11 March 2011

I'm Creating a Brand for Indie Retailers


Much to my surprise when I checked out Google Analytics, this blog still gets a good amount of traffic even though THE BLISSFUL's been closed for over a year. This tells me that many of you are still enjoying the archives and maybe even checking from time to time for a new post.

I'd be remiss if I didn't let you in on my latest project . . .

Alongside Abby Kerr Ink, my primary business in which I provide brand editing services to creative entrepreneurs, I'm developing a brand to meet the needs of my boutique industry clients and readers.

You can get in on it now with a free subscription to the Indie Retail Whip, my weekly e-newsletter for indie retailers and others connected to the boutique industry. {Please note that there's a double opt-in to this list to filter out spam bots. This means that once you subscribe, you'll be sent a link in a confirmation email that you'll have to click before you start receiving updates.}

You can also find me on Twitter tweeting retail moxie @IndieRetailWhip.

And yes! There's more to come. Watch your Inbox and Twitter for product announcements and other special features a little later. :)

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26 February 2011

Remember Me? Remember These?

Hel-looooooooooooooo!!! Long time no talk over here as I've been busy blogging over at Abby Kerr Ink {the site for my new biz} ever since closing THE BLISSFUL one year ago.

Just doing some early early Spring cleaning and found these:


Decided to list them on eBay at a greatly reduced Buy It Now price.

You can find the John Wind Chunky Initial Bracelets from THE BLISSFUL on eBay here.

These are the very last ones and when they're gone, they're gone.

Hope your initial or that of someone you love is in the bunch. Have fun!

03 June 2010

THE BLISSFUL's Last Lettre

Dear Readers --

This is likely to be the last Lettre here on this blog. The reason for that is...the party has moved!

Please join me at my

brand new site for niche-y entrepreneurs

And thank you, so much, for following along with Lettres from THE BLISSFUL over the past four years. Wow. I'm grateful for your friendship and your readership.

Indie retailers, aspiring retailers, biz-minded artists and designers, and creatively entrepreneurial folks of any ilk, my new site is especially for you.

Love,

Abby

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01 June 2010

AbbyKerrInk.com Launching This Thursday


I've always loved Thursdays. Forever, I think it's been my favorite day of the week.

So it's a nice coincidence that I'll be launching my new site, AbbyKerrInk.com, this Thursday, June 3rd.

Yep,

AbbyKerrInk.com will launch this Thursday, June 3rd!

What the site holds for you:
  • How to design an entrepreneurial niche that aligns with your natural interests, talents and gifts, and the lifestyle you want to create
  • How to nichify your offerings so that your right people can't help but be attracted to you and your biz
  • How to find your right people -- customers and clients, partners and peers
  • How to connect with your right people online, in print, and in person
  • How to market your niche-y enterprise in a way that doesn't feel forced and huckster-ish
Plus advice and support for:
  • Creative entrepreneurs and those who want a self-made career that looks and feels like them
  • Indie retailers, both brick and mortar and online
  • Crafters, artists, and designers who want to sell their work to boutiques
  • Those who value the creative lifestyle
Plus help with:
  • Copywriting for your niche-y enterprise, including SEO {search engine optimized} web copy that'll help your right people find your site
  • Naturally niche-y marketing - vision and strategies
  • Persistently romantic PR - how to's and how to get over yourself
  • Indie retail start-ups and reinventions
If you've been reading this blog for a while, I thank you for following along with my entrepreneurial journey from high school English teacher to French-y lifestyle store owner to freelance writer/niche-y biz coach/blogger.

Now I look forward to following along with yours!

See you in a few days at my new site!

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24 May 2010

Updates! I've Got Updates!

Photo courtesy of L. Marie, Flickr Creative Commons.


Here's what's going on around Abby Kerr Ink studios:
You know I have three?

Studios, that is.

One is my basement studio. One is my dining room table studio. The other is my bed studio.

All three are great for different reasons.

The first has a secret candy drawer, the comfiest office chair {Sam's Club, baby}, and near total privacy, except for two cats that wander through sometimes.

The second has great lighting, big, airy windows with floaty drapes, and a terrific table-under-chandelier set-up.

The third is the softest and the most filled with birdsong. If I lie back on my bed, I have the sensation of being in a bowery, as both windows are fringed by leafy trees. Sometimes birds even come and perch on my sills. Okay, one time two of them did. And it was pretty cool.

