So, like, I still have an excess of glitter and resin, and I have a supreme amount of bills to pay. As some of you may know, my mother was recently hospitalized. She passed out at work and had to go to the ER by ambulance. Those rides are Expensive, my friends. My Christmas gift to my mother, if I can swing it with your help, is to help alleviate the burden of her ambulance bill.
It’s $450, and if I can pay even a portion of that, I will be ecstatic.
Right, so my Etsy returns! I don’t have many listings, but I hope that in keeping the amount of product I have to offer to a minimum, I can push it out super fast in time for everyone’s holiday gift exchange.
I was doing amazingly with my bills, but then my hours got slashed at work by a lot, so now I’m going to be $240 behind. Not to mention I have to buy my cats their Revolution, which is $63. (That’s, unfortunately, the cheapest place to buy it for the number of doses I get, which is 6, so three months for two cats.)
If you can, please throw a little money at my Ko-Fi or PayPal. You can also pledge at my Patreon. For at least $3, you get access to my LycanSpot Serial. For at $5, you get access to the chapters of my book, Don’t Call Me Sir.
You can also buy things!
I have Pride pendants.
The ones available for immediate shipping are;
Rainbow x2
Lesbian x1
Trans x2
Pan x2
Poly x2
$15 + shipping.
I can also do half and half flags.
$20 + shipping
Three days work time for any new pendants.
Also, available, some angry bracelets.
$5 + shipping
If you can’t buy anything or contribute, that’s okay! Please signal boost. ♥
I have a feeling you sent this a few days ago, but I just saw it, and THANK FUCKING GOD because I am ready to go into the woods and become a feral woman as long as it means I don’t have to keep working on polychords.
Answering this ask instead of that seems like a good middle ground, though.
SO. Christopher Billiam Argent learned how to knit from his grandmother. His tension is so regular that his garments look machine knitted. And that’s what he knits: full garments. He’s a sweater knitter. No fuckin’ hats or mittens for this bitch. He cuts steeks with no fear and his colorwork made a woman in a yarn shop cry once because it was so beautiful.
Stiles learned how to knit from youtube 3 minutes at a time, and the first time Chris sees his needle hold he wonders how such a beautiful boy could also be such a godless heathen. His tension isn’t great, but his lace work is amazing. Unfortunately no one knows because Stiles hasn’t blocked a project in 4 years.
Peter learned how to knit from Stiles and Chris, so his style is a hodgepodge of strict yarn hold and “Eh, this works.” He likes short projects like socks, mittens, and hats. He also has a terminal case of second sock syndrome. Chris and Stiles have at least convinced him to start knitting left and right mittens alternately, so that they can find one for each hand even if they don’t match.
They tried making a quilt together, once. The design phase ended with Peter sleeping on the couch and Stiles refusing to talk to Chris to two days. They keep to their own projects after that.
Despite their failed collaborative efforts, there’s nothing they love more than seeing each other in things they’ve made, though. For Peter, it’s more of a scent/marking thing. Hand knit objects hold scent like nothing else, every single centimeter having been handled and cared for by Peter. So when Stiles and Chris wear something he’s made, any werewolf with half a nose knows exactly who they’re going home to.
For Stiles, it’s a warm feeling of acceptance. When Peter and Chris wear something he’s knit, he sees it as confirmation that they still love him and want to be associated with him. He knows that the things he knits don’t always look the best, but they still want to wear it, because Stiles made it. To Stiles, it’s one of the most tellings confessions of love.
When Chris sees Peter and Stiles wearing something he’s knit, it gives him a satisfied feeling of having provided. He’s taking care of them. They’re being kept warm and safe by him. He feels not only needed, but like he’s successfully filling that need.
In short, the Stetopher household is the coziest motherfucking house in the tri-county area.
I’m up late working and watching a documentary on Netflix in the background about Steampunk (Vintage Tomorrows, for anyone interested) as a social movement and while a lot of it is very cool, valid and punk, I just heard the words “appropriating our culture” and I had to pause what I was doing, pull the tab up in full and rewind cause there was no way I heard that right, but no.
