For those not in the know, Etsy has been progressively becoming a worse and worse platform for artists. It takes a huge cut from every sale, never protected artists from theft and would take down their listings when bootlegs copied the designs and sold them on third party websites, allowing the flood of AI products which takes away valuable sales from human artists, and most recently allowing sellers to sell All*gator Alc*traz merchandise, which I don’t even have the words to properly describe how disgusting that is. Due to all of this, I have moved all of my current listings over to my own Ko-Fi page. This will hopefully be better for both me and the customer, reducing the amount of tax the buyer must pay and giving me the profits directly. However, I will be transparent, I will be keeping my listings on Etsy for the foreseeable future. This is simply because I do not have a big enough audience on social media to rely on them to know where to find my shop and support me through that platform. On Etsy, I can be found much more easily by people simply looking up “MCYT” or “Life Series” without them knowing who I am. I make most of my sales from non followers, and those sales are my main source of income. Perhaps one day I will have the luxury to switch off Etsy entirely, but where I am in my life right now I still rely on it. But I will no longer be promoting it on my social media. From now on, I will be directing people to my Ko-Fi rather than Etsy, for the personal and ethical reasons I mentioned above, but I still allow people to find me through Etsy on their own. Thank you to everyone who has ever purchased something from me, placed an item in their cart, or just liking my posts here. Your support allows me to do something I never thought I could: make a living from my artwork. In a world where the job market is so unreliable, the fact I can do this is truly incredible. Thank you all so much, I love and appreciate every single one of you 🫶
