I get by with a little help from my friends!

My first couple of Artfire sales came from friends of mine.  This makes sense, since my friends were the first people to know I'd opened a store and many of them already knew and loved my work.  Recently, though, I've gotten a couple of orders from folks whose names aren't familiar to me - which is exciting on a whole new level!


Did these new customers find me randomly on Google?  Possibly...but I think it's more likely that they found me through some sort of referral.  All else being equal, a person would probably rather give their money to a kind-of-known entity than to an anonymous Google result, right?  Also, in order find my store randomly you'd have to Google phrases like, I dunno, "cupcakes used as a metaphor for boobs" or "fortune cookie that disparages your sexual prowess" and I don't really see this happening.


I'm doing what I can to get the word out about my store, of course; I'm blogging and tweeting and Facebooking and trying to remember to mention my art to strangers whenever there's an opening (today when I was at the post office sending off my latest order, the lady behind the counter chatted with me about what I was sending and I ended up giving her a business card!  True story).  But frankly, I'm a gigantic awkward dork who finds the whole self-promotion thing pretty difficult at times; left to my own devices, I would take a long time to find and recruit any new fans.


Luckily for me, I have small army of amazing friends - not to mention the smartest, funniest, bestest Facebook fans ever* - and they've been giving me wonderful shoutouts on Facebook and Twitter and who knows where else.  Someone even submitted my Glitter Bacon Christmas Ornaments to Reddit, causing the number of views to explode in a matter of hours (which actually moved the bacon higher up in Google search results because Google favours pages with a lot of hits!).  By the way, shortly after the Reddit thing happened, I got my fifth sale.  I'm not sure if the two things are related but I'm damn sure all those views can't possibly hurt!


To everyone who "likes" me on Facebook or follows me on Twitter or reads this blog or who ever said anything nice about my art to me or anyone else (and those of you who've bought art from me, of course!) - thank you.  You are my lifeblood; you are the reason why my business is visibly beginning to build momentum and the reason I have the courage to keep on battling the blank canvas even when it's scary and difficult.  For the first time in my life, I'm able to clearly envision a future in which art is my main source of income.  You guys!  This could actually happen!

I'm not sure I've ever felt as happy as I do right now.

*Which reminds me: go "like" my page if you haven't already!  When I reach 100 fans, I'm gonna give away a piece of art - and I'm at 97 right now!