There’s some people out there thinking kids dressing up in grunge goth gear from Hot Topic is cultural appropriation.
Bonus point for epic fail: it was said by a white mad with dreads.
Yikes.
Like he had me before, he had some really good points about diversifying the genre and wanting to make the world better through a new wave of steampunk ideals, surrounding ingenuity and freedom to create and just general punkness.
And then those words fell out of his mouth and my whole brain stopped so hard it flipped over the handlebars of my reasoning and now I’m just sort of mentally sprawled out and stunned, because what.
Also, I’m sorry, but not everyone can afford to custom build their own aesthetics or to pay the cost of an etsy seller.
Not all of us have the time, the money, or even the physical means to look like we just waltzed out of a retro-future-scape to stick it to the man. But we still love the aesthetic, we still want to be part of things. Should we be excluded because our $20 t-shirt was mass produced? Or should you be re-evaluating the accessibility of this innovative culture you’re so concerned about being tainted by filthy casuals.
Like is it a cultural movement seeking to change the way we view technology and our access to it, or is it select cosplay group for able bodied people with time and money to spare?
Which is it?
I used to custom make a lot of my own steampunk gear, and what I could not make, I used to source from skilled sellers. But y’know what, my hands stopped working the way I wanted them to, so I had to give all that up. I also lost a lot of income when that happened, which meant I could no longer afford to buy things from more unique sellers. But I still want to be part of something that used to feel so welcoming in my early 20s! I still want to partake and enjoy the aesthetic, and if my only way of doing that is a $20 t-shirt from redbubble and a pair of goggles from eBay, I refuse to be made to feel bad over that!
You can talk a big game all you like about sustainability and innovation and saving the world through higher ideals, but when your movement is tailored to a specific aesthetic that is extremely expensive to create and buy, you are not being part of an accessible cultural shift. And you are most certainly not being punk.
“How dare these people take an interest in our culture.”
A culture based around a sub genre of science fiction? A sub genre with problematic roots in the idealization of colonialism, cultural eradication in the name of science and “progress” and innovations of industrialization on the backs of the common working man?
The culture you are referring to, in terms of being appropriated, because someone bought a t-shirt from Hot Topic because they liked how it looked?
That culture.
I see.
No.
You don’t get decide who is punk enough. You don’t get to gatekeep something like this, especially something built on the back of subversivefiction. You do not get to discourage people from exploring something new, or to put them down because they cannot afford to do it to your exacting standards.
Everyone starts somewhere in exploring new ideas. Not everyone gets the same starting point in life as you.
It takes money to live comfortably with nothing. It takes financial and social security. It takes resources and time and physical capability.
And I’m sorry if that offends you, and I’m sure it’s hard going through life with your head stuck up your bottom like that, but the punk solution is not to alienate the people trying to become involved with something new, but to make your ideals and culture more readily accessible and less daunting to engage with.
And less heaped in a side helping of prideful hubris and snobbery.
Maybe I’m fixating too much on this, maybe he didn’t mean it and was just having a bad day, but this is the first real comprehensive documentary I’ve seen about steampunk as a cohesive movement and not just a type of fiction with gears on, and we’ve got this walnut right smack bang in the middle trying to keep the other kids from playing with his favorite toys, which is not what this kind of thing should be about.
You want to tall about subverting the norms, you want to be progressive and overthrow an unjust world, you want to talk about the problematic origins of XYZ and how to make them right, and you want more people to be awake and aware that there is more than just one way to live this life: then you god damn extend a hand in friendship. You invite them in, you make your world tangible as much as you can, and you make it for others to enjoy too, not just you.
“You can’t play with us, you’re just doing this cause it’s cool”, is not the way to do that. And for being a movement about innovation and ingenuity, you think they’d be better at realizing that.
Today I received a notification stating the transaction fees will be increased from 3.5% to 5% including shipping. They’re also setting up a subscription system, meaning sellers will need to pay the monthly subscription fee for extra features.
I go for several months at a time without selling anything. I’ve never made more than $1k/year. This is going to hurt. A lot.
