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30+ Day Challenge -Part 32: A Hobby and Part 33: A website
I’m suffering blogger’s block, so I’m falling back on the 30+ Day Challenge again.
I’m combining #’s 32 and 33 into one post, because they really are about the same thing.
In a way, over the past 7 years (!) web sites have been a hobby of mine. I started my online journey with a naughty picture web site that a friend put together. The only real hobby part of that for me was posing for the pictures. I didn’t create or know how to operate the site.
Then came the LARGETONY Blog. It was to help promote the picture site. Keeping it going is how I began to learn how to control the look of websites and some minor technical stuff.
But, that blog (and the picture site) ran its course, so I decided to leave blogging.
That lasted about 4 months and I returned to blogging with West of Mayberry and a bit of a focus shift.
Along the way, I had created a couple of suggestive T-Shirts as gifts for friends. It was a fun hobby that I recently decided to try to build a little business with.
That’s when LT-Shirt Company was born.
I decided to start small and use one of the online custom T-Shirt printers that prints by the order, rather than in bulk. This kept me from going into a costly investment when I had zero knowledge of the production and marketing of clothing. If it turned out to be a miserable failure, I wasn’t risking a big financial hit. I just couldn’t take that chance with the obligations I have to Granny’s health care.
LT-Shirt Company will be 6 months old next week.
Is it a success?
I don’t know. I’m not even sure how to judge.
It’s a success in the sense that I feel like I am putting pretty original products out that people seem to like and to take notice of.
It’s a success that I have managed to turn out 50+ different designs in that time1 when I don’t think I had even 10 ideas in my head at the start.
It’s a success in the sense that, even though I have not made a huge amount of sales, nor a huge amount of money2, I have made enough to cover expenses and still have a little mad money. And that’s pretty much just marketing through this blog, Twitter, and Facebook,3 none of which I have been very aggressive with.
But hobbies aren’t about getting rich anyway.
Now this hobby of designing T-Shirts has led to yet another web site. A site for LT-Shirt Company itself. Rather than continuing to use a subdomain of the printing company, I decided to make it a part of the largetony domain.
I still don’t know much about website creation. But I have gotten pretty good at customizing WordPress blogging themes. So, I built LT-Shirt Company store using WordPress as a framework and the shirt printer, Spreadshirt, for the content and mechanics of order processing.
If you haven’t seen the latest combined results of my hobby and web site, check it out HERE.
It’s the perfect time, because a weekend free-shipping special is going on October 29 and 30.4
How’s that for marketing?
P.S. If you have linked (or want to link) to the store, please change to/use: http://store.largetony.com.
{ fin }
- and taught my self the very basics of Adobe Illustrator, just enough to get by, to boot. [↩]
- I really wanted them to be affordable priced. [↩]
- As well as some fantastic friends who have spread the word on their blogs. [↩]
- Have you started your Christmas shopping yet? [↩]
I have very much enjoyed the three shirts, perhaps especially the DYLF, and find your imagination and sense of humor very easy on my old(er) mind. Thanks for both the hobby and the site.
Flattered to have been one of the first
.
Was reading some of your t-shirts and the one about coffee reminded me of what my aunt used to say, ” I like my coffee like I like my men. Strong, Hot, Light, Sweet and Rich!”
She was married 9 times.