Etsy breakthrough, vol. 2

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewLHornbostel

My previous post noted that things were finally taking off for me on Etsy.

That was in November 2021. Since that time, in the past 50 days, the total sales count on my Etsy shop has more than doubled. Same with the number of customer reviews.

I am seeing, after years of zero activity, an average of 89% quarterly growth in sales volume each quarter the last two years. That is entirely insane. If it somehow kept up that growth curve it would mean I would be making about $4k on Etsy this year (2022) and $20k off Etsy in 2023.

Now, as of January, the standard prices of these products are being increased by around 4-6% across the board. That, in theory, raises profitability a bit, and allows me to justify a ramp up of various new products in popular product lines.

If the prospect of slightly increased prices bugs you, keep in mind that there is a year round discount code active as well for all you in the know, ’22FOR2022′ which allows 22% off everything on my Etsy shop for this entire year.

Custom printing products will soon include about a half dozen new listings, like T shirts, mousepads, and more paper weights and formats including heavy gloss cardstock, in large format, or large format but light weight, cheap copy paper prints.

The plans for mini papercraft will soon include an additional dozen listings with Greek and Venetian structures.

I’ll also add over a dozen new paintings in the next 40 days, plus new digital and print product lines that many of you haven’t considered but which I absolutely have. Sometimes a thing is not an obvious seller until it launches, but once it exists, people look at it, and if it was made well, may want it.

I am doing a bunch of things that are kind of like that. These include cheaply priced digital products (PDF artbooks, indie game projects) and poster designs of my own, among other concepts. I will also be selling a few of my digital things combined on data DVD for anyone who – for whatever reason – wants a hard copy of them.

I will note that this is hugely awesome news in MANY ways.

I have had so many things grinding along slowly due to technical obstacles, or lack of funding, or lack of time. The fact that something I am doing is finally successful means other failing tasks can be phased out (goodbye $2-3 per hour mTurk microtasks) and that I can focus on my own creative work full time pretty much. I can leverage this to get all my indie game projects done this year, maybe within nine months. I have a plan for wrapping three substantial game launches, four smaller ones, in nine months, game jam style. That ordinarily would be insane but all these projects are upwards of 50% done currently, and if I work really hard I actually can imagine having them all done well in six months. But I know that things rarely play out that efficiently or predictably, so I am estimating nine for wiggle room. The final three months of 2022 should see certain other long running non-commercial free games see release. This is essentially a thing that I would really love to see work out well.

Watch this space for some staggeringly cool announcements over the course of 2022…