I wouldn't do that. that is really annoying, because it's a lot like spam. and we all try to keep as much spam out of our email as possible.

sometimes I might like, drop a hint in someone's threadless blog that I have an exciting new submission up for voting and that I'd really appreciate them stopping by and voting/leaving a comment if they like it.

but sometimes that person just doesn't care

even if they like have their own exciting new design up at the time

and I'd just voted for it

because it was great

yea i also dislike spam, I especially feel bad spamming my friends...

i say forget your contacts...
no one's going to sign up just to vote for one submission unless you give them free internet...
i say stick to your thread people, maybe emptees most of those people probably already have an account here but don't visit the blogosphere as often...

the number of people voting on submissions seems to have reduced dramatically in the last year. I remember when the average used to be about 3000 per sub

I have promised friends cake for voting, if I'd win. In the end, I had to eat all the cake myself, so I stopped doing that. it's bad for yer health.

[ + isn't it a bit cringe when you see "I'll vote for you if you vote for mine"... haha ]

I sent an email to the threadless peeps just once, for my latest collab with Brentendo. But I felt bad immediately afterwards :( So sorry if you considdered it as spam :) Won't happen again.

then I might make an amusing over the top joke in the person's blog, much to the delight of onlookers and curious passersby, but it could still go over the person's head

heh

you have to go the self-promotion route so that it's not annoying and unprofessional.

try the easy ones first:
twitter
myspace
facebook
personal blog
personal website

only post your updates on your own profiles, not on anyone elses though. add "friends" and contacts and watch the hits come rolling in.

I signed up to twitter the other day, still haven't figured out what its for.

then the person could just snub me right to my face, and I would think "holy crap. did that just happen?"

It's for 'tweeting' SouthPeak games that we want more Ninjatown.

Ah I see

I didn't know what to write, so I said. " Hey everybody, whats up?" Then I realized I had no friends yet.

I got excited when all of a sudden people started 'following' me... then I realised they were both spammers trying to sell me American life insurance.

its kind of nice to know that you have "followers", it makes you feel important.

I put a link on my Facebook status. That's it.

ive never promoted out of threadless :(

I sometimes post stuff to Design You Trust, its a design inspiration blog that has about 3000 readers, I'm not sure how many people actually bother to vote though.

I occasionally use flickr to do it.

Flickr seems to work well for getting seen and raising your internet celebrity status, I think. Like Spacesick or Olly Moss got on digg and things for "Shoot the Baddies" and "I Can Read Movies" etc. Shoot the Baddies was really successful on digg and was an actual design, unlike I Can Read Movies which would only bring attention indirectly but I don't know if it translated into any extra votes. It may mean extra Flickr contacts who will see subs in the future.

I've been kind of looking into it because I made a blog about how people should promote their designs here. I tried to talk about all the tools Threadless gives you on the Share Design page. You probably might as well submit to digg etc, it won't hurt, but I don't know of any example that actually really paid off for attention on Threadless, just attention on digg. I think people might stick to their own communities rather than venture into others.

having fans outside must help a bit. A guy just brought in a few hundred extra votes for his sub as a result of being popular on Deviant Art.

Usually just make a blog on Threadless and post it on Emtpees.

Don't email! For the love of God. Don't email.

This blog is a perfect place to pimp your design - Joel! Post a link - it's an awesome design.

Emptees seems like the best because the people there are t-shirt enthusiasts. They may not spend all their time on threadless, maybe they hang out on other t-shirt sites, or just Emptees. But it's likely they have accounts here already and would buy somethhing if they liked it so would be motivated to vote.

true, good advice. I decided not to spam anybody :)

what im always worried about is if you outside promote a ton and say you get all your friends that just come and vote 5 for you... its cheap cause most people you convince to vote for your sub wont participate and vote for others.... so thats what im worried about when i once told a few friends to vote, so now i just keep it in the threadless community and occasionally emptees

I reckon thats ok though, they encourage you to do it. I just started a "guess that score blog" it seems to the most effective/least annoying way to promote within the threadless community.