We recently connected with Heidi Putnam and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Heidi, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The online book community is a powerful influence, and I wouldn’t be doing this without them.
The ideas that lead to my recent successes all originated from a virtual book club (butt bongos forever!), and small, chaotic group of folks on a Discord server (hi, Betches!).
A group of us decided to start a buddy read of Sarah J Maas’ “Throne of Glass” series, a best-selling author I’d recently come to love after reading her other popular books. Diving into this fantasy world sparked my creativity and I started creating art based on quotes and locations from the fantasy world. The responses after sharing my work in this little Discord thread was incredibly kind, and the author has a great rapport with creators which made it very easy to get the licensing required to sell my art.
The virtual book club is strictly romance. We have hilarious conversations about the books we’re reading, and once a month we meet on Instagram for a Live chat session. It’s from this chat session that a NSFW quote stuck out to me and demanded my creative attention. I started designing stickers for spicy romance readers based on tropes I love. Enemies to lovers, second chance, grumpy/sunshine, one bed–I quickly realized other readers want every opportunity to show off their favorite romance tropes.
I’m so thankful for the friends I’ve made and the community that has encouraged and supported me. If you’re looking for some killer book recommendations or just some great people to talk about all things books with, check out @books_n_betches and @romancingthereader on Instagram.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Heidi, a full-time copywriter and 24/7 creator. I started my side hustle as a calligraphy business, selling basic Cricut-related crafts. After a 2-year hiatus I reopened my shop with the goal of connecting to the book community. With my reopening, I pivoted toward more design work and added screen printing to my skillset. I currently sell stickers, shirts, tote bags, and bookmarks aimed at female readers of fantasy and romance.
The main thing I want customers to know about me is simply that I make what I enjoy. It’s just me, in my craft room, with an audiobook and a Cricut going non-stop to complete every order!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
It’s hard to change what you’ve always known. Something I’ve had to unlearn is both being perfect every time, and being everything to everyone.
People-pleaser. Perfectionist. In the early days I would stress days over a single product, questioning whether it was good enough to actually sell to someone (it always was). I wanted to help everyone I knew with any crafts they needed done, and I wanted them to completely love what I made. Now, I know that I can and should say no to projects that come up that do not interest me at all. People purchase from me because they’re looking for handmade, not perfection.
And even then, you can’t always win with everyone every time. The handful of negative reviews I’ve ever gotten would always completely take the wind out of my sails. It didn’t matter how many 5 star reviews I had if there was someone unhappy with what I gave them. That was the worst feeling. Now, I don’t get notifications for reviews. And if I do get negative ones, I simply refund and move on.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
Right now, I exclusively use Etsy to sell products. I started this side hustle because I enjoy making my products, so all orders come straight to me to put together and send out.
Besides its popularity, the biggest pro with Etsy is all the insights they offer into my shop. I can see what keywords people used to find my shop, I can see how well or poorly a listing is doing. Offering Free Shipping on orders $35+ gives you priority placement in search results. They even have paid advertising, which I don’t currently use. The ease of printing USPS labels right from the Etsy site is nice. So much is all rolled into their site that I would have trouble choosing another option, though I’m sure there are other good ones out there.
The most obvious cons with Etsy are the fees. Everything has a fee; listing fees, transaction fees, processing fees. These may seem small, but when I’m selling stickers for only a few bucks, every penny matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: etsy.com/shop/positivelymint
- Instagram: @PositivelyMintDesigns
- Facebook: Positively Mint