- Serena 4 Comments

all the ways I dropped the ball in 2016

how I dropped the ball in 2016
This is the time of year that everyone is posting things they learned and accomplished in 2016, and while I want to jump on that bandwagon and write SOME kind of conclusion to that hell of a year, I feel like it’s kind of amazing to me how much I DIDN’T accomplish in 2016 that I set out to.

2016 was a very strange year for me. I had so many highs and did so many fun and amazing things, but there were also some very extreme lows, not just personally but on a global level. That’s probably why it’s so easy for me to see clearly what I didn’t do that I meant to, how many things I let slip through the cracks. A lot of my goals were simply too lofty for me to complete – I’m a big-time dreamer, but a lot of times I forget about the little things and the whole operation falls apart. Other goals I just got lazy with, quite frankly, or pushed aside in favor of other things.

I’m not sharing this to be hard on myself. Actually the opposite – I think it’s important to look back on our failures and learn from them (and in some cases, laugh at what I thought was feasible while working full-time and traveling practically every weekend and also trying to have a social life every once in a while.) It’s hard to build a blog and a business and still be a functional human and honestly, truly, sometimes you just have to let a goal go for the time being rather than let every other area of your life suffer in order to achieve it. So without further ado, here are all of the goals I set in my personal and professional life that I DIDN’T meet in 2016!

Things I Dropped the Ball On in 2016:

  • weight loss (in fact, I met my weight loss goal and then gained it all back. Whoops.)
  • reading 20 books (after spending all day everyday reading work stuff, it just wasn’t that appealing to read even more afterwards. I read a lot of blogs, does that count?)
  • write both a novel and an eBook (I did neither)
  • send out a newsletter every week (LOL)
  • starting a YouTube channel
  • tarot readings (did you guys even know that I sell those? my advertising strategy kinda sucks.)
  • blogging twice a week (try “once a week maybe if I remember”)
  • visiting Seattle
  • going to a blogging conference
  • meditating every day (unless naps count)
  • yoga every day (unless stretching to reach the peanut butter on the top shelf counts)
  • going all-out for the Sabbats (I nailed Beltane and Mabon though!)
  • having a savings account (no comment)

It’s easy to see a huge list of failures and feel a little defeated. But there were good times, too!

how I dropped the ball in 2016

Things I Nailed in 2016:

  • road tripping all over the Midwest
  • moving out of my parents’ house and into a perfect apartment, and my boyfriend moving in with me a few months after that
  • launching my first e-course, and then another one later in the year (!)
  • dyeing my hair BLONDE (a lifelong dream) and then discovering red is my best color after all
  • growing my Instagram from 0 in January to almost 2k followers now (THANK YOU, everyone!!)
  • writing my first guest post
  • making so many amazing friends
  • landing my first freelance writing job
  • starting a book club despite my social anxiety
  • successfully switching from Blogger to WordPress through blood, sweat, and tears
  • sticking with this blog for a WHOLE YEAR despite everything else going on in my life
  • connecting with YOU, who is reading this RIGHT NOW

The moral of the story is that you can’t measure a year by what you did or did not accomplish. It’s both of those and more – the things you accomplished but felt bad about, the things you let slide but realized you were better off without, the goals you set but then laughed about later and the achievements you made that you didn’t expect at all.

If you’re looking at all of those 2016 reflection posts and feeling bummed that you didn’t achieve your goals, don’t. Don’t beat yourself up about what you meant to achieve last year but didn’t. Look at all of the marvelous things that happened to you anyway!

Happy New Year. Let’s kick some buns in 2017. ♥ What do you want to accomplish this year? Let me know in the comments!

- Serena Leave a comment

how i found my community on social media

Whether you’re starting a blog or just wanting to engage with a community, social media is an amazing tool for bringing people together. Connecting with others is pretty much necessary if you want to have any kind of audience, even a small one. That said, every platform is different and can be used for different things. I’m of the firm belief that if you want to find your people, especially if you’re trying to grow a following, you don’t need to be everywhere all the time (although it certainly helps!) Instead, it’s better to pick the mediums that most appeal to you and engage with them regularly. 


I thought it might be helpful to someone who either wants to start a spiritual blog, is interested in learning more about spirituality, or wants to make some friends in the community if I broke down each of the social media platforms I use and how I use them! This is NOT a post on “how to get a bunch of followers” on any of these platforms, mind you, but rather a post on how I’ve used each one to make meaningful connections (although of course it’s nice to see those numbers go up, right?) I can honestly say that I’ve found a wonderful community of like-minded people who lift others up and celebrate each other and that’s an experience I think everyone should have. It helps that in the “spiritual” community, most people are interested in putting good out into the world instead of tearing others down (not to say there aren’t still problematic people, but I’ve been lucky enough to avoid them so far!)


