Stephen

Tired of doing shows so we are working on getting it all worked out with both platforms like Etsy and our stand alone website.
Bummed to hear Etsy didn't work out. Did you spend  a lot of money on Esty marketing.? The artist I know personally who has an active Etsy store has to spend heavily on Etsy ads to drive revenue,  When she runs the ads she  gets orders, if she stops running the ads the orders dry up. That jives with a deep dive surfing on Etsy I've done although its hard to separate the hype. I think normally the marketing budget together with Esty fees  can approach 50% of revenue. A big negative is you have to ship a lot of really small orders at essentially wholesale prices with retail hassle and back and forth messaging with customers can be a time sink. Still if she works it she makes money and she hates shows so she just does Etsy and galleries and that works for her. 
Last fall we decided to try a blend of ads across several social media platforms and with such a larger audience it just sucked a thousand bucks so quickly with slow results I stopped, Might have worked if I hadn't yanked the plug so fast but I just didn't trust that I wasn't going to blow a ton of dough real fast and I panicked and hit the brakes
Either way everyone seems to agree you have to learn how to run digital campaigns by experimenting or hiring someone to do it for you and be prepared to spend a lot in the beginning to build audience with either approach. 
 

I have after a lifetime of art show/fairs retired from them except my one local show which I am a board member on and this fall will be its and my 49th annual North Counrty Fair. in September.I still have a few shows that want me but I turned them down at this point in life. its been 50 years now of selling pots.
Other than that show I still have my local outlets which still sell an amazing amount of work. Two are wholesale (orgainic food markets)  all within 15 minutes of home. My work is on a high traffic end cap in each. They order via email when needed about every 4-6 weeks. Orders are usually average $800 or more
I still sell to a few gallery /gift shops wholesale as well and I still have after many decades a few consignment shops that send checks monthly . These are many decades old and well trusted. These are a 50/50 shop and a 40/60 shop
I also have a large pottery gallery that  only  sells pottery that is 10 hours away that buys an huge amount of wholesale twice a year.He is my best costomer and best business person I have ever dealt with.I drop that order off at his brothers about 4.5 hours away.
I have a 100$ minimum on my web site to slow mail order down (which worked well during covid buying craze) . I still ship a fair amount of pots to customers all over the USA via Pirate ship UPS via my web site. One customer I just finished making for ordered 41 mugs (well over 1k order) so when I'm dead and gone he still could have a morning coffee from his favorite my mug as his teens break about 3-4 a year. This order he will pick up later in summer in SFO area from my partner when she visits her brother in SFO area. That way the packing is loose and easy like a fair packup.
So far in life the new Etsy and other sites have not even been a thought for me which is great as I can focus on sellin g larger amounts at a time.
I would develop your local sales over any internet sales site first as these tend to last a lifetime or at least for me they have. If you live in the middle of nowhere than the net is your only option unless you travel with the work. Art fair shows are good if you like people and are good with them.-Not for everyone. In 50 years of shows I have a few stories to tell for sure.

Tired of doing shows so we are working on getting it all worked out with both platforms like Etsy and our stand alone website.
Bummed to hear Etsy didn't work out. Did you spend  a lot of money on Esty marketing.? The artist I know personally who has an active Etsy store has to spend heavily on Etsy ads to drive revenue,  When she runs the ads she  gets orders, if she stops running the ads the orders dry up. That jives with a deep dive surfing on Etsy I've done although its hard to separate the hype. I think normally the marketing budget together with Esty fees  can approach 50% of revenue. A big negative is you have to ship a lot of really small orders at essentially wholesale prices with retail hassle and back and forth messaging with customers can be a time sink. Still if she works it she makes money and she hates shows so she just does Etsy and galleries and that works for her. 
Last fall we decided to try a blend of ads across several social media platforms and with such a larger audience it just sucked a thousand bucks so quickly with slow results I stopped, Might have worked if I hadn't yanked the plug so fast but I just didn't trust that I wasn't going to blow a ton of dough real fast and I panicked and hit the brakes
Either way everyone seems to agree you have to learn how to run digital campaigns by experimenting or hiring someone to do it for you and be prepared to spend a lot in the beginning to build audience with either approach. 
 

