Welcome to Etsy Independent Photographers Where you will no longer find a team but will find some advice about selling photographs on Etsy

The team was started in July 2008 more to see what would happen rather than a desire to be leaders of a little empire. The advice offered is to start a Google Group to keep in touch, have a Team Flickr Group and a Team Blog. We did this and the results were, the Flickr group failed after a week 3 people posted pics on it and no one made a post in the 'discussions', the blog was a similar failure for the same reasons. The Google Group which only members can see has about three regular posters out of 50+ members. The Dead Blog syndrome affects many teams (click on the links on the Etsy Teams page to see examples) and these will reflect badly on the teams in the eyes of potential buyers. If members are 'molly-coddled' then they will do something for a short time and then lapse back into silence until the next time. And it all does take time, time which could be spent making and preparing photographs. Which leads me neatly to the next point some photographers sell well, amongst them are; Alicia Bock Irene Suchocki labokoff Paste their names into the Etsy search look at their sales! Click on the sales figure to see what they have sold!! What do they do and how can you begin to approach their sales figures. OK so here are some of the things they do; List and re-list every day Have an Etsian style Concentrate on their work Keep a weekly or twice weekly personal blog Here's what they don't do; Belong to Teams Make Treasuries If you want to belong to a mutual appreciation society and waste your valuable time and if you do this as a pastime and not as a source of income then by all means join a team. Some geographical area based teams are successful with members who attend regular craft fairs and sales and give out cards for the Team and for their Etsy shops and they do very well because buyers can look and then buy later. If you are able to do this then I strongly advise you to. If you can find some other way of bringing people to your shop through a gallery or through the above then begin doing it now. Good luck - Jim Read