EB Friday Hotlist: It's Not Too Late to Advertise for the (Handmade) Holidays

September and October came and went pretty quickly this year.  Lots of the handmade gift guides finish accepting submissions during those months, but that doesn't mean you're totally out of luck if you didn't already act.  I have a few ideas for my crafty but procrastinating readers to make a last minute effort to promote yourselves during the biggest shopping season of the year:

If you've got something handmade, unique, and beautifully photographed, you can submit to the Handmade Gift Guide at any time for free.  If selected, your only "cost" is adding the Handmade Gift Guide button to your blog and promoting your feature - gee, shouldn't you want to do that anyway?  Go ahead and submit now and you just might have your item featured in time for the shopping season.

Are you a member of an Etsy team?  Get your fellow members involved with Handmade Spark's Handmade Holiday Gift Guide.  Sure they've already featured tons of teams, but since they stated that there was no deadline for submissions, you should hurry up and talk to your team leader about this opportunity.   Don't wait - you don't know how many teams may already have posts lined up!

Also, if you're a premium (paid) member on Zibbet, you can put the items of your choice into any of several gift guides.  The problem?  Customers can't actually view them yet.  When you click the front page graphic advertising the gift guides, it takes you to a "Coming Soon" page at the time of this post.  I have no idea why they already have a link up for a feature shoppers can't access with no apparent ETA, but hopefully they will post them ASAP.  And by ASAP, I'm hoping within the next week or it won't be worth much this season.  I don't recommend upgrading to access this feature because I don't know what it will look like or if it will even be ready in enough time to matter this year, but if you're already premium it costs nothing to add a few items.

Some other ways to get noticed this holiday season include:

• Submitting your craft project ideas to blogs and indie sites that are posting tutorial collections for Thanksgiving or one of the religious holidays this winter
• Posting and promoting your own holiday gift guide on your blog or website
• Guest blog for someone who is taking time off this holiday season and help keep their content interesting for readers
• Consider investing in paid advertising on websites featuring holiday gift guides that are already full, because quite frankly, that's where the handmade-minded shoppers will be
• Consider running a Black Friday or after-Christmas sale.  Participate in the sales promotion opportunities provided by your selling venues.

Do you know of any other last minute places to submit your work this handmade holiday season?  Any suggestions for next year?  Let us know in the comments!

Until next time,

Elle