Well the one thing that stands out to me is that from hobby to pro is very different than say a college student who choose studio pottery as their profession. As a hobby, after a day in front of a computer, throwing a dozen mugs might be a blast and having to fill a kiln 3x a week and sell  4-500 pots a month not so much. As an alternative to building a business 100% pottery one can consider pottery being a component

Well the one thing that stands out to me is that from hobby to pro is very different than say a college student who choose studio pottery as their profession. As a hobby, after a day in front of a computer, throwing a dozen mugs might be a blast and having to fill a kiln 3x a week and sell  4-500 pots a month not so much. As an alternative to building a business 100% pottery one can consider pottery being a component

I always find the discussions of success interesting. Success is such a hard word to pin down, what some people consider success to others might be laughable.
A potter making 50K a year in profits(not revenue) might be wildly successful to themselves, but someone else might consider that awful with the amount of manual labor it took for a person to do that in most cases. Making pots as an individual is really hard work no matter what techniques you use.
Success is really up to the individual, if you are happy making 10K a year in profits and are securing your lively hood through another manner, congrats you are happy and successful!
Pottery as a business is probably one of the most challenging forms of art type business you can take on. The equipment is large, the materials are heavy, the ingredients are a hazard and the time and manual labor that goes into each piece is usually under valued.  If you sell in person, you have to haul tons of stuff to a fair or show. If you sell online, you have to package and ship materials that are fragile and cannot be easily replaced. Neither of those things are optimal. It really is one of the most challenging sole owner businesses out there. Which probably explains why there are not a lot of individual million dollar potters, but plenty rich in livelihood, joy and a good bit of money.
I had a fundamental problem with pottery and turning it into a business, it doesn't scale very well. At some point you are going to cap out on the amount of shows you can do, pots you can make, and boxes you can pack. If you want to push into 6 figures you have to be really smart with what you do and be savvy in time management. It isn't easy to do and as others have shown it definitely is possible to do; but other types of businesses can scale so much easier with a single person and modern machinery.
I really like making pots and I like selling them too. Knowing someone is drinking out of my cups year after year experiencing joy is a nice feeling. It is one of the best reasons to be a potter. Not many forms of art are used daily in such an important thing as nourishment of our bodies.  I still think being rich in joy is way better than being rich in money. Unfortunately you need both!
I think I agree with GEP on this subject of instagram. Those people with millions of followers are wildly successful at getting likes and follows, but really they are earning way more money for instagram than themselves. That being said I know that instagram can add to your sales and get visibility to your shop, but I think the potters who utilize it the best are not the ones who have the quarterly flash sales, it is the potters who have a constant online shop available for the impulse buys. When someone is scrolling through their feed and the algorithm places one of your pots on their feed, they click through, click to your website and convert. That conversion can be a newsletter signup, clicking your show dates, or buying a pot from your shop. If you don't have any thing like this available and you are on instagram, then you need to make an adjustment.

I'm by nature a little suspicious but this seems like a post to get people to click that link. Are you legit or just pitching your website? 
looks like they took it down, was a post here going to a link

I'm by nature a little suspicious but this seems like a post to get people to click that link. Are you legit or just pitching your website? 
looks like they took it down, was a post here going to a link

Lots of great business people here to help you along the way. My advice after a dozen years, mostly part time (my wife has been doing it full time for 15) is to make a LOT of  pottery and sign up for any local shows you can find and just let it happen. It will all come together if you keep at it and you are enjoying yourself and it wont if you don't. If your stuff is any good it will sell and if its not then you have to be able to get it to that level. Once you work that out then you can dial in your version of making a living at it. Most, not all, but most people I think make modest amounts of money. But ya know there is a lifestyle side of it that has value as well.  You can do online sales through places like Esty and get wholesale customers  (mostly tourist shops) and do small markets or weekend shows.  The expense of out of town shows can really make it risky to do those shows so I would not do those until you have dialed it all in.  
We do a local market almost weekly these days and for 4 hours of selling and 2 hours setup and tear down on Saturday they top out usually around $6-750ish and occasionally we tag closer to a thousand. That's not a lot of  dough for 2 people once you factor in the work and cost of what we sold but its a light day about 10 minutes from our house so it's fine and I love dealing with customers. You meet a lot of really nice people.  Mark C did a show a few months back and had over 700 customers over a 3 day period but he said it was one of the best shows he ever did and he's been doing this as a production potter for over 40 years and other people on this board talk of really big pay days at some of their shows so its possible to make a very good living, just not probable. Remember to have fun.   