Currently I’m looking over Etsy alternatives and nothing is really standing out. Some sites have higher transaction fees, others are subscription only, some I’ve never heard of and likely won’t get as much traffic as I do on Etsy (which is low as it is), and I have no idea how to build my own site nor can I afford to hire someone else to do so.
I’ve been informed I can use WordPress to set up a shop, but I’ll again need to pay a monthly subscription fee. Plus I’ll need to do coding and various other things I have no skills nor knowledge of.
Please help me. I need to make more sales to cover cost of listing things as it is ($0.20/listing), but if I need to use a subscription to access things for my shop I’ll need to sell even more.
A few friends have directed me to a sites that may be good options, but I looked up “quilt” in the search engines on those sites. Mine would never sell because so many others are underselling (listing for a price too low for the work they did).
I’m on the verge of tears because I may lose what little business I have.
Dear Seller Community,
We’re writing to tell you about some changes at Etsy. We’ve been helping
sellers on their creative journeys for 13 years now. We’ve focused on
making Etsy the best place to run your creative business, and we’ve
listened to sellers like you to learn more about what you need from us.
Now, we’re planning to invest even more in bringing buyers to Etsy,
building seller tools, and improving your seller experience. To help
make this happen, we’re updating our fees, and we’re adding some new
features.
Effective July 16, Etsy’s transaction fee will increase from 3.5% to 5%
and it will also apply to the cost of shipping. All other fees,
including listing fees, will remain the same.
We’re also introducing new optional feature packages designed around the
needs of sellers at different stages of growth, so you can access the
right tools at the right time for your business.
If you’re happy with the services you currently use on Etsy, you can
still access all the tools that are currently available to you without
paying a monthly subscription fee. But if you want to do more, we’ll be
offering two new plans: Etsy Plus, with tools to help businesses grow
and express their unique brands, will be available in July. Etsy
Premium, with more advanced tools for larger-scale businesses, will
launch in 2019.
Explore our video and website to learn more about what’s changing and
look for more information in the weeks to come. We’re excited to see
what’s next for all of us as we continue to invest more in growing your
business, together.
This is in the email they sent me and thousands of others.
Online craft marketplace Etsy
(ETSY) will increase the fees it charges sellers for the first time in
its history, the company said Thursday. The higher fees, Etsy says, will
more than offset new plans to boost spending on marketing, tools for
sellers, and customer service.
The company says it expects
profits margins to remain the same but Etsy expects an immediate boost
to its revenue. Etsy says it now expects 2018 revenue to be up 32% to
34%, up from its previous forecast of 22% to 24%. The represents about
$44 million in new revenue.
Etsy’s shares, which jumped in premarket trading Thursday following the announcement,
rose nearly 30% after the open. Over time, the community’s reaction
should help investors get a better sense of how vital the company has
become to buyers and sellers of homemade goods under CEO Josh Silverman.
Shares of Etsy have soared since Silverman took over in April 2017.
Up approximately 60% this year as of Wednesday’s close, they recaptured
their post-IPO highs this spring. Silverman has confronted the 13-year-old company’s legacy as a feel-good enterprise, cutting costs (and employees) while shedding the B Corp designation that denotes high standards of corporate ethics and accountability.
Amid the changes, however, Etsy has maintained seller fees lower than those of eBay (EBAY) or Amazon.com’s
(AMZN) Handmade unit. Etsy’s fees will remain comparatively low even
after the increase, which is scheduled to take effect in mid-July.
Even
so, the new fees will surely test relationships between the company and
its sellers, who now number some 2 million. In an interview with
Barron’s Next, Silverman said he expects “some turbulence” in the seller
community” as a result of the changes.
But the CEO said they
will allow the company to accelerate spending on marketing and customer
service, including chat and phone support for both sellers and buyers.
Etsy’s focus on “making the pie bigger” by driving more overall sales to
the platform, hasn’t changed, according to Silverman.
“We don’t
have firsthand experience to know how it’s going to play out in the
very near term,” Silverman said. “I’m highly confident that this is the
right thing to do in the medium- and long-term.”
