Guides

Intro

Feel free to skip the intro and get right into the important stuff on the other posts
Also before I continue please look at Piney's Accent Shop Guide For a lot of technical information that my guide wont be providing. As well as [Guide] BBCode for the varies coding I used to show examples.
_____________________________________________________________

I know making an accent shop sounds very intimidating, especially if you've already tried making an interest check and found that no one responded. Or that you see these really pretty shops where 100 plus people ordered from and you feel small in comparison.

First and foremost no matter what you think about your art remember this. You can only do things your way. Meaning that it doesn't matter how many people made amazing accents because they still don't have what you will offer. Even IF you have some ideas that other people have also capitalized on. So don't beat yourself down about your art or about a lack of responses because sometimes it doesn't always come down to how good you are.

I say this because even if you're an AMAZING artist with the potential to make amazing accents you need to advertise yourself. You're one out of tons of other people trying to make a few gems but that doesn't mean you can't. It just means you need to make yourself known. I'll be giving you the steps to making your accent shop and some tips.

I'm not covering on how to make accents currently. However I may add an area for that later on if there's demand for it.

Finally don't look at other accent artists as competition. You'll find that a lot of accent artists buy accents from other artists (That's what I usually spend all my gems on!) And that promoting more accent artists mean we can have even more choices and types of skins and accents.

Setting up an Interest Check

Before making an accent shop considering making an interest check topic. Where you make a single accent and show the preview off on a blank dragon. Make sure to avoid going past 30% On your first accent because right now the important thing is to gain interest and make enough gems so you can shoot for bigger goals. It's very expensive to make skins/accents that cover more then 30% and you're not going to want to shoot for that until you have a good ping list.

While making the interest check remember to show off the accent on a dragon and never show the accent alone. Unless you're in a contest don't ever show the accent without anything. Although our community has to be the most honest that I know of, showing it off alone means someone could easily steal the accent and use it themselves. Making sure your example is on a blank dragon means you don't have to worry about it.

Here are some quick tips for working on your interest check.

1. Check it even without getting notified. Some people don't ping you when posting and sometimes you wont receive any notifications after awhile.

2. Consider using resources like G.A.S.P 2 a list of people looking to particular accents. Make sure to avoid pinging people twice.

3. Only bump your shop once per day, when I was a newbie I didn't realize I had to wait 24 hours before bumping. Depending on your time zone try choosing areas of time that have the most people online.

4. Don't get discouraged! It might take awhile for people to see your accent, that doesn't immediately mean they dislike them.

5. For your first accents consider going for popular breeds. You'll find it harder to sell accents on things like Ridgebacks and Snappers, this doesn't mean they're bad. They're all really awesome to work on but the majority of people are really interested in accents made for Imperials and Skydancers. You can still make accents and skins for other breeds. But when you're just starting out you might want to make things easier by going with something more popular.

Making your Shop

If you decided to make an interest check by the time you set up a shop you're hopefully have some potential buyers.

Your shop name can be edited and for that reason make it work in progess while you're setting it up. Then rename it to what ever you prefer. I personally started by naming off the breed and dragon accent I'm selling to draw in more people.

Decide on the post pattern you plan to have with your shop. You need to try and keep your shop nice and organized. Make about three or four reserved posts, For things like intro's, prices and and the area where you'll have past accents later. Take a look at other shops to get an idea of how they structure things then decide how you plan to do yours. Don't worry about making to many reserved posts. You can always delete any extras you don't need. But once people start posting? You can't really get that space on the front page back.

Decide if you'd want banners or not to help give your shop more character. These aren't extremely important, they're more of an outside appearance to give the accent shop more flavor. If you are going with a specific theme you could do lets say, flowers and vines for earthy accents and so forth. I prefer making my own banners somewhat neutral because my accents are often times random.

Now put up your accent preview and the price you intend to sell it for. Again I'd stick with 500gems per person for the first few accents. Unless it's very complex, all in all don't shoot for making a mega amount of gems off of a single accent. Remember that a lot of people are paying real currency so that 500gems is easily 5 bucks per person so the more expensive it is the more demand there has to be.

Ping all the people previously interested and if they still want to buy the accent make a ping list for them. As well as a general ping list for people who are interested in things you make in the future.

