Weebly recently released access and support for e-commerce to their wisywig site editors. As some of you may have seen recently, I gave it a go and attempting to add some of my work to a storefront and enabled the store feature on my site. I was not happy with how www.etsy.com stores had gone in the past, so I thought this would be a good new alternative. However, there are a few points they don't mention outright on Weebly that makes it kind of awkward offering the e-commerce feature.

• The e-commerce feature can be enabled on all types of account plans on weebly.
• Weebly offers several package plans for your site and not all offer the same features.
• The FREE plan for weebly allows you to enable a store, but not set-up shipping options, taxes, or inventory tracking.
• The middle of the road plan offers some features, but not all the ones needed to have a nicely integrated e-commerce site - making the middle option nearly pointless.
• The plan that does offer features to make the e-commerce store work how it should is 19.99 / month, if you sign up for 2 years. This does not include the percentage the payment gateways will take with each purchase.
• You pay that price per month, regardless of selling amount.
  
• While I can see that not being a huge issue for a true full time online business, it does not suit the budget of a artist type trying to sell their goods online.
• It might be best to give the etsy site one more go.

So, I am writing this to let all my friends and family know that I gave it a try to offer a more integrated art browsing and shopping experience on my site, but I just don't think it will happen. I will be working on giving the etsy store one more go and have a new link / page to the store here on this site.


Thanks for reading and stay warm. It is reading 0º here in balmy Rochester, MN.

Voting is now open for the RAWARDS! Please vote for me as your favorite VISUAL ARTIST! Vote once a day - until October 15th. I don't ask for much, so thanks for those who do vote!

Steps:
1. Go to www.RAWartists.org and click REGISTER at the top of the homepage
2. Input a valid email address (only have to do this once)
3. Verify the email address by checking your email and confirming
4. Log-on with your new registration and vote for me on my RAW page: www.rawartists.org/tskaney

As always, thanks!

What I could win?

Consultation with Shana Nys Dambrot, renowned art critic, writer & editor
Consultation with Claudia Deutsch, owner of Artspace Warehouse
Consultation with Kimya Nuwabi, Winner of Bravo's Work of Art
Exhibit in Downtown LA Artwalk
Placement in Artspace Warehouse
$500 certificate to Blick Art Supplies
Opportunity to include art/prints in IndiExhibit celebrity award show gift bags (3 events)
1000 printed IndieCards from Bands on a Budget
Write-up feature on Artslant.com
Write-up feature on Staged Incident
RAW's Golden Ticket: Unlimited free showcases in any RAW location (50+ cities) during the 2013 season
RAW:Visual Artist of the year Winner's Seal & Accolade
RAW On-Camera interview
Honored at RAWards 2012 Ceremony as RAW:Visual Artist of the Year
Featured on RAWartists.org

So yes, I had always thought that I might be good at writing and illustrating children's books. Not until the other day had I played around with anyone idea. Above, you can see the concept sketch for the main character and title of the book I thought about.

Since becoming a father of an amazing son, I have many times thought about the lessons of life he will learn and how many I might be able to help him understand. What better way than through a book?

Not sure yet what Loyd would do, but it might be about teaching kids to remain objective and not judge other by what society says about the type of person they are, look-like, or hang-out with.

At the very least, it was nice to do some fun sketching.

What do you think?