Note that spirituality looks different for every person, and I’m using it as a blanket term to cover a lot of things, many of which are completely not considered spiritual to other people. I found that my people are mostly tarot readers, witches, and wildcrafters who are into stuff like crystals, herbs, essential oils, yoga, energy, rituals, astrology, and keeping up with the moon. That’s not to say that liking those things makes you a witch or that you have to read tarot in order to be spiritual, of course! These are just the areas where the overlap happens for me and my community. If your spirituality is Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or none of the above, you might find some overlap here too or not at all. That’s okay! I just wanted to throw it out there because I know that the specific niches you pursue will have an effect on which social media platform might be best for you – there are probably a lot more Christian Facebook groups, for instance, than ones for tarot, which might make it a more successful platform for you and your purposes. 


 I’m totally not a social media professional by any means and as I mentioned before, this is NOT a post on how to get the most followers – it’s about what I personally did to connect with others on social media. I’m not claiming to have a huge community by any means, but it’s a good size and I think these are good tips if you want to find your own folks!


Anyway, enough with the disclaimers. Here’s what I did to find the community I have today! 


Tumblr
Tumblr was the first platform I joined, before a blog was ever on my radar, before I ever thought of reading tarot for complete strangers. I actually joined it to gather resources and create a sort of digital “sacred space” as I learned more about the different spiritual paths that are out there. I had had Tumblr blogs in the past and never accumulated more than about 100 or so followers, so I truly never expected it to become anything big. Reaching 1k followers completely blew my mind, and now I’m close to 4k! 


What I Did: Basically, I followed everyone I could who posted things I liked at first. After a while you come to see certain people on your dashboard over and over again and you sort of form a bond with them, especially if they follow you back! I reached out and sent messages to blogs I really liked, and in many cases struck up genuine friendships this way. I found my niche in the tarot community and reblogged things I thought would be helpful or enjoyable to others like me. I’m not going to lie, my growth was pretty slow until I made a text post that got reblogged by one of the larger blogs and BLEW UP. I was in Croatia at the time and every time I checked my phone, my eyes about popped out of my head! When I hit 1k followers I held a giveaway that ended up earning me almost another 1k by the time it was done. Tumblr is great because you get to see a little bit of everyone’s personality from the things they blog about, and it can be an amazing resource if you want to learn more! 

My Tips: Use the tags. Always tag your posts (although I think only the first five are used in search results, so be strategic). Be patient, as you have to post using the tags for a while before your posts will start showing up there. The tags I used most often are tarot, tarot community, divination community, witches of tumblr, and witchcraft (but obviously yours will vary depending on what you post!) Go through the tags to find other people to follow, and then engage with them! Support others and they’ll have your back, too. And be genuine – don’t just send the same message to a billion blogs. Also, don’t get discouraged by slow growth. These things take time, and the more followers you have the easier it is to gain more (since more people are reblogging your stuff!) You’ve just gotta power through the beginning stage to get to where you want to be. If you really want to grow quickly, host a giveaway – but be careful. Tumblr’s rules about that kind of thing are weird and pretty specific. 


Instagram
The next platform I joined was Instagram, and this is probably my favorite of all of them, honestly! 


 What I Did: I browsed through the tags to find people to follow and also asked on Tumblr if anyone following me there had one, which allowed me to connect a little more and make more friends! I didn’t go follow-crazy with this one – while that might be a quick way to get followers, I really wanted to use Instagram as a way to connect with people. I follow people I genuinely like seeing updates from and I always try to like their pictures and comment on them when I can. I met a lot of really awesome people this way and now my Instagram is like a little oasis full of cool peeps and pretty pictures! I find that Instagram is a pretty personal platform, weirdly enough – while someone might have thousands of followers, not everyone takes the time to leave a comment and if you DO leave one, most people tend to respond to it! Plus, scrolling through your feed you can’t really tell how many followers a person has – it feels one-on-one, a little peek into their life delivered right to your screen. I love it!


