Etsy Seller Interview with Lisa of JournalsWithDragons

How JournalsWithDragons got started

Introduce your Etsy shop and tell us your story. How did you begin and decide on what to sell on Etsy, and how do you create your products?

Hey there! I'm Lisa from Journals with Dragons. I create and sell journal and planner printable pages and digital templates for mental wellness, positivity, self-reflection, and staying organized day-to-day. The pages I create try to be inspirational, practical, and available in various sizes and formats for customers to find something that best fits their needs. I began selling on Etsy in June 2021 by creating printable planners and journal pages because it was something I was interested in, and I find designing to be immensely fun for the more creative side of my brain.

My products so far are entirely digital, so I design and create them mostly through tools like Affinity Designer. I try to imagine how someone else might use the product and the key elements needed for the pages first. I'll then develop different design variations to make the pages more visually pleasing before eventually settling on the best ones to include in the final product.

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?

My favorite products are the RIFT Shadow Work Journal, the Digital Gratitude Journal for Notion, and the Christmas Planner Printables Bundle. The RIFT Shadow Work Journal is a huge resource with over 400+ pages of printable journal prompts, journaling exercises, and worksheets. It’s a self-reflection journal for bringing subconscious and hidden aspects of the self to the forefront of your mind. A lot of love went into it to make it as inspirational, thought-provoking, and rewarding as possible. I also love the moon and stars theme it has, as it makes it both print-friendly and pretty at the same time.

For many of us, life can seem like it’s constantly busy, so it’s hard to make time to sit, journal, or spend any time on self-reflection. This gratitude journal Notion template is something I’ve recently put together as a solution to this. Much thought went into designing and creating it because I wanted something people could easily use, even on the go. My favorite part is that you can pull gratitude journaling prompts and positive affirmations for journal entries from the databases, as I’ve preloaded it with about 100 of each.

The Christmas Planner Printables Bundle is a more seasonal product, so it doesn’t sell all year. However, I do occasionally get orders at odd times of the year, like in the middle of July. I love how comprehensive it is for organizing things during the busy holiday season. I tried to be pretty thorough when creating it and ended up with over 90 pages. In particular, the gift tags, memory pages, and Christmas advent calendar included in the bundle are fun little activities anyone can enjoy.

Overall, I think the products in my shop sell well because they’re quite comprehensive, have good value, and are thoughtful. I believe many people are looking to improve some aspect of their lives, whether it’s getting more organized, improving their mindset, or wanting to work through things mentally through journaling.

Getting sales on Etsy

How long did it take for you to earn your first sale and how do you currently attract customers to your Etsy shop?

It actually took quite a while for me to make my first sale. At the time, it felt like a long seven weeks. I was fortunate enough after getting that first sale to hit my first 100 sales just over a month later with about 10 or so products in total. To date, there have been so many customers who've been kind enough to take their time to leave my little shop over 650+ reviews out of 2,900+ sales since I started, and I'm ecstatic to say it's managed to maintain Star Seller status for the last 12 months. I think it goes to show that even if you don’t see results right away if you put in the time and effort to work on your shop and improve, it’s possible to turn things around. Most of my sales come directly from Etsy searches. I've experimented with paid ads on Etsy but haven't found them beneficial since I like to keep my products small and low-priced to keep them accessible. I have a small website, an email list, and a Pinterest presence that I'm actively growing to further grow my sales outside of Etsy.

Managing JournalsWithDragons

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? What tools or services do you use to run your shop and how do you handle fulfillment?

Journals with Dragons is currently run entirely by myself.My products are entirely digital, so once I've created a listing and uploaded the download files, Etsy takes care of providing access to the customers. Mostly, I focus my time and efforts on creating new products, marketing them to bring in new customers, and providing customer support when needed. Sometimes the process of downloading digital files can get confusing, so most questions I get are related to that.

In terms of tools, I like to use:

Affinity Designer & Publisher: I primarily use Affinity to create my printables, as they are powerful, like Adobe's tools, but are a one-off cost compared to a monthly subscription. 