Here's a recap of what I've been doing since closing THE BLISSFUL back in February:

  • Deprogramming from Totally On-All-The-Time Abby. {Any experience as intense as being frontwoman of a customer service-oriented business at least six days a week for four years has got to find her way back to herself once it ends. I promise you. And the trip? It's been delightful.}
  • Nourishing my body and spirit in new ways. Flirting with vegetarianism and organics. Thinking of ditching diet soda. Getting more interested in yoga and long, meditative walks and what they can do for me. Not actually doing more yoga or taking more long, meditative walks, but my heart's in the right place.
  • Writing like nuts. Writing for a handful of cool clients and lots for myself and for my new site, which will launch soon over at AbbyKerrInk.com. Also consulting/coaching.
  • Luxuriating in Pandora radio. Last three songs that have played since I've been writing this post: "God Made the Automobile" by Iron & Wine, "He Said, She Said" by Joe Purdy, "Rain King {Live}" by Counting Crows. Sooth-y sunny day quietude.
  • Putting myself through a self-designed grad school program-by-blog. {You can do this, too. Just find a blog that really resonates with you, one who shares lots of good links, and start following. You'll be amazed what you find.} Digging in deep. Slurping content as if through a spork. Discovering new mentors and making friends. Learning to dig Twitter. Really loving Facebook. Sharing as much good stuff as I can with people who are interested in the same stuff I am. And heavens! You are out there.
  • Freeing myself.
  • Reframing my relationship with money. That's been a big one.
  • Getting clear about what I'm good at. Not what I can do well, or can do with the appearance of success. What I'm good at. What I'm good at that I want to do.
  • Thinking a lot about my right people. Who you are, what you want. What I can do for you. What we can do together.
My new site is not going to be for everyone. For instance, there'll be probably no talk of design or decorating or gift-buying or home furnishings. That's the biz I came out of, but that's not where I am right now. So those of you who enjoyed this blog for the inspirational photos of French-y wonders, I have to let you know that my new site is not geared toward what THE BLISSFUL was about. It'll have its own inspirational wonders, but of a different sort.

If you're a creative person who feels passionately driven to figure out how you can do the thing you want to do, your way, sometime in your life and hopefully as soon as possible, then you're probably going to dig what I'm cooking up.

I'll be blogging about indie entrepreneurship, the creative life, connecting with your right people, naturally niche-y marketing, and lots more. Lots and lots of free content to help you out. And a 10 part e-course {also free} on Creating a Truly Irresistible Niche. One of my favorite topics under the sun, so I designed a course about it to share how fun and powerful nichifying can be. All coming soon.

So, here's an announcement: the site will be launching very, very soon. So soon I'm scared to say when. So I'm doing this much more casually than I usually do when I launch something.

I hope you'll be there. Keep watching this blog.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear from you. If you feel like you might be my right person--and that'd mean I'd be yours! {goody!}--what exactly are you hoping to see, learn, or be inspired by over at the new site?

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12 May 2010

Because of Danielle LaPorte, I Don't Have Time To Write This Post

Memo to my local readers:

You don't have to be mad at Danielle LaPorte. She's not the reason I closed THE BLISSFUL.

But she did help me create a blueprint for my new business, Abby Kerr Ink.

And she is the reason I don't have a ton of time today to do justice to explaining just how amazing and life-redefining her new Fire Starter Sessions Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs is. I did that over here in my first post about Danielle's new work, Why Every Little Entrepreneur Deserves a Big Fire Starter. Today is the work's worldwide release and what a great day for you to get your own copy.



Quick Testimonial About What A Fire Starter with Danielle Did For Me {& What It Can Do For You}

I've always seen myself as a writer. Know that I am one. Don't need approval or awards or, heck, even publication to prove to myself that I am one.

Despite anything else I've ever done {including running a pretty cool boutique}, writing has still been, for me, The Thing. Transcending all other things I could do.

But I didn't know how to take my natural-born gift, my driving passion, my positive addiction to writing {and sharing and teaching} and turn that into something that would pay the bills. {Clearly, I missed the day in college Creative Writing class when they talked about How Writers Can Earn a Living Working From Home}.

And then I had a personal Fire Starter Session with Danielle LaPorte. This was back in late October of last year. I already knew I wanted to close my shop--the how was the question. And the what next was a concern.

Danielle didn't answer those questions for me. But she helped me explore them in the context of what I really wanted to do. What I believed I was born to do. What felt good to do, and what I couldn't stop doing. What I'd do anyway, in between, around, underneath, over above, and instead of whatever other avocation was taking its place.

End of Testimonial. Let's Talk About You and Your Thing.

If you're ready for your own revelation, the Fire Starter Sessions Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs will be the best $150 you may ever spend.

