HORROR COUTURE

A couple months ago, while I was browsing around Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/TwistedMindofMine & http://www.etsy.com/shop/GhoulNextDoor) I stumbled upon "teams". Not really knowing what they were, I figured it couldn't hurt to become part of a couple. Some had so many rules, you must do this, you must do that, devote your life to us... blah blah blah! After going through about 20 teams and the 2000 rules they each had, I finally found a few that I could become part of... but even then, I was sent notices that I wasn't "participating" enough... yes, in less than 3 weeks, I was actually told that. The "captain" and "leader" of the team said we all had to be involved and promote eachothers shops, participate in all of the discussions they had on the team page. Then I started looking into these people demanding more of my time and attention. One shop had only made one sale... ONE, and she was open for more than 10 months! The other... two in a years period... yes, two! No wonder they wanted ME to promote their shops... I had 20 sales in less than two months and they wanted it to rub off of them. Now I'm all about sharing the wealth, I totally love promoting friends and even competitors, hey, there's plenty of customers out there, but to be told I had to choose whether or not I was going to engage in their silly discussions about team giveaways and what I thought of femininity and other subjects along the same crappy lines by a couple of shops that obviously weren't being helped in any way by being part of that team or be removed from the team, I decided that was not the place to be. It shouldn't be a chore to have some fun sharing ideas and thoughts with people with the same interests as you. Teams should be enjoyable, not irritating... I figured, hey, I love horror and I know there's a gazillion people out there that do too, why not start a new team without all the BS where we can participate if we choose to. The only requirement... the shop must be horror related in some small way, not too much to ask, right? I mean, we didn't want a shop with cutesy knitted puppets involved, it would kind of take away from the creepiness we aimed for! And so, team HORROR COUTURE was born :) In just 1 short month, we've already recruited almost 30 members and have had to turn down several non-horror related shops. Lately, we've recruited some awesome members who have totally been involved in real discussions about marketing and promoting. One member ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZombieHolocaust ) started the idea of using our blogs to promote eachother *awesome idea* and another ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/wildemoon ) started team treasuries *another phenomenal idea*! So, there's a couple of other awesome twisted shops for you to browse and hopefully find something your heart desires! I'm going to make it a habit to try and include at least one other shop per blog entry so that maybe we can really get our little crafty businesses really taking off *CHEERS*