I’ll level with y'all on this—I’ve been focusing on my store a lot because I’m trying to find an additional source of income in the face of disability.
To the shock of no one, I’m a web designer by trade. My background lies in writing and art. It’s not lost on me how much I can do with my skillset…but there’s also not a lot I can do outside of it.
A few years ago, I started developing chronic soft tissue damage in my dominant hand due to daily computer-work for my job. This, combined with my rapidly-declining mental health due to the pandemic, forced me to move from full-time to contract with my current employer so I wouldn’t completely destroy my body or my mind.
I’m blessed that I live in a state that with quality state health insurance. My living expenses are extremely low and I don’t need to make a whole lot to squeak by.
However, I now live with a permanent physical limitation, which limits what I can do on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, I’ve started to look into setting up long-term investments. This includes literal economic investments like stocks and bonds, but also in projects that will sort of just…semi-run themselves after I put in the work needed to get them going.
Given my skillset, e-commerce is perfect for this.
Let me tell you all a little secret. Setting upon an online store and selling things is stupidly, ridiculously easy. It’s even more ludicrously easy when you know how to use what I call “rich people tools"—the kind of online marketing solutions wholeass companies use to advertise and grow.
These tools run like a well-oiled machine. Everything about them is about minimizing effort while maximizing profit. Most so-called "social media,” like twitter, facebook, and pinterest? They all integrate with these tools seamlessly, because the true purpose of these websites is to be marketing platforms for business owners, so they can deliver their ads directly to people’s eyeballs in environments where their guards are down.
It’s actually pretty fucking disgusting.
(I’ve always hated advertisements and the culture that surrounded them. It’s why I don’t try to push products too heavily here even though I know I can queue up a million reblogs for them. Knowing what I know now just makes me hate it all even more.)
But anyway, for the last month or so, I’ve been thrown into an ethical dilemma. I don’t want to, and never wanted to, monetize Skald’s Keep. Its purpose is to be a free website that competes against the monetization and commercialization of Heathenry.
But it’s also supposed to be a trustworthy website. By having a store that clearly sells a plethora of direct-to-consumer products, it looks like I have ulterior motivations, and that’s not what I’d call trustworthy.
And yet, I need a livelihood, and e-commerce is the strongest play I’ve got.
Fortunately, I think I figured out my own problem just by hashing things out here—I need to start my own business separate from Skald’s Keep. An entirely different website altogether that’s clearly just a store, one I can market to hell and back with the disgusting tools capitalism built for itself without sacrificing my intentions for Skald’s Keep.
As for the current Skald’s Keep store? I think it would be a BALLER idea to turn it into a hub for indie pagan publications—a place to feature all the devotionals, guides, and workbooks I see so many people here make but don’t have one place to put ‘em.
It would be stupidly easy too. The product entries can link off to whatever platform you’re hosting your book on; lulu, amazon, etc. All you’ll have to do is give me the link to your book, the image of the book cover, and the paragraph description, and I’ll plug it all in. That way, I can showcase the work of the community without necessarily needing to “recommend” it for educational reasons. You’d basically just take advantage of my high-ranking results on google.
It will also create a library where people can easily find non-Folkish stuff, which takes money away from them and puts it in the hands of the average pagan.
Yes, I think this is the plan y'all. We will have our cake and eat it too.
Thanks for being such a great audience and for putting up with my hair-brained shenanigans as I was working through this. <3
Here are some of the new pieces that have been added to my shop over the last week!
There are also custom Hel Mary statues slots that can be used for other goddess/deity creations, other spooky/witchy/pagan art pieces and some new vintage picks. Anything that was in the shop for over a year (excluding art) has been donated to a local fund-raising event coming up in June so there aren’t many pieces that are 40% off available still there. There are also still a handful of crystals available that support me and my friend.
Other than that just some general me/shop updates and requests - I have over $700 in regular bills still due by 5/8/22 and DoorDash has no incentives this week until the 6th, making it not worth my time to drive in the meantime. Any sales really help me out in general, but no one on any social media platform seems to be seeing any of my work consistently. Please reblog if you can for someone else who may want to support the shop or buy my work!
The new website is up with links to where you can find me, the weekend auctions, my discord channel, examples of my previous work and general info on what customs I offer. Please check it out and sign up for newsletters! I only have one subscriber rn
My beliefs help me move through life. I honor the gods in recognition for their acts in life, as well as their presence in mine, and the lessons they teach me in lore. It isn’t a big ritual, or something I get naked for, or wear fancy clothes. I do it because it helps me, and I sing and praise the gods everyday because I feel it’s needed. For me, it’s the same thing as making breakfast. Not because if I don’t the gods will be angry or destructive. Rather because I wish their presence in my life through welcoming them in. It’s not about having faith, or believing anything will come from it. It’s about mindfulness, realizing my own environment, and just trying to live with what I have. Instead of trying to take more and more without considering where it comes from. It’s about realizing what’s in me, around me. Knowing more. Being thankful, as well as realizing who I want to be.
I know it’s silly, but when I was a teen I thought magic and stuff was all about reading old books. I got older and was disappointed there were no spell books. But guess what, still studying from books because history and studying ancient religions. Idk I think that’s better than studying spells.
