Yoicks, I feel so unprepared for this!
Oct. 13th, 2010 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrvelocipedeAll of a sudden it seems like the world is noticing me. Maybe all my piles of spirographs are starting to trickle out into the aether enough to find the right audience.
It's not actually all that much, yet. First I had a message from somebody in Italy, asking if I could ship the Scribbling-Engine there. I spent a bad couple of days trying to disentangle information from the US Postal Service's appallingly convoluted website, and was reaching a stage of acute breakdown. Fortunately, the Professor intervened; he's much better at wading through bureaucratic charts than I am. (And anyway it turns out that Ponoko will let me have the parts made in Italy, which makes the eventual shipping much more reasonable. Amazing.)
So while I was recovering from all that excitement, I got another message, this time from some official Ponoko person, who said they wanted to write about me on their blog. I got to answer a brief list of questions about how I found the site, and what kinds of things I make. Alas, the post doesn't actually have a direct link to my showroom, possibly because I didn't specifically mention it in my answers.
I did give them a link to my regular website, which is in the middle of some serious slash-and-burn updating. I'm trying to make it happen faster now, just in case anybody out there decides to follow the links. Aiieeee!
It's not actually all that much, yet. First I had a message from somebody in Italy, asking if I could ship the Scribbling-Engine there. I spent a bad couple of days trying to disentangle information from the US Postal Service's appallingly convoluted website, and was reaching a stage of acute breakdown. Fortunately, the Professor intervened; he's much better at wading through bureaucratic charts than I am. (And anyway it turns out that Ponoko will let me have the parts made in Italy, which makes the eventual shipping much more reasonable. Amazing.)
So while I was recovering from all that excitement, I got another message, this time from some official Ponoko person, who said they wanted to write about me on their blog. I got to answer a brief list of questions about how I found the site, and what kinds of things I make. Alas, the post doesn't actually have a direct link to my showroom, possibly because I didn't specifically mention it in my answers.
I did give them a link to my regular website, which is in the middle of some serious slash-and-burn updating. I'm trying to make it happen faster now, just in case anybody out there decides to follow the links. Aiieeee!
no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 06:08 am (UTC)Yet, the linkage problem is entirely Ponko's! They should automatically include a link to your showroom in their profile, like Etsy does. And then the user goes, "Ooh nifty! I wants me some of that," and is able to make a transaction right there, or maybe a click or two down the line at the most.
(Which is pretty much the whole point of profiling the site's artisans, right?)
Is there any way you can drop the editor a note for improvements to their blog?
no subject
Date: 2010-10-14 06:25 am (UTC)I wish I didn't freak out so much at the prospect of actual customers. I haven't sold the thing to the person in Italy yet, just had the inquiry and am now waiting to see if there's going to be any response. But I did sell a complete set to somebody in Australia, and had it manufactured and shipped from New Zealand! It really makes me aware that I'm living in the future.