OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD!!!!

Holy cow! 

I just reread my last post and my note that I was going to up the quantity of my card that was due to be featured on the Etsy Finds blog up to five, "just to see how that would go" makes me laugh out loud...

I got around 60 new orders in the following 24 hours or so (and some are still trickling in) -- this is more orders than in all my entire year on etsy combined!

Here's the blog posting: http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-look-mom-i-made-it-myself-3823/

I can now see the power of being listed in a popular blog like that from my Google Analytics. I've included a screenshot. A normal day for me will get about 30-50 visitors to my etsy shop. The day that that blog feature went out, it shot up to nearly 2,000 visitors!

Yow!

I've had a busy couple of days (I've even enlisted my kids in running the craft robo and sorting the parts to my cards for me -- my husband, who REALLY won points, sat down this morning and gamely put together card after card after card as I ran around filling envelopes and trying to keep track of everything). 

One thing that I've discovered: I am NOT set up to handle this kind of business! It only took 60 orders can throw me into a panic (usually, I get an order, make the card up fresh and send it out before a new order can come in and muddy up the waters). I had to learn how to download my etsy sales into a csv file, download Open Office (what a great free tool!) and use the spreadsheet to track all the orders. I contacted a fellow etsyian who was hit with massive sales due to being featured on the NY Times blog for his ribcage Valentine, (I think he sold something like 400 in the space of about a month) who kindly told me about the process that he got set up.

I made several trips to Arveys, a local office supplies/paper store. I bought a CASE of padded envelopes. Then I had to go back a second time for chipboard to stiffen them (normally, I rely on recycling bits and pieces around the house that look good, but all the orders depleted that pretty quickly.

Here I am with my first (and biggest) load of envelopes to go to the post office, about 50 envelopes. If you've wondered what I look like, there I am!

One nice thing about the attention is that people didn't just buy the one tree-themed card that was featured on the blog. A lot of people did buy Mother's Day cards, but some people bought entirely unrelated items. I finally sold one of my pop-up birthday cake cards which I had pretty much given up all hope of ever selling, for instance.

I got a TON of convos (etsy-mail) from people for all kinds of reasons: special requests, comments, questions. One gal wrote to me because she wants to sell cards and was looking to me for advice!

Another secondary measure: I increased my number of "hearts" (which is when someone on etsy marks you as a "favorite" by something like 120 -- I had just over 100 before that day. Yes, I'm feeling the love...

Sooooo.... CRAZY couple of days! I am done with all but the last two orders (which just came in today), so I am very tired and very glad to be seeing the tail end of all of the madness. I wouldn't trade it in for anything, but I keep thinking of that adage "be careful what you wish for" 'cause I know how I've wished for this kind of exposure in the past!