heya people i’m doing awesome-I’ve officially lost 7 Lbs my first wk with http://newtrend.tumblr.com/diets FaceBook listed product. Has anyone else tried it? If not, I highly recommend!!

Things are really moving along here at Paper Jayne headquarters!

First of all, thanks so much to everyone who helped with shop name ideas. After much consideration, I’ve decided on Paper Jayne as my official shop name. Two different people came up with it completely independently (thanks Rosemary and Janet!). I thought it was perfect when the first friend suggested it, and then when someone else came up with the same thing, I knew it was the winner.

Also, my shop design has really evolved—I have a new logo and banner (thanks Diane!). Check it out: http://www.etsy.com/shop/debbiejayne

And I’ve gotten journals into three local Portland stores: Crafty Wonderland, Betsy and Iya, and Palace of Industry!! 

So to celebrate all of this amazing stuff, everything on my site is 20% off for the rest of October with coupon code GRANDOPENING. Feel free to send it to anyone you think might be interested. (Portlanders, please email me before purchasing anything so I can remove the shipping fee.)

Thanks so much for all of your support and encouragement!!

-Deb

As most of you know, I recently decided to transition into a freelance publicity superstar. So far, so good! I’ve got a couple of publicity gigs lined up, and a couple more on the horizon. (This is really off the topic of the post, but I am looking for more publishing publicity and marketing work, so if you know of anyone who needs me, send them my way!)

Anyway, I’m pouring all of my extra energy into bookbinding. I’m really having a lot of fun with it, but since I should probably try to make a little bit of money at it too, I started an Etsy site:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/debbiejayne.

Because it is impossible to turn off the marketing/publicity voice in my head, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to market my shop. There are somewhere around a zillion other bookbinders on Etsy, so it’s hard to stand out in that multitude. I figured that my first task should probably be to come up with a shop name and banner. I thought I had it all figured out (see above).

Debbie Jayne’s Paper Designs. Done. Great. 

Then a banner with said name. Done. Moving on.

And THEN I decided it might also be a good idea to read some of the articles up on Etsy about successful marketing. As it turns out the first paragraph in the first article I read was about naming your shop, and I quote, “Make sure not to use overused terms like ‘Designs’ or ‘Creations’ in your shop name.”

Fantastic. Back to square one. (Though I could pretty easily be persuaded that Debbie Jayne’s Paper Designs is a fine name, and that the author of the quoted article is a buffoon.) 

And then someone (I’m not naming names, but his name starts with M and ends with att.) suggested that the banner looked “amateurish” and “didn’t match the quality of the books.” 

Great. Scrap that, too.

And here is where you come in, and I give a book away. Comment below with:

1. A shop name suggestion. You are allowed to suggest that I stick with Debbie Jayne’s Paper Designs. (Oh, and  I should say that my name does have to be in the shop name (NOT because I am a megalomaniac, but because my etsy address is www.etsy.com/shop/debbiejayne, and I want there to be a clear connection between the name and the address).)

2. And a yea or nay as to whether you like the banner or think I should look for a better one. 

If I pick your name, I will send you (or bring you) any one book from my shop (except any of the guest books). And if, in the end, I decide to stick with Debbie Jayne’s Paper Designs, I’ll randomly pick a commenter as the winner. 

Thanks for your input!! And I am hoping to be posting regularly, so check back for more of my always insightful wit and wisdom.

-Deb

(Look, it’s a journal with an adorable squirrel on it. This could be YOUR adorable squirrel if you come up with something brilliant!)