[size=6][b]Important Information[/b][/size] Just because you have a shop up doesn't suddenly mean you're done! There's quite a few more things you're going to want to do afterwards. [b]Start with Pre-orders. [/b] Unless you're very confident in your art to sell and are willing to spend the full amount you should start with pre-orders. Pre-ordering seems intimidating but if you can't just buy gems then it's very useful to do first. Once you have about 5 customers tell them that pre-orders are ready and wait for them to send you the gems. [b]Clear all your previous pms and sent messages before you've accepted any gems for the accents. [/b] Trust me there's nothing worse then not knowing who paid for what and although your shop should have a list for each accent consisting something like... Selling: Blueberry Bell for F.Fae 500 gems (Picture) 1. Picklyplumgirl9123 PAID and SENT 2. Superman64 HOLDING 3. 4. 5. To keep track you're going to want to hold onto ALL of your pms, payments and sent accents until you are utterly done with that set of customers. Organization is key, sometimes I even keep the gems in that pm until I'm buying the accent blueprints just so I don't have to separate my gems from the gems going towards the skin or accent. This applies more so to people doing pre-orders. [b]Ask people who've paid to post that they paid in the shop.[/b]They don't have to do this, and you don't have to ask but asking them to let you know they paid in the shop is helpful for a few reasons. If you lose your pm message they sent you'll know they paid by the post in your shop area. You're be gaining free bumps in a sense. Any time someone posts even to let you know they paid for something is another bump up towards the top without you wasting your daily bump. [b]Always buy packs of ten[/b] Unless your accent is limited edition and you plan to sell it for a higher price ALWAYS buy packs of ten. There's a few reasons for this. First if you're going with the suggested price of 500 gems per accent then you'll be making 2500 gems in total. 1750 gems will already go back into simply making the accent into the accent item leaving you with nothing but 750 gems to yourself. But if you sell packs of ten things get way better. Even if you only have 5 customers don't buy the 1750gem 5 packs just to make some quick gems. Buy the 10 back even if it costs you all your gems. The fact that you got five people interested is enough to know that you likely have interest somewhere else. Out of the other five accents keep one for yourself for the meantime and sell the other accents on the Auction House for either the same price or higher. Making the price 525 gems, 550 gems or 600 gems might give you a little extra profit. But keep the accents in your actual shop the same price for consistency. By selling those other accents on the AH for 500gems You've made at least 2000gems from 4 accents. Another example is selling them for 525 gems getting a total profit of 2627 which would be enough to purchase another accent pack and also not be to expensive for customers. [b]Keep a single accent for yourself[/b] Always put yourself on the list for one of the copies of your accent. You can always sell it at a higher price after your accents stop selling. Or you can show it off on one of you dragons but most importantly holding onto that accent is good for remembering the accents item number. [b]Accent Item Number[/b] [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/vaJDiB1.png[/img] In the lower left end of your finished accent there is a small number. This number will be important if you want to show off new accents that have already been made or past accents. By using this code [code][skin=INSERT ITEM NUMBER HERE][/code] You'll be able to show off your accent properly after it's been made like so. [skin=9670] [b]Linking to your accent shop[/b] I'd suggest posting this either on your profile page or signature. [code][url=URL TO THE PAGE HERE]INSERT TEXT OR IMAGE TO BE CLICKED HERE[/url][/code] The result will be an [url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/skin/1339147=]Accent Shop[/url] link like that. [b]Making previews [/b] Since I've only done this with photoshop that's the method I'll be showing you today. 1. If the dragon is wearing apparel go to the dragon's page. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/CfE627k.png[/img] 2. Copy the number down right beside the name. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/DWunCKE.png[/img] 3. Go to the Scrying Workshop at the bottom in the library area to the left Then click the one that says Predict Morphology. 4.[img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/0FNNruj.png[/img] Paste the number into the load dragon area and click enter. 5. Right click the picture of the dragon and save image as to the selected folder of your choice. 6. Open up Photoshop and then open the finished accent. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/wLPPqGX.png[/img] 7. Open your documents and go to your images then go to the selected folder where you put the dragon image in. Drag the dragon by left clicking and holding the button down. You'll see a faded image of the dragon. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/vdWiHPF.png[/img] 8.Drag the dragon to photoshop. Put the dragged image to the accent and then release the left mouse button. You'll know if you've done it right because it'll look like this. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/sU7Wp8W.png[/img] In the upper left corner you'll see this square tool, click on it [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/y1qr2KL.png[/img] Then press place when this window pops up. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/dFi9MuN.png[/img] 9. Move the layer with the dragon on it from the top to the bottom. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/zhDMVxo.png[/img] 10. Bathe in the glory of the dragon you were able to make a preview of and save the file as a NEW png image. Make sure not to accidentally save it onto the accent. Or take a screenshot and send it to the person who wanted the preview. [img]http://img.prntscr.com/img?url=http://i.imgur.com/lynLtGZ.png[/img]

Accent Shop Template

Each reserved post is utterly separate from each other and not one huge post like how it is here. This is a very basic example.
_________________________________________________
1. Reserved post one.
BannerOptional

Give a little information on your shop like prices, rules and updates!
words words words words words words words words words wordswords words words words words words words words words words words words words words words words

This is personally where I like to put my ping list
1.People 2.People.4People.5. People 6. I skipped 3. people.
_______________________________________________________
2. Post two
Banner Optional

Above would be the accent banner if you choose to add multiples, below should be an image of all the accents you plan to sell. So make sure to have it as a separate post showing off previews.

Picture1
Name of accent goes here as well as price
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
_________________________________________
Post 3
Past accents BannerOptional
Accent item codes go here!

Ask and Answer

Feel free to ask me any questions about making accents and accent shops and I'll do my best to help. If the question is particularly useful I'll post both the question and the answer below as added information.








______________________________________________________________
Critiques are welcomed and will help me improve. So if you find grammar errors, information errors or want me to change something please inform me.

Ping List.

Reserved

@Nemeth @Nihilo @Ismaiel @Pheonixia @opus13 @Snek @Amut

Now that it's done I thought I'd ping you guys since you seemed most interested or had a friend that was interested.

@Monako. Thank you! This looks good so far, very informative. I especially love the instructions about how to make previews. You use PS CS5, which is cool, I have CS2, however, you didn't specify what kind of computer you're using. Not that it's very important to the instructions, but Windows and OSX computers sometimes use different filepaths.

To be honest, I don't rightly know if the drag to PS trick would work on mine, since it's an OSX. Is it also possible to open a new layer for the dragon beneath the accent layer, or would that mess up alignment too much?

@Amut No problem! I'm sadly using windows 8 however I recall the method of left clicking and dragging images with XP But I'll mess around with photoshop and see if I can find other ways to move the image for layering. I'll ping you once I figure it out. I'm also using a laptop/notepad.