Back to basics!

[telaryn]

After several years of owning practically every paid feature LJ allows, my account quietly (and without much fanfare) reverted to a Basic state.

I'm quite at peace with that. I renewed last year about a week before the whole Strikethrough/Boldthrough idiocy last summer, and have planned ever since that point to let that be the last money I voluntarily gave the site.

I'm not going anywhere - far from it. *hugs f-list* Wouldn't leave you guys like that. I am going to go back to mirroring at my Insanejournal, and a lot of my icons that I had to dump from here will probably go back up there.

The final icon cut was an interesting experience. I find it quite amusing that I started out Faith heavy, and some six and a half years later I'm back to being Faith heavy. It's also cool to note that my life has changed enough that I was comfortable getting rid of my Sarah Connor "Don't Fuck With Me" icon. Okay it's my default over at IJ and Sarah rocks under the best of circumstances - but still, it's nice not to be angry often enough that you want to have something like that around.

It felt really good on Monday (Monday? Crap!) letting out all that frustration from last weekend. I hadn't realized how it was poisoning my head until I got it out and then slept really well Monday night.

Letters are going out. harmonyfb's already got the canned response from the convention center. It's good to see that the spin machine can get up and running in a flash when circumstances call for it.

I never did get around to posting the good of the weekend - and I hate the Flugtag crowd even more for that. Except for the invasion, it really was a good weekend - on target to be great until Saturday happened.

I think what I'm happiest about, even if sales weren't everything one could hope for, is that I really didn't have a bad design on the table. Everything we put out sold. Hell, things we *didn't* put out - only had on display - sold.

Offworld's two runaway hits were "I See Shinigami" and "Practice Safe Zechs...Use A Gundam". Soundly defeated every other anime' shirt on the table. I'm putting "Safe Zechs" on the Raven's Nest site next week, and when I can afford it I'm totally adding "Shinigami".

Applause and kudos to Offworld - well done indeed.

Lunatic Fridge (and by extension the lovely and talented chloegoth) still had the top seller overall with "Zombies". The newest designs - "Don We Now Our Gay Apparel" and "McLane for President" were solid hits, although McLane is almost *too* subtle in the joke.

Those that got it, LOVED it. crevette was asking me if I thought the success of the design was connected to rising voter disgust. I don't think so. McLane fans seem to still have a sense of humor about the process. Those sales seem to be connected to cynicism.

"Cthulhu for President"? *Those* shirts are totally connected to voter disgust and antipathy.

The two Raven's Nest originals were quite well received. I need to find out a way to build some interest in the "Sparkle" shirt between now and the release date for the next book. I've been thinking of wearing it over to Borders and seeing if I can't draw some sales.

Yes, the hind brain really never shuts up with the brainstorming.

Some amusing images from the convention: the couple dressed as characters from Hellsing carrying their infant daughter. Daughter wanted Daddy's huge red hat in the *worst* way - kept grabbing at it. Daddy kept taking her hand down and telling her "no".

Finally daughter smacked Daddy right in the face and went back to grabbing for the hat.

- A mother with her teenage daughter was looking at the shirts and saw Lunatic Fridge's "Instant Otaku: Just Add Hentai". She started laughing. The daughter was appalled, declaring that there was no way her mother could know about that sort of thing.

Mother: How do you think you got here?

Daughter: Well you were married at least!

The mother then proceeds to not only *buy* the Otaku shirt, she changes at the table!!!!! Right in front of everybody - including her fifteen year old!

I couldn't stop laughing. I told her I totally wanted to be her when I grew up.

Instant Otaku was an interesting experience. Occasionally you run across designs that I call "shame shirts". As in, people will talk all day long about how "awesome" the design is, and how "perfect" it is from them, but when it comes time to put down the cash they fold like wet tissue.

Otaku is in many ways a shame shirt. Once I realized that's what was going on, I started working to exploit it. Teenage males in particular seem to be very susceptible to parting with cash when you tie it to a matter of boldness or courage.

Worked for me. Four separate times, as a matter of fact. :)

As has been told elsewhere, harmonyfb had a complete and total blowout of her bags. Well received all the way around, including with a delightful furry couple who pointed out that they were the most "fur-friendly" accessories the couple had ever found!

Talk about your untapped markets!

Anyway, harmonyfb has updated her Etsy store. I hope eventually she'll stop being surprised about people appreciating her skill and eye for fabric.

Lots of advertising this weekend, that appears to be yielding results. I have more pictures that I need to get and more updates to the storefront once I get back from Rhode Island.

Rhode Island. Yep. It's *that* time at last. Robin and I leave for Brown on Saturday. We'll be staying with eccequabonum for a couple days. Robin gets checked in on Sunday, and I fly back on Monday.

Doesn't seem real. Not at all.

Comments

[missingvolume.livejournal.com]

I've always have had the basic account, about the only feature I think I would ever use is the polls. But even then it isn't that hard to live without and I have a yahoogroup for the biz that I can always use the poll feature on there if I was dying to run one.

[happygoth.livejournal.com]

Good luck to you guys at Brown! That's so exciting!