new ad

We would like your thoughts about our new ad that will be appearing in various magazines.

New textures

We have recently been asked to offer a couple of new textures that would be similar to what our respected competitor, Paper Creek offers.   Specifically the tar papers.  We have until now, purposefully, stayed away from doing so.  We respect their product and want it to continue.  To be straight forward, we have seen several new competitors in the paper model world, even Walther’s.  Most of them don’t make a product that we feel reflects the quality image that we are trying to establish with our careful attention to image quality and design.  Paper Creek has made great kits until their recent suspension of business.  We sincerely hope they return to the market.  We have made an effort to approach them to see if there is a way we could help to keep their product available but have received no reply.
Long story short, we have added several new textures, specifically roofing materials, that are similar to what is no longer available from PC.  We will also be offering western style buildings to fill out a line begun by our western store.
We feel this is a fair action and hope you all will agree.  Let us know your thoughts.

Grass roots marketing.

I want to thank everyone who gets excited about paper kits and talks it up and shows the results to friends and colleagues.

Every time some one of you display your work, it helps spread the word.  To a little company like ours, (that can rarely afford advertising), that means a lot.

Sales are down for most everyone but it does hit us hard because the product is rather low cost which translates into low profit.  I could blame it on the economy.  That’s surely a part of it, but I sense that it’s also that we need to reach a deeper pool of people.  We are going to make an effort to reach more folks by offering more seminars and demonstrations in the coming year.

I’m also hoping to get our products into other manufacturers kits.  I just did an interior for RS Laser and others are looking to use our roofing.

This issue only raises it’s head because my other work in the graphic arts and animation, design world is also depressed.  This last year has been devastating for the art crowd.  Most of my contemporaries have had little or no work.  Clever Models has saved my bacon from time to time to the detriment of the company, IE lack of advertising and travel funds.

So it’s dig in and get people to talk about Clever Models and how much you enjoy them.  I know this is preaching to the choir, the group that reads this blog consistently is already doing that and I thank you.

Trainfest

Dave and I went to Trainfest this weekend.  It would have been nice to go to CSS again but that’s a thousand miles away.  I like going to train shows, so it’s great to have such a good show only 90 miles away.  Trainfest is one of the great shows.  As usual we touched base with our good friends John and Chris  from the Gypsy Trolley Line.  That layout just keeps getting better and bigger.  John had a few of the new buildings off to the side, that will be on next years addition.  He’s become a very accomplished designer on his own.  I got to hang out and answer questions for folks and also gave John a chance to get away and see the show.  We were pretty much tourists ourselves, buying the few detail parts I need for my own layout, that I can’t make from paper.

If you ever get a chance to see Trainfest, I recommend it.