My Tips: Show your appreciation for the pictures you like. Like them with the heart and leave a meaningful comment – it’ll make peoples’ day and they’ll probably check out your account, too! I regularly spend a half hour a day just going through tags and liking pictures I think are cool. Also, with Instagram there’s no limit to the number of hashtags you can use, so make sure you find the best ones for your niche and use those in your posts when they’re relevant. Instagram has this handy feature that shows you how many posts are in each hashtag when you type it in, but note that more isn’t always merrier – the really popular tags like #happy move very quickly, so your photo might get drowned out! Stick to a balance of tags that are more generally about your niche as well as specific to your post to make sure your pics are getting seen. Most bloggers will tell you to keep your photos consistent, like very similar to each other. I agree and disagree. While I think it’s aesthetically pleasing if you always use the same filter or whatever, at the end of the day, this is supposed to be fun. And I like seeing a glimpse into peoples’ lives, so post that selfie or that picture of your tea even if you’re a tarot blogger. If you’re looking to form genuine connections, that will go a long way towards putting your personality out there! Also, DON’T BE THAT JERK who follows a bunch of people only to unfollow them all once they follow you back. It really hurts a small account when they see their tiny follower count dwindling – be genuine!


Twitter
I am fully aware that I’m not using Twitter as well as I could be. As a whole, it overwhelms me – I can’t check it more than a few times a day, and every time I do it’s like 10000000 new Tweets for me to read and I just can’t, you know? 


 What I Did: I made a list for people I like and connect with regularly and for the most part I just check their updates. If I strike up a convo with someone new, I add them to the list. It makes it a lot easier to keep up with the people I care about even if it’s not a good way to gain new followers!


My Tips: Interact with people! Retweet their stuff and like their posts. Even if someone is a celebrity or an idol of yours and you’re 100% sure they won’t see your tweet, try anyway. Tweet at them, share their blog posts and tag them in the tweet, reply if they ask a question. Chances are they WILL see it, and if you’re constantly supporting their work they’ll take notice of that. I’ve gotten to chat with some seriously cool people on Twitter that I would have thought were WAY out of my league, but it turns out they’re nice humans just like anyone else! Also, participate in Twitter chats – they’re a fun way to meet people.


Pinterest
UGH, PINTEREST. Okay, that’s not entirely fair: I love my personal Pinterest. I scroll through the Weddings section all day erryday despite NOT being engaged because wedding things tend to be pretty, which I like, and pastel a lot of the time which I also like. BUT when you’re trying to grow your Pinterest, you can’t just pin whatever you want. So I have another Pinterest just for my blog and like… what am I even doing with it? Figuring out how to use it right is too much effort, tbh. I use Tailwind and I just queue up a bunch of pins and leave it to do its thing until the queue is empty and I have to stock up again. Pinterest isn’t really as interactive user-wise as the other platforms, in my opinion. While I have connected with people by joining group boards, we don’t like, message each other or anything. HOWEVER, it has been a good source of traffic to my blog, and THEN I can interact with people from there! So it’s worth it to have one, in my opinion.


My Tips: If you want to gain followers, have a cohesive theme. My page is mostly purple, for example, since that fits with my “brand.” Try to keep your pins themed around your niche (although you can make a secret board for all of your other pins if you want to still save them!) Also, I highly recommend using Tailwind (and not just because that’s an affiliate link, which it is.) It’s $15 a month and I seriously have seen growth every single week since I started using it despite the 0 effort I put into it. Because who has time to be pinning consistently throughout the day?? Not me. I’d rather be Instagramming.


 Facebook
Fam, I am not a Facebook expert. I didn’t even really want to make a Facebook, but then I was like “man, but it’s really cool and convenient to keep up with brands and people I like that way,” so I figured I’d just have one because why not? When it comes to Facebook, I’m a creeper, not a poster, so this one is hard for me. I also don’t advertise it as much as I should… and just now realized that I haven’t put a link to it in my e-mail signature or newsletter footer yet. Whoops! I don’t really have much advice for making a page because I have not yet figured it all out, but as far as Facebook-for-connecting-with-others goes, be careful not to just join every group out there that’s relevant to your niche. You’ll have a hard time keeping up and participating in all of them. Instead, find groups that you really love and be sure to engage with others. I’m only a member of two Facebook groups and I think that’s about the max that I personally can handle right now. 

I think my #1 tip that’s consistent through all of these platforms is: engage with others! Even if you’re shy – you have nothing to lose. People are generally kind unless they have a reason not to be. Respond to as many comments as you can, leave comments of your own, respond to tweets and messages, things like that. Finding a group of people with whom you have a meaningful connection is SO much more fulfilling than seeing that follower count go up, trust me. 


 What’s your favorite social media platform? Do you have any tips for me? ♥

- Serena 3 Comments

why i stopped giving free tarot readings

why I no longer offer free tarot readings

When I first joined the tarot community on Tumblr, I did free readings all the time. It was a fun way to get experience and to get my name out there as a reader. I used to get so excited about making graphics announcing a “free readings weekend” and thrilled every time a new message popped up in my inbox. But somewhere along the way, free readings lost their spark for me. I would spend those weekends feeling stressed out and guilty if I would do something as simple as going out to dinner while there were reading requests waiting for me. Eventually, I stopped doing them altogether.

