sincere form of flattery

5 Replies

I found this website this AM via twitter. I’ve thought a lot
about the whole copyright thing with the internet, especially after 2000 when I
posted a picture of one of my eyelet Coptic bound journals and then sold one to
another binder. Shortly after that she started selling nearly identical journals.
Adding insult to injury she started to teach a class on how to make them. Angered
I sent her a polite email asking how she could do that to another craftsperson.
The email I received back was rude and just short of telling me to “ piss off.”

Around that time I was selling my books and art steadily on
eBay. I was doing well with it, which was good, as I was working a crappy
Dayjob making peanuts for money and needed the additional income. I had started
to make Coptic bound leather journals with wrap around covers. They sold well and
steadily. I was clearing an additional $200/month on the journals. I sold one
to a lady down south somewhere and she started making them too. The design I
was selling on eBay was not original and a centuries old design, but I was one
of the first of the new wave of crafts people to leave a raw edge on the flap
closure and I was one of the few to sell on eBay that early. (This is beside
the point) I didn’t really care that she started to make and sell the journals
on eBay, her product was subpar; featured shitty photos, fewer pages and were
overpriced. What upset me was that she has copied my listing word for word.
Back in the early 2000’s eBay required tedious hours of hand coding listings
with HTML, especially if you wanted your listing to appear decent. I spent
hours making my listing description one of a kind and well designed and she
copied it verbatim. I was really worried that her subpar books and listings would
be confused with mine.

Again I sent a polite email. This time only to be ignored.
After a few days I sent her another email politely requesting she not use my
work again. This time I got the rude “piss off” email. This is when I got
really mad. I sent a polite but firm email letting her know that if she didn’t
change the listing I was reporting her to ebay. She sent another rude email
back. I forwarded everything to eBay. The following day her listings still used
my html and words but were jumbled. A few days later the listings all came
down. She relisted everything later, using her own words but still used my html
coding. UGH.

The bottom line is that sure, imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery, but when there is outright theft of ideas and work it can infringe
upon the livelihood of the originator of the item. What really concerns me is
when the work is subpar. I had a few of my buyers email me to tell me they had
been scammed by the other seller on eBay, who it seems was not above
impersonating me as well. Every buyer told me the same story that the journal
had crappy 20lb bond paper inside, stitches were loose and that the leather
didn’t feel great and everything smelled slightly off. Here she watered down my
“brand” my image of well crafted items with a serious attention to detail and
craftsmanship. The other lady who was teaching the classes infringed on my
ability to teach online classes of my work but her work was as good as mine and
I was cool with that, she wasn’t hurting my image as a crafts person, just
cutting into my ability to make a living. (on a side note, I offered to at least one of my buyers, that if they wanted to pay me a small fee, I'd rebind the poorer journal properly.)

I guess that anytime you make something cool someone will
rip you off. Take for instance my hedgehog notebooks, I make it clear I was
inspired by the moleskine. I just took the moleskine style of stitching (smythe
sewn) used better paper and wrapped it in a leather cover or handmade paper. Read
my entry about the “hedgehog” or moleskin notebook here. Remember to take it
back.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery unless it waters
down your brand or image.

 

 

on fire

2 Replies

I set up an ArtFire account, you can see the large banner on my side bar. The link on that banner goes to my shop, where I've got everything 10% off for the month to celebrate my shop opening.

ArtFire is still in beta, I'm an early adopter though not too early. I was a fairly early adopter of Etsy too, that was still in beta when I started there as well.  Like the other there are a few quirks that will get ironed out as time goes on, but so far I like it.

I don't plan on giving up my etsy shop, I've got 200+ sales there and usually do well with it. The fees on etsy are still by far cheaper than they are on eBay and I like the no auction format. It's steady. It's safe.

ArtFire is as of yet untested waters I've made 4 sales there so far. Which isnt' bad for a week or so of being there, but when I started on etsy I had an inital boom of sales then things tapered off.

What I like about ArtFire is their democratic RANDOM ordering of items on the front page you can see the most recent items, the oldest items or random items. Which is really cool. But it can be chaotic and less attractive than perhaps possible. The search function WORKS, and works well. Also the items show up in google. ROCK ON!

It's takes me less than 5 minutes to list an item on ArtFire, multi loading pics goes fast on my cable internet. The one trouble I've run into is that I have to write all new descriptions of my product. they use Google base so that the items show up in Google and some weird words are blocked from the descriptions. I had to read the forums to learn more about it, but really I need to learn to work with it. The ability to show up in google's search listing is something I've relied on my blog and facebook for in the past. So to have my work show up automatically, can in theory, really drive views and sales.

The shops can be greatly customized to really personalize it. I've seen some really great looking shops.

I'm debating a paid account. If I buy one soon I'll be locked in at their introductory rate of $12. Which would be great. But to equal the percentage of fees that I get with etsy I'd have to sell a minimum of $200 in product a month. (A rough estimate gave me a fee % of 6% for etsy- factoring in listing fee and 3.5% final value fee.) For my lower priced items thats 20 to 25 sales a month. Lately my sales have been much lower.

Another great thing is that you can use google cart for check out too. Which really can open the shop up for a whole new set of shoppers. Also because you can ad HTML you can ad widgits, which means you can put your etsy site on artfire. That seems very much in the spirit of DIY but rather counter intuitive for a business. But then crafty handmade stuff has never made sense from a standard business model…

I'm not totally head over heals in love yet, but so far I'm liking what I see and love the ease of use and searchability of the site.

Stack of hedgehogs

Leave a reply


Stack of hedgehogs
Originally uploaded by lessherger

I had some leather covers left in the basement, actually I have a ton of them, so I stitched up some book blocks and made some hedgehogs. Great paper, thick writing paper in a variety of styles, mostly cream colored though. Sturdy leather covers, roomy pockets in teh back, satin place markers and a snug elastic to hold it all shut. You can find them on my artfire account and my etsy account

All items in my artfire account at 10% for the month of June, celebrating the opening of my new shop there.