The changes raise Etsy’s transaction fee, levied on each sale, from
3.5% to 5%; Etsy will also now include the cost of shipping when
calculating that commission. The 20 cent fee charged to list an item,
and a separate payment processing fee, are unchanged.
Etsy,
confident the changes will be a net positive, upped its guidance for the
second time this year. The last guidance change was announced in May.
Meanwhile, the company maintained its projected Ebitda margin of
21%-23%, indicating its intent to reinvest the money the fees generate,
and boosted its high-end gross merchandise sales guidance—“GMS”
represents the total value of merchandise sold through Etsy—by 1% to
19%.
Etsy planned to communicate the changes via email, a blog post, a new landing page
on its site, and other messaging; some of the investments in marketing
are seen as a backstop against the aforementioned “turbulence.” (Among
other efforts, Silverman said, it will advertise during NBC’s upcoming “Making It” contest show, which has cast Etsy’s “resident trend expert” Dayna Isom Johnson as a judge.)
Some Etsy sellers have wondered aloud whether changes might be coming. In March, on Etsy’s seller forums,
one poster considered them inevitable—“At some point they most likely
WILL raise fees,” they wrote—while another thought changes might drive
some sellers away.
Asked about the possibility of fee changesduring a May interview with Barron’s Next, Silverman said there were “no sacred cows.”
Investors
will be watching how the changes affect marketplace revenue and seller
count over time. Marketplace revenue per seller reached approximately
$93 in 2017, though its growth has slowed over the last several years.
New fees could re-energize that measure.
Most of the near-term
revenue increase Etsy expects is expected to come from the new fees, but
the company also announced new seller services on Thursday. (Etsy says
its updated guidance reflects “negligible” effects from those new
services.)
While the company’s standard free service offering
will remain unchanged, Etsy Plus, when it launches in July, will include
branding and customization tools and listing credits. It will initially
sell for $10 a month before doubling next year.
“The point at which you’re ready for Etsy Plus is the point at which
you’ve really decided that this is going to be a real business for you,
and in particular you really want to start having more control over the
brand,” Silverman said.
The company said it’s still developing
Etsy Premium, meant for businesses with employees and more-developed
customer service needs. It is scheduled to launch next year; No pricing
information was available. About three-quarters of Etsy sellers are
one-person businesses, according to the company.
Silverman said the company isn’t targeting a specific balance of
marketplace and seller services revenue. Over the last 5 years, the
majority of Etsy’s revenue has shifted from marketplace fees to the
services offered to sellers. Services represented nearly 60% of revenue
in 2017, up from 34% in 2013.
Investors cheered the news
Thursday, and management hopes its community will be amenable, too.
While KeyBanc analysts suggested earlier this year that Etsy increase
the 20 cent listing fee, Silverman told Barron’s Next that the company
intentionally chose to tie its fee increase to actual sales rather than
all listings.
“We believe it’s critical that our success is 100%
aligned with the success of our sellers,” he said. “This change is very
consistent with that.”
This story was updated after it was first published to reflect the shares’ move in premarket and morning trading Thursday.
I don’t know about how any of you feel regarding this, but I feel it’ll hurt a lot of use hobby-craft sellers who make little money as it is.
All over Instagram I’m seeing fellow Etsy sellers saying the same thing: this is wrong, this will hurt us, this benefits no one but buyers, and a lot of shopkeepers are going to leave.
Why they feel the need to take a cut from shipping costs is beyond me. Raising the listing fees to $0.25 cents instead of raising the transaction fee would work so much better and be less harmful to us small-time sellers.
There are two petitions currently active to have these changes cancelled or adjusted.
The only people who benefit from this are the CEO and shareholders. Customers will see an increase in prices to offset the HUGE cut Etsy will be taking from transactions.
If you sell on Etsy I strongly suggest signing both petitions and sharing them. If you’re a buyer, potential buyer, or feel these changes are absurd please sign the second one. It has only 552 signatures and needs significantly more.
Queer Fiction Writer 