I still get requests all the time to do free readings, and some people don’t understand why I don’t want to do them anymore. I’m sure these people don’t mean anything by it – if you don’t ask for something then you’re definitely not going to get it, right? The answer, though, is almost always no. I feel like sometimes this makes me come across as rude (even though I try to be polite – I don’t like having to tell people no!) But while to the requester it might not seem like a big deal for me to just draw a card for them, it actually kind of is. Here are a few reasons why I no longer do free readings.

why i stopped giving free tarot readings

1. Time is money.

Let’s start with the biggest reason – I am a busy gal. I work full-time, have a freelance job, run my tarot business, and also have this blog, which requires writing posts and being active on social media – it’s time consuming. In the hours I’m not at my full-time job, I need to juggle all of the extra work I do PLUS find time to run errands, do chores around the house, exercise, make dinner, have a social life, see my boyfriend, and occasionally take a minute for myself. I truly did not understand the full value of my time until I hardly had any, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that there is no “down time” in my life – everything I do has to be strategic to be sure I’m hitting all my deadlines and not neglecting any one area of my life. So when someone asks me for a free tarot reading, that means time taken away from these other things that either make me actual money or contribute to my overall well-being.

2. I take my readings seriously and I want my clients to, too.

Every time I have offered free readings, while I got to meet so many amazing and genuine people (and help them, I hope!) the requests I received were overwhelmingly from people who a) didn’t read my guidelines first, b) didn’t know anything about me as a reader, c) never spoke to me again or gave me any feedback after the reading, or d) all of the above. Sometimes people would even get rude or snippy with me when I didn’t turn around their reading immediately, and that sucked because hey, I’m trying to do a good thing over here! I think it’s disrespectful to the tarot reader and tarot in general if you just stop by for some quick guidance and then leave without so much as a thank you, and unfortunately these experiences were so common that it left me with a bad taste in my mouth and made me feel cheap.

When someone comes to my Etsy shop to buy a reading, I have given them ample information about who I am and the kinds of readings I do. I trust that they have read my guidelines, and by putting money on the table they have shown that they value me and my services and are signing on for me, Dana, to read tarot for them – not just snagging a reading on the fly from whoever happens to be giving free readings at the moment. I feel respected and I’m able to give a better reading when I can communicate with my client and be sure I’m getting them what they need. We have an obligation to and a contract with each other that doesn’t always happen with free readings.

why i stopped giving free tarot readings

3. It’s not fair for anyone.

That’s not to say that free readings aren’t fair – I mean that if I, personally, were to do them, it wouldn’t be fair. In my shop, I offer three-card readings as one of the options people can purchase. It’s an affordable option that I think is accessible for most people, even if someone is short on funds. Even if I just draw one card for free, that’s a third of the service that others are willing to pay for. It makes it seem like I’m short-changing my clients by making them pay extra for something others can get for free, and I don’t think that’s right. It’s also not fair for the person requesting the reading, because let’s be honest, I’m just not able to put the same amount of time and effort into a free reading as I would for a paid reading (see #1). When I was open for free readings I would be flooded with requests, which made me anxious and unable to devote more than a few minutes to each person. Pair that with the aforementioned lack of respect or gratitude and it just always felt like a very unspecial experience. I want every reading to be special, both for myself and for my client.

4. It’s exhausting.

Like I said, I would get tons of requests for free readings when I announced I was open for them. That takes a lot of energy, yo! I’m already so drained all the time from working all day erryday, so the added stress and exhaustion from something that didn’t contribute much to my goals in the long run just wasn’t worth it for me. That might sound selfish, but I have to put my self-care first in order to care for others, as so many others have said before me.

It feels kind of crappy even writing this post, because in an ideal world I would be able to help anyone who needs it, all the time. And of course if a friend asks me for some guidance, I’ll pull a card from them – they know me and they know what to expect, and they also know that they might have to wait a little while for me to get back to them. But overall, while free readings served me well when I was first getting a feel for the tarot community on Tumblr, they no longer work for me.

