Simply Shiny Life

I received an emailed request from someone I don’t know to ‘review’ my products. Of course, the review involved me sending her something. For free. So she could ‘review’ it for her audience of 500 ish followers. Do you get these unsolicited requests too?

I would definitely consider participating in a product review if I thought it was going to benefit me. But a blog or channel with 500 non-target audience followers? Probably not a good ROI.

How do you determine which requests might benefit your line of business? Apart from determining a blog’s followers, I find out what kind of traffic the site receives and use this data to decide whether I want to advertise. There are several good places to review this info online. I’ve listed a few below for you to begin your research.

Compete.com: Choose Site Profile, then enter the site’s name. For instance, I entered one of my very, very favorite blogs, the Cake Wrecks site http://www.cakewrecks.com/ Compete.com ranks it at 31,996 with 69k unique visitors per month. That rank means that its traffic ranks it at about 32k of ALL the sites on the interwebs. (Pretty good!!) In comparison, Ebay ranks about number 5 and receives nearly 81 million unique visitors per month.

Alexa.com: enter the site name, and then choose the Details button. For Cakewrecks again, Alexa ranks them at about 44k. Alexa ranks Ebay as 25.

Google Reader: pull up the blog or site that you are following in your reader. In the upper right hand corner of the reader, click the link called ‘show details’. Cakewrecks has nearly 50,000 subscribers. Wow. These subscriber views may not appear in the metrics above from Compete and Alexa as these readers don’t necessarily visit the site to read the content. They may read the blog posts via their Google Reader and never visit the site directly.

After reviewing the data and the site itself, then decide if the traffic warrants your cost to submit an item or pay for advertising.

What other methods do you use to decide? (And if you haven’t done so already, visit the cake wrecks blog. Guaranteed a giggle)

I’m offering 40% off all existing inventory in my Artfire shop until next Friday, July 16th. You don’t need a special code and you don’t have to wait for your refund from Paypal as I’ve already marked everything down.

This offer is ONLY for my Artfire studio and ONLY for existing inventory.

Thank you to all my fabulous customers.

I’m feeling cranky today. I can tell when my mood is changing for the worse. Things that normally don’t bother me rub me the wrong way. My blood pressure feels like it is rising and I have a definitive need to call everyone around me idiot. Is there a pill for that?

On the plus side, I usually recognize when I’ve become a crank monster and try to stay away from humanity.  This pleases my spouse and my coworkers. At least I think it does, because I’ve sequestered myself, so I don’t actually know for sure.

As I try to determine what’s caused this foul mood, I realize that there isn’t really any one thing in particular. And I don’t get it. I mean, what’s the point of being moody and irritable? It doesn’t serve any useful purpose and I don’t gain anything from the status.

My normal mode is to try to take each day as it comes and hope for the best. There are lots of folks with bigger issues and gripes than I have so, seriously, I need to adjust the attitude and get on with it.  Spending some quality time hammering the crap out of some stock nearly always puts me in a better mood, so perhaps that’s where I should head this evening after work.

What do you do when you find yourself harboring a crank monster?

My friend Brandi’s blog has been a WEALTH of information of late. She’s recently published a free Etsy Tips download. You can check it out here: Free Ebook: Etsy Tips

And while you are visiting her blog, check out her e-class:

Thanks B!

I’m offering 40% off all existing inventory in my Artfire shop until next Friday, July 16th. You don’t need a special code and you don’t have to wait for your refund from Paypal as I’ve already marked everything down.

This offer is ONLY for my Artfire studio and ONLY for existing inventory.

Thank you to all my fabulous customers.

I have the HUGEST list of blogs I follow with my trusty Google reader. I used to receive everything via email, but converted all my feeds to Google. Now I can enjoy as much or as little as I’d like, without clogging my email inbox.

Here are a few of my current favorites. Some funny. Some informative. Some truly inspirational. In no particular order, but all regularly read by yours truly.

http://whatthehellsgoingonherekp.blogspot.com/

http://www.indieprettyprojects.com/

http://andtheniwasamom.com/

http://drollgirl.blogspot.com/

http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/

What are some of your favorites?

Enjoy!

I created my first Treasury East on Etsy earlier this week.  You can click on the image to be taken to the treasury if you’d like to visit the artists or read more about each item.

I don’t ‘get’ the new treasury format. I think I read that there are over 40,000 treasuries right now on etsy. 4ok!?? I”m wondering what purpose could possibly be intended? I don’t have much hope of mine ever appearing on Etsy’s front page. Selection to that hallowed space seems reserved for either Etsy admin or a favored few. The rest of the minions are relegated to the treasury cattle car is seems. (Minions is my word for the day. PetitPoulailler used it in the forums today and it stuck with me. Kinda slides right off your tongue doesn’t it? LOL)

Pretty though, huh?

Great tips about using PhotoShop to remove color cast on a photo

http://brandi-girl.blogspot.com/2010/06/tip-share-removing-color-cast-on-photo.html

Thanks B!