Saturday, November 14, 2015

Sometimes there's a story

A number of years ago I opened an Etsy shop. August of 2008 actually. In 2009 I put up a number of things, most greatly different from what I now sell. Lots of handmade cards, lettering art, etc. Nothing sold, I got discouraged and busy and let Etsy fall to the wayside for a while as I focused on other things. When I came BACK to Etsy I changed what I was doing and never relisted the things that had expired.

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by a VERY close friend. She linked me to post on facebook where a piece of art, a lettered quote had been shared and she said it looked like my work and asked if it was.

I looked and it was. It was one of the cards I'd placed on my Etsy shop during that first go round.
It was a card I'd made for a friend who was very interested in heritage and history and legacy, and I'd used an amazing quote by Linda Hogan.

I never marked it in any way. Someone saw it, liked it, saved it and eventually uploaded it to Pinterest, where the links lead.... nowhere, and yet it was shared all over the internet. Lesson learned.

So I've relisted it. I even made a bigger version for those that wanted larger prints and scanned it at a higher resolution and it's quickly become the most popular item in my shop.
Here it is in my shop.
Weird huh?

Anyway, just a little note about watermarking things or putting your info on them at the very least.


3 comments:

  1. I've been bad and not watermarking my art. I'm doing some stuff to sell on Etsy, though, and I will watermark that.

    I heard some one say that people should be flattered that other people consider their work worthy of stealing. Seriously???

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the hardest part for me was that they never meant to "steal" it, they just liked it, and because I hadn't shared that I made it... no one even knew. It was my own fault in this case and a potentially costly mistake.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think the hardest part for me was that they never meant to "steal" it, they just liked it, and because I hadn't shared that I made it... no one even knew. It was my own fault in this case and a potentially costly mistake.

    ReplyDelete