All that aside, I absolutely recommend giving free readings as a way to get experience and meet people in the tarot community if those are things you want and need. I gained so many new friends from the times I was open for them, and really did receive some valuable feedback from the kind souls who offered it. But if you’re at a point where you feel more exhausted than excited at the prospect, move on. You don’t have to feel guilty about making the rules for your own life, and you don’t owe anyone your skills just because you have them. No one would fault an accountant for not wanting to balance a complete strangers’ books for them for free, so you shouldn’t feel guilty, either! Do what makes your life better. Do what moves you towards your goals. And once something stops working for you, ditch it. It’s not worth feeling miserable for the sake of others, you know? Take care of yourself – anyone who hates on your decision probably wouldn’t be a very nice client, anyway.

And if you’re on the receiving end of a free reading, for goodness’ sake, say thank you!

How do you feel about free tarot readings? Do you offer them?

- Serena Leave a comment

etsy vs. storenvy: where to sell your tarot readings

etsy vs. storenvy: where to sell your tarot readings

One of the most intimidating parts about beginning to sell your tarot readings online can be deciding where – and how – to sell them. There are plenty of online marketplace websites, but I think most people would agree that the two that come to mind right away would be Etsy and Storenvy. I read a lot of reviews of both websites before I set up my online shop for the first time, but none of those reviews were really geared towards tarot readings and I find that the answer of “which is better?” sort of varies depending on what you’re selling. I ended up with both an Etsy and a Storenvy and after using both for a while, I’ve broken down the pros and cons of each platform so you can decide what’s best for you!

Etsy

Etsy is probably the biggest marketplace website out there. It’s a great place to find all kinds of products, mostly handmade items but with a lot of digital offerings, as well.

Pros: Etsy looks professional. People have heard of it, so it looks good on a business card and gives your shop credibility. There are limited customization options, which automatically gives your shop a clean look and makes this an accessible platform for the aesthetically challenged or those who don’t want to bother making a layout for it. They also recently added a category for tarot readings (you find it under Home and Living > Spirituality and Religion > Tarot Readings and Divinations.)

Cons: First of all, there’s a listing fee of .20 cents for each item you list, and you have to renew that fee every six months or so. While this isn’t that steep, it can be intimidating to shell out money when you aren’t making a profit yet. Secondly, Etsy takes a 3.5% cut of everything you sell. Third, I found that it actually wasn’t that easy to set up and customize my shop (with the limited options available) – the fields you need to fill out are sort of scattered over different pages and it took me a while to be able to find my way around. There was also an issue a while back with Etsy removing stores that sold tarot readings or spells and didn’t have a disclaimer saying it was for entertainment purposes only, so you have to be careful that you’re not guaranteeing any kind of outcome of your readings. Finally, because it’s so big, it’s not very likely that someone will stumble on your shop – any clients you find will probably have had to have been directed there from your website.

Storenvy

Storenvy is actually the platform I decided to go with initially. It’s less handmade-focused than Etsy – there are a lot of little trinkets and items for sale that people probably bought wholesale to sell individually. Because of that, you can find a lot of cool and weird stuff on there, and if tarot readings aren’t cool and weird then what is?

Pros: It’s free to list items, so you can get all your stuff out there and not worry about paying anything unless you make a sale (more on that in the Cons section.) You can really customize the way your store looks on Storenvy and it’s not very difficult to figure out how. I think this is important for tarot readers because all of us are so different – the look of your online space goes a long way towards showing a potential client what kind of reader you are, and might be the thing that sells them on choosing you as their reader. Also, they offer this thing you can opt in to called the Marketplace, which basically makes it easier for people to find your stuff and also lets you participate in some seasonal promotions, like for Black Friday, without you having to come up with it yourself.

Cons: There is a 2.9% + $.30 fee from either PayPal or Stripe, whichever you choose, to process payments. This is cheaper than Etsy and probably unavoidable no matter where you sell, but just thought I’d throw it out there. Also, if the sale was facilitated through the Marketplace, Storenvy takes a 10% cut. If you’re not good with HTML, the customization option might hurt you rather than help – you definitely don’t want your shop to look unprofessional. Finally, you have to pay $9 a month to offer coupons and discount codes – that’s steep when you’re just trying to get started! Every time I’ve wanted to do a promotion I’ve had to manually change the cost of all the items in my store, and it means I can’t offer a coupon code to my newsletter subscribers like I do with Etsy.

So those are my thoughts! If you’re just starting out and aren’t sure you want to make any kind of financial investment just yet, I would recommend that you go with Storenvy. It’s fun and free and a good place to learn the ropes of online selling. The fact that it’s free is what pushed me over the edge and I’m glad I started out on there! I do think that you should eventually consider going with Etsy though – it looks professional and many people have heard of it and use it, so that’s more exposure for you!

Do you have any questions about selling on either platform? Which site would (or did) you decide to go with?