Canva: I tend to use Canva only for social media graphics. It's simple and easy to use. But I avoid using it for creating any digital products, as some of Canva's licensing doesn't cover digital products, or at least that was my understanding when I reached out to them last.

iLovePDF is a PDF optimization website. It's great for doing quick tasks like compression, combing files, and extracting pages. I mostly use it as a finishing touch to products to ensure that the files I provide are as optimized as possible.I believe providing small file sizes while being mindful of quality is important to ensure customers have as few issues as possible, especially when it comes to printing.

Google Docs & Sheets: I use these for various things like drafting tutorials and journal prompts, keeping track of my marketing efforts, and things like my sales and profits.

Notion: Right now, I'm loving Notion to help keep all the different bits of my shop together in one place. I'm planning on using it to help streamline creating products and content in the future.

Automated Etsy Bookkeeping Spreadsheet: Etsy can be a little complicated to get your head around with all the different fees. I've found MadeontheCommon's spreadsheets to be extremely helpful in reducing the amount of time I spend doing taxes for my shop.

OBS Studio: This open-source software makes it easy to record product videos to add to listings, something I'm currently experimenting with. It's also capable of streaming, screen recording, and capturing the webcam.

Grammarly: This spelling and grammar checker helps speed up proofreading things like the content created in my journals as well as listing descriptions. Any time saved means more time for growing the shop and providing customer service.

The future of JournalsWithDragons

What goals do you have for your shop in the future?

I have a long list of product ideas to add to the shop, so I'm hoping to turn more of these into finished products. I tend to create more detailed products in various sizes, so putting things together often takes several days overall and is a significant time investment. In particular, the idea of digital templates that you can use anywhere is an area I’d like to focus on. They will, I believe, be of great assistance in making mental wellness and self-reflection tools even easier and more practical for developing new healthy mindset habits. Growing the blog  is also a priority for me. Providing helpful content that complements the shop's products is a great way to provide value and ideas while also bringing new customers to the shop overall. I have thought about creating physical versions of some of my products, but for the time being, I prefer the simplicity of digital products. However, I may revisit this later when I have more time for experimenting.

Advice for new sellers

What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?

I don't really consider myself an expert when it comes to Etsy, but if I were to start again from scratch, I would keep in mind the following:

Do your research before creating anything. Making a product to list on Etsy takes time and effort. Do your due diligence and research keywords, competition, and prices. There are plenty of tools that will help you do this, like Alura, eRank, and InsightsFactory.

Listen to the right people. Many people out there claim to be experts or "gurus" when it comes to Etsy, but unfortunately, many of them just got lucky or haven't had an active shop in a long time. Plenty of myths also like to float around that will waste your time if you're not careful.

I recommend looking for the Gold City Ventures E-Printables course for a solid strategy. It's the one I took before starting my shop and is still actively supported. Plus, there's always Printables by Number, Sasha at Your Frugal Friend, or Kara Buntin if a course seems too expensive right now.

Be ready to create more than just 1-2 products. I think too many people expect to just list a product and instantly see results and sales. While doing research, listening to the right people will help you immensely and guide you in the right direction. It won't guarantee that your first product will do well. Take what you learn and keep trying until you see things working. You'll improve over time with practice and discover new things that work by experimenting.

Have patience and don't lose hope. It took me several different products and around 7 weeks to start seeing my first sales. Listing a product on Etsy and seeing sales immediately is less common and harder than you think, so don't be discouraged if you don't see results instantly.

Pay attention to Etsy's rules: Etsy has many rules, and it's essential you start paying attention to them sooner rather than later, as they can land you in hot water if you're not careful. In particular, trademarks seem to trip up many new shops.

Customer service is important. If you're starting a shop on Etsy, you need to go in with the right mindset of starting a business since you are dealing with people's hard-earned money. Be honest, polite, and helpful whenever you can. I firmly believe this is how Journals with Dragons has managed to gain so many reviews in such a short time.