Crafters, this is a highly recommended source to help you market
http://www.craftmarketer.com/
and i have a story about how this is all related..
Two years ago I bought this book about how to market your crafts online, from this site Sell More of Your Crafts | Helping You Profit From Your Creativity
I signed up to James's newsletter ..the book was useful and his site has always been informative as well. He just sent out a newsletter the other day so I wrote back, thanking him, and asked him if he'd ever considered marketing his books on etsy..I am pretty sure I've seen a category for books (I dont think you can resell books but if you are the author you can market them) and also suggested to him to market in the forums as a lot of crafters would be interested. I even started a forum topic about his site and had quite a few people respond that they were going to check it out.
So he wrote back thanking me and offered to add my url to his site. And then he got to looking at my site, wrote back and asked...are you Laura King and did you used to bellydance in Colorado ? Yup..that's me.
Turns out he handles the email contact/newsletter for Adnan Sarhan of Sufi Foundation of America and Adnan Sarhan . Wayyyyy back when I first started akai, I was going to Adnan's workshops. Eva Cernik has also been a student.
One of the workshops I attended was a weekend long retreat in New Mexico. He led us thru many meditations..Ive tried to meditate on my own for many years but have never experienced anything quite like the meditations Adnan led us thru. He also teaches/advises on whirling. I was the impatient child and would always ask him..when are we going to spin , Adnan? He kept telling me, oh later today, and then maybe tomorrow. And then it never happened (I was a whirler on my own before knowing of him so I was like..huh? He told me I wasn't ready to spin..I still need to get back with him on that)
Anyways Adnan has been known to offer words of wisdom to people. He had once advised James to market his crafts book (and it has done well for him)..Ive since run across many other people who have been 'advised' by Adnan what their calling is, or what to focus on, etc. Adnan never told me that I'd make veils, but during one of the longer meditations, I saw large colorful veils swaying in the breeze and covering windows like light covers..something you'd see in one of those really cool asian movies. I kept saying hey maybe someday I'll make veils for a living but I never set out to make it happen, just sort of drifted into it.
Of course I lost contact when I first moved to San Francisco then Hawaii. I've always known how to contact Adnan but was afraid to tell him I still drink coffee :)
Today, James tells me that Adnan had asked about me a few months ago and they could not find me in the database (I'm sure I was originally part of their Sufi mailing list but since i change emails and addresses so often who could keep up). I had NO idea Adnan would be trying to get a hold of me, or that he would even remember me. Adnan must teach thousands of people. I figure he must remember me as his problem child. I remember him once telling me that i had great potential as a veil dancer (he didnt say bellydancer) but that i had to work on it and focus, etc. As many of you know I let dancing slide to focus on making veils for others to dance with.
So Adnan's behind all of this! I didnt see people on ebay making veils and say oh that looks like fun let me try. There is a pretty involved history to this and how it all came about and I don't think it was an accident.
James wrote about this briefly on his blog today Sell More of Your Crafts | Helping You Profit From Your Creativity ..James was at the workshop I was at and I remember him not directly but as a presence there, and I remember having emailed him years ago requesting to be put on the mailing list but didnt put two and two together.
I was so choked up to hear that Adnan's been trying to find me..he's in New York right now teaching, and i'm going to see if I can talk to him about sponsoring him for a workshop in Hawaii..but I can't wait to talk with him on the phone. I can't wait to find out what he needs to tell me or why he's been trying to find me all these years (the last time we talked, akai was in infancy stages..i dont even think i'd named akai yet)
Soo..by chance anyone out there also take a workshop by Adnan, or bought a veil from Tamsin, etc? Where else does this connection go?
here is Tamsin's site Silk veils in beautiful colors and blends.
I just posted a couple of youtube vids on the rest forum
i bought my second, third, fourth and fifth silk veils from her..gently used by previous workshoppers but ones i greatly loved for many years
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