In WA I filed everything online through department of revenue. Took a couple hours and cost a couple hundred bucks I think in 2007 if I remember right and in WA you needed a registered agent which serves as the legal agent that receives all official notifications. They scanned it all in and you viewed it online and could download if you wanted. Went with Northwest Registered Agent and it was about $100 a year. I had to renew every year with the State for $65 but if noting changed it was really a couple clicks and a credit card payment. While taxes can be accrual you can also just file on a cash basis if you are  single owner (or married couple)  LLC so its just an additional schedule C for the business listing revenue and expenses. Good luck.

Hey late to the thread but congrads on the great the final road show. Nice that you have been able to restructure your business to work like you want on your terms. Mark I have always have appreciated your post and the extra time you took to offer me advice and encouragement few years back. It made a difference. Your success shows the rest of us that making a living in this business is possible.  I don't know how many potters in the country do the kind of sales that you do but my guess is that its a pretty small number and a testament to the fact that your work is something special. Good luck with your new schedule!  

ya know you might suggest that they could revise the policy to allow a 'buddy' system of 2, 3 or even a small group working together during one eight hour shift and frame it as  being to broaden participation. I assume the whole point of having the wood kiln and the firing is to promote and enrich the pottery experience. There are many, many health situations that are not immediately visible that would make it impossible to 'work' an entire 8 hour strenuous shift. COPD, back issues etc etc.
The other question that comes to mind is if the Guild is truly about mission when it come to this kiln or if some members see this wood kiln as some sort of personal domain or perc and thus inclusiveness is not really part of the agenda to begin with. 

whoa I didn't realize how attached so many were to their GG. I hope the company doesn't see this thread because those suckers already cost a couple hundred bucks.
 

whoa I didn't realize how attached so many were to their GG. I hope the company doesn't see this thread because those suckers already cost a couple hundred bucks.
 

I make my living throwing pots, so it’s not like I’m just at the wheel for relaxation. I’m not making 100K of pots a year, but I manage a respectable wage.  A Giffen grip simply isn’t ideal in all situations. I’m not for a second saying people shouldn’t use one, nor am I some kind of Luddite. Currently I have a skill set and a demand level that renders one unnecessary. 
Lots of people pull handles rather than extruding them too, even though the extruder is a lot faster. Some of it’s preference, and what’s wrong with that?

So learning how to trim without a Giffin Grip is no longer a useful skill? I should require every student to buy a Giffin Grip if they want to learn how to trim in my classes?

ya know I get it, I'm a thirty-five year IT guy and a gadget person so it's always fun to consider this stuff but man you could be setting yourself up for a huge distraction from your 2 passions and before you know it its been a couple of years since you made any pots. I know I do this stuff to relax after spending 8-9 hours programming all day.
If I were you before I went down the electric kiln route I would maybe take Hulk's advice and explore a propane conversion if you can score an old kiln to gut or maybe a small wood kiln. I can't remember the book off hand and my copy is buried somewhere but I think it was alternative kilns or something like that and there was a design for a 10-12cf wood fired kiln that the guy claimed could be fired with a half cord of wood. Could be fun and not IT related which for me would be appealing.

 
Just a thought.    

I readily concede that old kilns last a long time if they are kept in top condition.
Of course the flip side of that is that if you invest in a new kiln now and keep it in top condition it may well last you for the rest of your life so unlike something like a new car there is value in that.  Shortly after I started this thread I came to the decision that it was worth it to me to just buy a new one. That was a few years ago and I got a new Skutt 1027 for just under $2500 with vent and tax and I picked it up and drove it 2 thousand miles to Texas. The used ones I found that had electronic controllers (non starter for me) were a grand or so the savings would have been around $1500 and I put the first miles on it. Since a lot of used kilns will need a new set of elements sooner than later and maybe some minor repairs the extra cost was probably really under a grand when alls said and done.  At least that is how I justified it
In addition to starting with a new kiln I also was able to pick out the right kiln for me. Shopping the used market I was pretty much trapped in whatever was available and since I was adamant about having an electronic controller that meant little choice (the cost of external controllers or the retrofits available at the time really made buying new a no brainier).
All of that said if I was broke I would get the best $200 manual kiln I could find and move on.  

