Inappropriate Remarks and Magical Things
There are both a special satisfaction and a special disappointment that come with having a store in Second Life. Well, not everyone gets both, but let's say it's a common thing.
The satisfaction comes from creating things out of thin air - prims and texture, shapes and animations, all a bunch of clicks on a computer. The main barriers between you and having practically any object or outfit you want in Second Life are creativity, skill, and time.
So if you start a store, then you get to put those things out there and have a showplace, and you can say to yourself "I built all these things. I brought these things into being, and I didn't even need a midwife." And then if someone actually buys something from you, there's that other thrill: you made something so attractive that someone was willing to spend money on it! And what you put out there was just made up, just (as a friend mentioned the other night) "pixels on the screen." What a sucker! You're going to make a killing!
Well, I'm kidding about the sucker part, or else as an avid shopper I'll just put myself with the suckers. And of course the chance of you creating something that sells so well that you'll actually be compensated reasonably for the time you put into making it are slim unless you're talented and dedicated, or so dedicated that you're willing to learn your talent and push on from there.
Then there's the disappointment thing. The disappointment is that, with few exceptions, the world does not beat a path to your door just because you rezzed a better mousetrap. In fact, the world probably has no idea that you are offering that mousetrap, and if they do, they are probably skeptical of it being a better one, and even if they believe that it is better, they aren't really in need of a mousetrap at this time. So first, there are times when you don't sell anything, or you're selling some things but your special project that you thought would rock the world isn't selling even though other things are, and second, just like in real life, having a successful business usually means marketing.
Well, that concludes the sociological portion of our discussion as we move on to the "News in Kate's Second Life" portion, also known as the shopping portion. The news is that I've moved from a small shop in Vixen's Isle to a much larger, new double store that Eris Fallon and I built ourselves: Kate Tease (my store, which sells women's tops with inappropriate remarks on them and magical accessories) and Strict Affections (Eris's store, which isn't open yet, but which as you can probably guess will be offering some nicely-scripted and animated kinky disciplinary things).
We built the stores as one building, with Kate Tease up top, partly open to the sky (for easy fly-in, fly-out access) and Strict Affections as a sort of dungeon below, accessed through a sketchy-looking side alley. The construction is topped up with a green-glass-and-copper dome held up by four sets of fluttering angel wings, courtesy of Jen Shikami (thanks, Jen!).
My original stock in trade was my Kate Tease tops, sort of t-shirts with a pedigree and a smart mouth. The mildest of these is the Wing Fetishist top; some of the others say things like "In RL, I'm kissing your girlfriend right now" and "No age play: it's confusing enough just pretending I'm not a teen".
Then there are some things I finished recently, like a chest that releases hundreds of bats when you touch it, a color-change, sparking anti-halo, and color change faerie glow. I built a color change HUD for my color change items and have some ideas for upgrades. :)
We have a couple of freebies there at the moment: Coadey Concord's Aurora particle wings, by far the best particle wings I've ever seen (L$1) and a free Kate Tease wing logo top (L$0).
I'm always grateful for comments, suggestions, and requests, even if they're that you don't like something.
Oh, and we chose a location with a Linden road out front, so you're also welcome to come to the store, rez a vehicle (visitors have temporary rez permissions out there) and then go take a ride. :)
^^^\ Kate /^^^
The satisfaction comes from creating things out of thin air - prims and texture, shapes and animations, all a bunch of clicks on a computer. The main barriers between you and having practically any object or outfit you want in Second Life are creativity, skill, and time.
So if you start a store, then you get to put those things out there and have a showplace, and you can say to yourself "I built all these things. I brought these things into being, and I didn't even need a midwife." And then if someone actually buys something from you, there's that other thrill: you made something so attractive that someone was willing to spend money on it! And what you put out there was just made up, just (as a friend mentioned the other night) "pixels on the screen." What a sucker! You're going to make a killing!
Well, I'm kidding about the sucker part, or else as an avid shopper I'll just put myself with the suckers. And of course the chance of you creating something that sells so well that you'll actually be compensated reasonably for the time you put into making it are slim unless you're talented and dedicated, or so dedicated that you're willing to learn your talent and push on from there.
Then there's the disappointment thing. The disappointment is that, with few exceptions, the world does not beat a path to your door just because you rezzed a better mousetrap. In fact, the world probably has no idea that you are offering that mousetrap, and if they do, they are probably skeptical of it being a better one, and even if they believe that it is better, they aren't really in need of a mousetrap at this time. So first, there are times when you don't sell anything, or you're selling some things but your special project that you thought would rock the world isn't selling even though other things are, and second, just like in real life, having a successful business usually means marketing.
Well, that concludes the sociological portion of our discussion as we move on to the "News in Kate's Second Life" portion, also known as the shopping portion. The news is that I've moved from a small shop in Vixen's Isle to a much larger, new double store that Eris Fallon and I built ourselves: Kate Tease (my store, which sells women's tops with inappropriate remarks on them and magical accessories) and Strict Affections (Eris's store, which isn't open yet, but which as you can probably guess will be offering some nicely-scripted and animated kinky disciplinary things).
We built the stores as one building, with Kate Tease up top, partly open to the sky (for easy fly-in, fly-out access) and Strict Affections as a sort of dungeon below, accessed through a sketchy-looking side alley. The construction is topped up with a green-glass-and-copper dome held up by four sets of fluttering angel wings, courtesy of Jen Shikami (thanks, Jen!).
My original stock in trade was my Kate Tease tops, sort of t-shirts with a pedigree and a smart mouth. The mildest of these is the Wing Fetishist top; some of the others say things like "In RL, I'm kissing your girlfriend right now" and "No age play: it's confusing enough just pretending I'm not a teen".
Then there are some things I finished recently, like a chest that releases hundreds of bats when you touch it, a color-change, sparking anti-halo, and color change faerie glow. I built a color change HUD for my color change items and have some ideas for upgrades. :)
We have a couple of freebies there at the moment: Coadey Concord's Aurora particle wings, by far the best particle wings I've ever seen (L$1) and a free Kate Tease wing logo top (L$0).
I'm always grateful for comments, suggestions, and requests, even if they're that you don't like something.
Oh, and we chose a location with a Linden road out front, so you're also welcome to come to the store, rez a vehicle (visitors have temporary rez permissions out there) and then go take a ride. :)
^^^\ Kate /^^^