Disappointments and Blessings

I ventured back into the Etsy Forums the other day.

This was a mistake.

See, I had this flash of inspiration: Since the entire function of the Etsy Forums is to self-promote to other sellers (which I have always found to be a losing game, but others disagree), I would go along to the "Critiques" section and, using my Scribblegoat account but not rudely or blatantly advertising, offer free, helpful professional advice to the legions of people asking the community to critique their shops/descriptions.  This would, with professional propriety and helpfulness, put the name of my business before those who were already seeking similar services.  I hasten to assure my sighing readers: From my experience of the forums, this seemed a genuinely excellent plan.

Problem number one was immediately apparent: Recently (to judge from the complaint threads still fresh and full of vim), the Critiques and Promotions sections were phased out.

However, people were still posting the questions, just under "Site Help."  I proceeded with my plan.  Then I realized that a significant number of the threads were starting with "Five Ways to Make Sales," "Ten Ways to Improve Photographs," "How My Dog's Shop Made 18 Sales in Its First Month," etc.  Cool!  I made one linking to my word-choice series.

Half an hour later, I checked back.  14 comments!  I was thrilled.

And then I read them.

A couple of polite thanks, made me feel great.  Then these:

"I noticed you're really new here, do you have another shop somewhere where you've sold a lot of things based on your descriptions? Otherwise, I'm not sure how useful I would consider this information."
 "Honestly I don't think people totally read the descriptions. It has been my experience that I'm answering questions that were answered in my descriptions."
 "Please don't start threads made to bring attention to your blog. Offering suggestions on how to help make one's business successful is awesome, but please share most of that content here when you're doing so to prevent us from viewing the thread as a promotional one."

These don't seem as bad on the second read, but at the time, they were a slap in the face.  The first made me angry.  The articles themselves and every single element in my Scribblegoat shop -- including the descriptions themselves -- make it very obvious that I'm both a qualified writer and an experienced seller under the TangoPig account; this person didn't actually look at anything.  They apparently took the barest of glances solely so they could tell me my hours of work were useless information, and I didn't know what I was doing.  (Also?  Comma splice.  Yes, I'm petty.)  The second one is more dismissive than I would be willing to be, but actually makes me laugh, since it is proved by the one above it.

And the last one is from an Etsy moderator and locked the thread.

I acknowledge that Etsy has a right to keep content primarily on the site itself; I'm good with this.  But this does require, for the sake of the most basic standards of professionalism, that they either A.) have a posted rule about it in the FAQs, or B.) follow the damn links to see where they actually go -- because it's blindingly obvious from a click that that's not my blog.

It's not a big deal, and I know this, but it depressed me for the rest of the day.  And yet -- that's also how I feel pretty much every time I visit the forums.  It's this great groaning chorus of "Etsy sucks because of this," "And also because of this," "My customers are awful," "I'm ahead of the rat race, let me condescend to the fellow rats," "I'm the only honest seller here," "The rules were formulated to make life hard for me," and on and on and on and on ...

Yet -- even though the Etsy venture isn't going where I hoped, even though people have been cruel and dismissive about my extensive qualifications and generally made me feel like shit -- I do this for a living.  I work in a great writing center where there's tons of support, I make pretty good money and learn interesting things.  Even if I'm not freelancing it yet, I get to do this as a job.  And the job isn't just editing other people's work, it's also doing my own -- I spend a couple of hours writing descriptions and blog posts every week, and my Etsy shop pays for itself now, though I know I'm still years from making back the startup supply costs.

Furthermore, I say "not freelancing yet" -- but I'm not sure what criteria I'm giving myself, because as of now?  I've had three commissions, totalling a pretty respectable wage for a weekend off.

So I have much for which to be grateful, and with that in mind -- the slap in the face from trying to engage with the Etsy community?  Small fry.