Silver and black necklace

I recently added this necklace to my shop

 To view it click here

 I think it will make a striking addition to any jewelry collection, and can be worn with pride wherever you go.

Monday was a big day.

Last Monday was a significant day in the life of Jim Davis Designs - we got our first order !!!  Even though I live in North Carolina, I'm sure they heard my shouts and cheers clear out in California.  After waiting for about 7 weeks since I opened my ETSY shop (and not waiting very patiently I might add), I arose on Monday morning to find an order sitting in my Open Orders file.  Somehow the world seemed a little brighter that day.  And it has renewed my inner fire, knowing that more orders will follow.

Then on Tuesday I received a message from a lady who was interested in one of my bracelets, but wondered if I could make it into an anklet.  Eureka, do I smell a second order in the works ??  We exchanged a few back and forths, and finally she indicated that she was ready to order, so I set up a "Special Order" listing so she could go ahead and place her order.  After several hours of waiting for her to place her order, I got a message from her indicating that she was having difficulty paying with her charge card.  The ETSY procedure for checking out, and the associated screens, can be a little confusing so I gave her instructions about the steps to follow, and at this moment I am still waiting to see that second order appear.  It is frustrating when you get that close to a customer order and then run into an obstacle over which you have no control.  But things do seem to be looking up with 1 1/2 orders under my belt in just the last 3 days.

I am working on some things that I am hoping will increase the traffic to my shop, because it is all a game of numbers.  The more views you get per day, the greater the odds that one of them will turn into an order.  You can have the greatest products in the world, at tremendous prices, but if no one ever sees them your sales will not happen.  So one of my next posts will get into my marketing activities.  I the meantime, I need to go ship an order :-)

New items listed

I have just added two new item listing to my ETSY shop.

Fine chain necklace with single pearl

Silver necklace with faceted Swarovski crystal

Both of these are in keeping with my new direction of more silver chain necklaces and bracelets, with fewer beads.  These both have a simple and clean look, with a simple understated elegance.

I would be interested in any comments about my pieces, both of these but also anything else in my shop.  Feedbeck is very welcome.  What would you like to see??

The ebook is published

I am excited to advise that my efforts to get my ebook published have been successful.

It is available on Amazon Kindle by clicking here.  At $ 4.99 it won't break the bank or make me a millionaire, but I hope it will be an interesting read, especially for those whose lives have been, or are being, touched by cancer.

In pursuit of an ebook

While the original intent of this blog was, and still is, for discussing things about my ETSY shop, I was just reading some other blogs and find that few if any of them are exclusively focused on describing ETSY activities.  Somewhere along the way some posts are about other aspects of life as a blogger. I guess among other things it introduces a bit more of the human side of things into the discourse.

With that in mind, one of my other projects recently has been preparing to publish my first book - or to be more precise to publish an ebook on Amazon.  It has taken more time than I had expected, but it is getting very close to completion and I am getting excited about the prospect of having something available on Amazon for people to download to their Kindle, or any one of several other devices.

The whole thing started just over a year ago when I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, Non Hodgkins Peripheral T-Cell Lymphoma to be precise.  At the beginning of my treatment, someone suggested that I should consider writing a blog about my experiences.  They said that it would help keep family and friends informed about my status, and might also be a form of therapy for me.  Well sure enough, it did function to keep others informed about how I was doing, both physically and mentally.  And to my surprise, I was very good therapy for me, providing a forum for me to express what was on my mind.

Now that I am through with my treatments (chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and radiation therapy) people are telling me how much they enjoyed reading about my progress, my ups and downs, my fears and my triumphs, and how inspirational they found my writings.  Several of them have said that I should write a book about my experiences.  The end result is that I decided to turn my blog into an ebook, and make it available to others, in the hopes that it might inspire some hope and strength as they face struggles in their lives, whether from cancer of some other form of difficulty.

