de Corbin
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Registered: 09-2008
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Print on Demand - get your work on a shirt!
Back in the old days, if you wanted to sell t-shirts, mugs, etc. with your designs on them, you'd have to order up a gross or two.
Which meant that you had fork out a lot of cash up front, hang on to inventory, and hope that it sold well.
In other words, most artists couldn't afford to do it.
Well, thanks to the wonder of the Internet and the modern world, that's no longer true!
There are several services which will print your work on a variety of useful stuff - from teddy bears to g-strings - without charging you a penny, or even requiring you to buy a dang thing.
Run a search for Print on demand to get a list of companies that offer this service. I use Cafe Press, and, since that is the company I am most familiar with, I'll explain how Cafe Press works. But first, here's a link to their website:
http://www.cafepress.com/
So here's what you do...
1. Register with Cafe Press.
2. Set up a shop (a very limited shop is free, a very unlimited shop will run you about $7 a month).
3. Upload your images, and decide what items you want to make available with the image on it (Cafe Press has a HUGE variety of stuff!)
4. Decide on your mark up. This is where you can make your money. When somebody buys one of your items, the base price goes to Cafe Press, the mark up goes to you. The mark up can be anything from $0 up. Anything you buy from your own shop is sold to you at the base price.
5. Put up a link to your store on your website, tell people about it, etc.
6. Sit back and relax. All credit card dealing, printing, shipping, etc. is handled by Cafe Press. No fuss, no bother.
How you can use this:
* Sell t-shirts and other stuff with very little overhead.
* Make personal gifts and promotional items.
* Outfit your sales team at the fair (probably your family members  ) with logo shirts.
* Goof around and have fun making all kinds of wacky stuff (a photo of Aunt Bertha's dentures on drink coasters? Ewww... But funny  )
Advantages:
* Tiny overhead
* No headaches regarding credit cards or shipping
* Easy to do - extensive tutorials and instructions on-line
Disadvantages:
* The base price on items is fairly high (well, they're doing the boring work, after all)
* A shop with a variety of items will cost you $7 a month
* You will need to handle any advertising yourself (if you choose, you can list your designs on the Cafe Press website - but there are so many designs already there that yours will get lost in the general mass of 'em)
If you'd like to take a look at what a Cafe Press shop looks like, here's a link to mine:
http://www.cafepress.com/splendidfish
Go ahead and give it a shot - remember, a limited shop is absolutely free, so you can play around without spending a dime!
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11/29/2008, 8:03 pm
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