Not So Crafty

Over the weekend, my friend, Lillian,  and I shared a table at the Portage Park Craft Fair in Chicago. This was Lil's first attempt at a craft fair, but it was not mine. Years ago (maybe seven?), Matt and I tried our hands at the local craft fair scene with our delightful greeting cards. These cards are fabulous, containing pictures drawn by Matt and printed by the two of us on our little Gocco press. We packaged them and brought them to a local fair, visions of selling out dancing in our heads. We barely sold anything. We tried one more time, but with the same results. Y'all have seen Matt's artwork (and if not, take a look at yesterday's New York Times Book Review. Yeah.), so that obviously wasn't the problem. I'm still scratching my head about it because, even though I did sell some cards, it still wasn't some big, huge sale. And I lowered the prices A LOT. The previous weekend, in the Chicago hipster neighborhood of Bucktown (where Matt and I used to live before we bought a house somewhere we could afford one), was the Renegade Craft Fair. A family stopped by my booth at the regular, old craft fair and admired the cards, then told me that people were selling that style of cards for $4 a pop at the Renegade Craft Fair. How were people passing by my low low prices? I will never understand the craft fair scene. I checked out the Renegade Craft fair's website, and for the upcoming holiday fair they are charging $375 for a booth! Seriously? No wonder people have to pay $4 for a card. I think I may be done with this scene (is this a scene?). Next stop: Etsy. That's a much slower, anti-climactic sales venue (like, I won't know how much I earned in a two day period), but at least maybe people will see and buy the cards. And selling online means I won't spend all of the money I make on craft toys for Romy and expensive farmer's market cheese. I'll let you know when I set up the Etsy store. I'll take payment in the form of credit, paypal, or cheese.