Strangely, it was my battle with cancer that got me into making handcrafted jewelry.  During my ordeal I was looking for ways to distract myself from my difficulties, and find something to keep my mind occupied.  Having always enjoyed working with my hands, making jewelry seemed like something that I would enjoy.  And now that the cancer is gone, the enjoyment of handcrafting something that can be worn and enjoyed by others, remains.  In fact it has grown to something that I am very passionate about.

Sometime in the next few days I hope to be ready to upload my book and hit the "publish" button at Amazon.  It is exciting and I will continue to report on my progress.  In case you are interested, my blog, titled My Lymphoma Journal, can be seen by clicking here.

Future direction.

This an example of the type of items I am planning to emphasize more in the future.

Fine chain Sterling Silver cross necklace

Today I added this to my ETSY shop and hope to have more coming in the near future.

Finding focus

The past week has been spent on several different tasks, like adding a few new listings/items to my ETSY shop, experimenting further with new titles and tags, and deciding on some sale pricing for the upcoming ETSY Christmas In July promotion, which is an annual event.  Participation in this is strictly optional, but it appears that most sellers do get involved to varying degrees.  I decided to reduce the price of my earrings by 20% for the month of July in hopes that the additional buyer traffic, normally generated by Christmas In July, will be attracted to these sale prices, and then perhaps start looking at the other products in my shop.  Being a newbie, I have no idea what the reaction will be to these lower prices, but I guess one way to learn is through trial and error.  Ask me in a month if it was a success or not.

Something that has been occupying much of my thinking lately is the style, or type, of jewelry that I want to offer going forward.  From all that I read, supported by my own research and experience, handmade jewelry is a very crowded space on ETSY, with by far the most sellers of any category of products.  Since you are, therefore, competing with very large numbers of jewelry sellers, you need to have some specialty or style that you can be identified with, and that will separate you from the masses. I believe that inexpensive to moderately priced beaded bracelets, necklaces and earrings dominates the jewelry landscape.  If you have a nice, well made green beaded bracelet, with a reasonable price, you are only competing with 58,000 other green beaded bracelets (that is based on an actual search I just did) and your chances of getting found are somewhere between slim and none.  So in my opinion, green beaded bracelets is not something you want to feature in your shop, regardless of the price.

My thinking at the moment is to begin shifting away from most things beaded, and move almost exclusively into Sterling Silver chain necklaces, with some bracelets, featuring high end 92.5% Sterling Silver chains, clasps, charms and pendants.  I believe it will also be desirable to offer buyers a lower cost option of silver plated chains and clasps, while maintaining the higher quality charms and pendants.  Later on I will probably add gold chains and charms as well.  I will initially try to concentrate my pendants into a few select materials such as rubies, turquoise or other semi precious natural stones.  Finally, I am planning to offer a line of Sterling Silver jewelry for the bride-to-be and her wedding party, featuring primarily white Swarovski pearl crystals and/or freshwater pearls.  I believe that this shift in emphasis and specialty will go a long way towards helping me carve out a little niche within the jewelry market, and over time will allow me to build a base of customers who like my style, feel comfortable with my quality and pricing, and will continue to buy from someone they know and trust.

As I sit here outlining my future plans for Jim Davis Designs, the thought crosses my mind that I am laying out a blueprint for some of my competitors to follow, and maybe I should just quietly implement these ideas without telling the world.  But then I am realistic enough not to think that the whole world reads this little blog of mine.  Plus, even if someone from ETSY decides to copy my thinking, I don't think it will make all that much difference in the overall scheme of things.  The original intention of this blog was to provide a place for me to chronicle my jewelry making activities, and talk about successes and failures.  If nothing else it will be good therapy for me, and if some others enjoy reading about my comings and goings, then so much the better.

So ends the post for today.  I hope that you will stop by my ETSY shop from time to time to see what is new and, now that you know about my clandestine future plans, to see how I am progressing.  Take care and happy shopping.