5th, 2009

When do you know that’s it’s about time to say ‘Bye bye Ebay Ebay bye bye?’*  Well, in recent weeks I’ve had my own epiphanic moment, at least.

I’ve had a business shop over on Ebay for, oh, a good long time now.  I can’t say I’ve never sat down and done the math on whether it was worthwhile or not.  Tax return time pretty much forces you to do exactly that, and last time was a real eye-opener for me on just that subject.

But of course, up until the last shop subscription hike, the bite taken out of profits by Ebay wasn’t quite so, um… is greedy the word I’m looking for? Or perhaps gargantuan?  Outrageous?

So, I had my light bulb moment about whether selling on Ebay was working for me.  I was already aware that if I factored in the time I spent on every aspect of selling on Ebay, I was probably pulling in less than minimum wage for my efforts.  But when I got my accounts up to date and was able to work out just how much less…  that was my melt-down moment.

So if I’ve shut up shop on Ebay, then just what am I going to do instead?  Well, I still have my personal account and did plan to roll over all my personal items into it – at least until free postage and packing gets rolled out to all categories on October 22nd.  (Yes, I had a ton of personal items listed on my business account.  No, it’s not big or clever and yes, it gives you a migraine when you’re trying to get your accounts up to date). However, Ebay have had other ideas, and cordially invited me to sign up as a business again or **** off.

When we poor sellers start having to pay ‘customers’ to receive our items on the 22nd, (media postage and packing alert!) then I was going to move every blessed single item I have over into my Ebid.net shops instead anyway.  This has just got me moving a little earlier than expected. God bless Ebid.

Credit: viZZZual.com/Flickr

Credit: viZZZual.com/Flickr


*  To the tune of the mighty Bay City Rollers’ ‘Bye Bye Baby’, of course…

Everybody loves dolphins

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
bottlenose dolphins, balamory

bottlenose dolphins, balamory

Lately I’ve been selling posters on Ebid.net (come and visit me, I’m TheBadLibrarian) and just recently I got an email from the photographer who took the original photo used in one of them.  He was quite happy with me selling it , but gave me his email address in case anyone enquired about buying one of the originals.  For fear of email harvesting I won’t show it here, but if any of you are interested in buying the original of the lovely picture above, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Isn’t it gorgeous?  I am a total camera klutz myself (and will shortly provide you with the evidence of this), and just don’t understand how it is even possible to create something so lovely out of a small black plastic box with a bit of gadgetry inside.

The photographer’s name is Nic Davies by the way, and his website is www.wildshot.net Get over there and check it out – especially the puffins, they’re adorable.