Don't let the three-digit price tag put you off. You're going to spend a discretionary $150 somewhere anyway over the next couple months {couple weeks? couple days?}. Why not invest it in finding out what you really want to do with your one, incredible life?

Thanks to Danielle, I'm Too Busy Today to Write a Lengthy Post

Today, I'm in the thralls of writing web copy for a client. Beautiful, sparkling, evocative and crystal clear web copy that will connect with my clients' right people and help search engines find their site. I get to do this, full-time, because I figured out that I could close my boutique to do the something else that I knew I was being called to do. Called, as in, on a DNA-level. And this "figuring out" is due in large part to Danielle.

Do you know what you're called to do on a DNA-level? {The Fire Starter Sessions Digital Experience helps you with that.}

And I'm also working on content for AbbyKerrInk.com, my new site that's set to launch very, very soon. It's almost paining me to type that because I want to launch right now! But there's still more goodness to be created before I want to reveal it. I get to launch a new site for a new business because Danielle helped me figure out--in a very short, compressed, powerful, almost poetic space of time--exactly how to shape my skills, talents, and desires into a new business that could be entirely online, if I wanted it to be. So that I could work from home.

What would you like to be doing today that seems sort of impossibly confounding as to how you A} could really do it, and do it your way, and B} could make a good living at it? {The Fire Starter Sessions Digital Experience can help you get really, really clear about what that Thing could look like. And then how to materialize it.}

So today's a busy one. I'm working from home, listening to my perfect Pandora station {Feist, CocoRosie, Tungg} as I write, and burning an intoxicating candle on the table here with me. I'm drinking coffee out of my favorite mug. It's wisp blue and says Chez Germain on it.

And this is exactly what three months ago, I wished I could be doing on a rainy Wednesday morning like this one. And here I am.

Where will you be with your entrepreneurial dream in three months' time? Ready to find out?

Enough From Me. Let's Hear From Danielle Herself.

{This is the provocative promo copy she let me use.}

"How's your cashflow and your mojo?
Does your vision match your reality?
Does your brand match your soul?

THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS is: an e-book meets video transmission of acumen and love. You: are likely sitting on an empire of content, product, services, and prosperity that needs a spark -- or blow torch -- to take you to the next level. You: want to rock your revenue streams and do meaningful things in the world.

Worksheets that help you draw conclusions, quick videos with motivational punch, connections to current thinkers, practical smarts, and frank wisdom -- THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS is packed with inspiration that you will put to use.

Danielle has worked with 462+ entrepreneurs in her 1-on-1 Fire Starter consults (which are $500 and booked six weeks in advance.) For CEOs, coaches, artists, retailers, bestselling authors -- from site design to big dreams -- Danielle’s strategies combine passion with pragmatism to get to fulfillment and cash.

Each chapter is it’s own “Fire Starter Session” that includes: e-book components, video inspiration or interviews, and worksheets.

Some of the sessions are: True Strengths & The Metrics of Ease; Branding: Clarifying the Diamond of You; Products & Services: Making Stuff That Feels Good to Make; Money: More is More, Enough is Plenty; Web Design & SEO: Your Virtual Real-Estate…and dozens of tips and motivating perspectives.

In addition to getting Danielle’s deep and detailed knowledge, THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS brings you contributions from some A-league marketing strategists, pro-bloggers, branding experts, and creativity coaches.

Whether you’re in the early idea phase or a well-established rut, Danielle’s thorough, witty, and experience-based advice will most certainly light a fire under your…aspirations."

Buy It and See.

Here's my affiliate link. {The one with Danielle's face on it, above, is one, too. So is the one in the sidebar of this blog. So click any of 'em. They all work.}


And after you've purchased and devoured the experience, let me know what you think.

Better yet, let me know what you do. And what you stop doing. It's all in there. You know it's your time, right?

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02 May 2010

Facebook Page for Abby Kerr Ink

Have you joined us yet on the new Facebook page for Abby Kerr Ink? If not, come on over!


All you have to do is click on the screen shot above or on the link in the paragraph above it, then click the Like button at the top of the page. {If you don't see the Like button, you've done this before and you're already part of the conversation!} Updates will begin appearing on your Wall.

We're talking about niche-y entpreneurship, the creative lifestyle, finding your right people, marketing for indie businesses, and more. This is where I share great resources that have inspired, fed, and supported my own entrepreneurial journey. Hopefully you'll find something there worth incorporating into the way you dream and do!

Looking to forward to connecting with you on Facebook!

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