I would suggest calling library or going to their website to see if the have digital books available, many do and if so I bet they also have a kindle tutorial on checking out their books.
don't know about tutorials but I use the fire's as my tablet. We use Amazon delivery enough to justify the price of Amazon prime so I also get access to the prime video's. For $10 a month you can subscribe to unlimited library. Lots of Indie pubs here but there are over a million book available and no extra charges. I signed up for a three month 99 cent intro in Jan and I think I will renew. Lot of junk but good stuff too and I like being able to just start reading and just go to another if it doesn't grab me.feel free to pm me with a question and I can look on mine and try and help.
edit: Here's a link on the current free 2 month trial, can't beat free.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://moneysavingmom.com/hot-kindle-unlimited-trial-deal/&ved=2ahUKEwiF_NTx56voAhUGC6wKHbTXAuMQFjAJegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw0PqPgvejbA-XLYAcnDOMMh
 
 
 

The problem with the CL free section is that it is just mostly folks who want to re-list it for dough, it would be nice if your moms kilns went to to a potter or potter wannabe instead of someone that will just turn around and sell them. You might list them on this forums marketplace as free. Just go back to the main page and go further down the list of sections.
If no one here responds I would check the closest community college and community center and see if they know of a student that might want one. 

Yes Liam like you, I will be sequestered in the shop for a few weeks! 

i live like a hermit anyway but i am upset that the library is closing early and the huge walmart and its two grocery walmarts have empty shelves and freezers.   it took 3 trips to get 32 bottles of water.  i only got it because i arrived just as a huge pallet of my brand water was delivered to the area of the store where the shelves were totally empty.
no frozen food, few fresh vegetables and fruit, no cereal in that aisle.   about the only things left were the odd brands and strange kinds of foods.  the other supermarkets have the same problem.  fortunately, i do not need much but my dog is going to miss his treats.   and i am out of ICE CREAM!

We pay for the post and read it daily-been pretty happy with it. Always solid reporting
Working at home is what I do so staying at home is no big deal-We have chest freezer of frozen fish and cased of canned tuna (by product of my fishing  hobby) so food is of a less of an issue-Also have a power back up if that goes out.
I'm in the age risk factor(over 65) but am in very good health-except my planter fasciitis on heel
I'm in a shelter at home mode-my wife who is younger is going out just  little like food shopping in early am when store is empty.
Since we are in a simi rural are staying isolated is easy. Becuase of lack of testing (feds dropped the ball badly) we have no known cases so far in this county(had one but was cleared) but thats means nothing as testing is so low here now.
I am like GEP in terms of trying to avoid people -The mail comes out on the street daily and so does UPS but I have no contact with them.Its best to be isolated now and I will do just that.
I have a few  potterty drop offs in the next month and My wife says she can do that but I may let it go depending on whats going on in our already isolated county -we always say its behind the Redwood curtain and we mean it.Pottery sales will slow way down and I;m fine with that.
 

My first concern is my health and safety, and the health and safety of my parents (ages 78 and 85) who live in a retirement community, and I can’t visit them right now. (I am technically still allowed to visit, but I’d rather be cautious.) Then there are my siblings, who live is zones where the outbreak is much worse than here, 
Staying home is not that different than my normal lifestyle, since my workplace is in the basement. I got a load of clay maybe two weeks ago, so I plan to keep making pots. 
The Washington Post is behind a soft paywall, you can read up to 5 (I think) articles for free per month. Here’s a great little demonstration of why social distancing is important right now. Stay in one place! Avoid other people!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

Everything is hosed right now.  We just got the news today that essentially the only stores allowed to be open are grocery and drug stores.  
I'm in the dental lab business and so far the 3 largest labs in the state have closed voluntarily and we are having so many dentist's call and cancel cases now too.  So I predict we will be temporarily laid off for a few weeks coming up.
Other than that. It's nice and sunny here and I have enough clay to last me a few months.  I went to Seattle pottery supply on Saturday for more slip ingredients and apparently that was their last day, they're closed for the upcoming week at least.