D'oh.

Forgot I linked my store to my blog. Violated marketing 101 there. Nothing connected with your business can be in the slightest bit personal. Just got reamed for being unwilling to lower my prices. Oh well, as far as that is concerned. Yeah, if you walked past a store that had a sign saying "I could lower my prices, but I won't", you'd go right past. But know what? It's a two-way relationship. You're probably not the sort of customer the store is looking for, not if you think they should underprice themselves.

I listed the Lemon Lovely Dress on Etsy. Perhaps I will have better luck there. The blog issue was a big one, but I do still think that my main problem with MomsWhoThink is that they know me too well. I've got it paid for another two months, but after that I will close it. I went ahead and said that I would make items outside of my usual size range on commission, and I am glad I didn't waste money making anything. Because of course I got plenty of "Well, if you had this I'd buy it" but when I said to contact me and I'd make it, nothing happened. (And all of this happened outside of the blowup over the blog, so I do not think the two are related.)

I did, at least, have the sense to remove my blog link from my store. Won't make that mistake again. Of course, the damage has already ben done, 'cause the gal was so helpful as to take quotes from my blog and post them there. How nice that she had the class to do that instead of saying something privately. I mean, I did have one member choose to be critical privately. And that's OK. Honestly, I know not everyone is going to like what I do, and I'm fine with that.

But I hate it when someone decides to be a backbiting bitch under guise of being helpful. I cannot--and will not--argue that her point was valid. (Though I was not complaining about either my nonexistent customers or saying anything bad about my work, as I was accused of doing.) Linking my blog to my store and expecting to still be able to be honest on it was stupid. But that violates an unwritten rule at that site that you leave what's outside of MWT outside of MWT. I can see no motivation behind it other than to damage any hope of success I might have had, which is honestly leaving me sitting here wondering what on Earth I did to her. I suppose that will teach me to try to support someone through an initially difficult pregnancy and then tell her how cute her babies are!

I have been thinking about it more, and I realize now that opening up a store on MomsWhoThink was a bad idea overall. The main part of that site is still a debate site, and so I run the risk of people deciding to not consider buying from me based on my debate positions. It's not something I would ever do, but honestly that is the only thing I can see that might have happened with her. I'm not entirely stupid, y'know. I did stop myself from changing my avatar to something political (and I'm talking reallypolitical, far hotter than the whole red vs blue thing) because it wasn't a good idea when I'm also trying to promote a business on the same site.

In other, possibly brighter, news, Robert said he's gotten some small interest in what I make from the people he works with, and he wants me to make up some business cards. I'm loathe to do that, as my stuff hasn't exactly been selling like hotcakes and I really don't want to get the kick of uninterest yet again. But perhaps I should. I've been thinking about making up a brochure with things.

I've also had a couple of requests for toys and beanies. So I'm going to work on some amigurumi and see if there is any interest in them. I don't want to make just "normal" stuff. Normal has never been my forte. So, hopefully, this will be a nice bridge. What to do about the beanies, I've not a clue. I'm thinking to make a few more things like the ones I created for Clara and Eleanor, as Mindi really liked those (and they were free, of course).

I also need to get a gallery website set up so that I can have something to use as a show-and-tell of my work that doesn't link here. Because I have learned that lesson.