I’ve had different purposes for this website through different seasons. At first, it was just a showcase of my baking. I wasn’t sure I needed it because I was using Facebook. When people started suggesting I should bake professionally, I thought I should make a website.
Then the site became a portfolio to showcase my work and to hopefully get clients. It didn’t really work well for that, but then I wasn’t putting time or money into online advertising or being mindful and strategic with social media.
When I started making my figurines, I thought I’d re-purpose the site so that when I applied to local craft stores, I would look more like a seasoned crafter and help my application to sell them in their locations. That didn’t really work either. Most of the markets take 40% off the top, making my figurines too expensive to sell – I couldn’t get the bell jars for cheaper than $30. The one store I sent in an application to that actually replied just said the product would be too expensive. I asked for some price point feedback but never heard back.
It could be that I give up too easily. I keep trying to monetize my hobbies, partly because I think it would help validate my work – if it sells, then its good. Although, it would be really nice to have my hobbies pay for more materials to keep going – a hobby that pays for itself would be golden!
Now, I’m hoping to use my website to monetize my music – I’d like to try busking and doing background music gigs with my harp. I know I need some samples of my work so people can hear the type of music I play before deciding. I should be able to do this – I’ve got a degree in film, and I should be able to apply those skills to help market me – but it’s such a time-consuming project.
While I will use this site to showcase my music eventually, I don’t know that I want to use it as ‘advertising’ and monetization. That’s never really worked out for me because I just don’t put in the time and effort into the business and marketing side that’s needed.
I’d love to make money from my hobbies, but I also know from past experience, I really don’t like the added pressure that comes with it. I feel like expectations are high, and I’m afraid of disappointing people who are paying me. The validation from doing paid work is nice, but I also really like the freedom I feel to do whatever it is that I want and do it in whatever way that I want, without having to consider anyone else’s opinions.
So while I will be open to doing paid work, I’m going to focus the website just on showcasing my work. They always say ‘niche down’ but I love too many different things, and trying new things. I don’t want to restrict myself. I’m going to turn this website into more of a blog for my creative explorations and a way to help motivate me to get working on the many projects floating around in the back of my mind. My imagination is so much larger than my ambition, but I’m thinking that giving myself permission to experiment, to fail, to be bad at things is going to generate better results just by helping me create instead of just sitting there wishing I was doing more.
Too often I’ve sacrificed good for the idea of great. I don’t need to be great – I need to enjoy what I’m doing and make that the purpose of my experiments rather than focusing on the outcome of art that other people like. I may not produce wonderful things, but I’ll enjoy the process.