Etsy and Redbubble

The regular readers that are sharp-eyed may notice a small change to this blog. Situated on the right, at top of the google ads (click those occasionally!) are two new links to my RedBubble and Etsy shops.

RedBubble is an Australian site that lets people sell their artworks online. I like it because it does all the printing, matting or framing for me - I don't have to worry about printing them, finding mats that fit, finding frames, or getting them to the post office. And it's free for me - though they do take a big chunk of commission (60%-%70%). Ouchie. Downside? In my opinion, it's a bit on expensive side. But as far as I can tell, the quality of these prints and frames are pretty nice.

If you're a regular reader and you click on this link, you probably will recognize a number of pictures.

Etsy, a similar site, takes only 3.5% commission, but charges me a small fee for each item I want to put up for sale. I don't have anything in the shop up for sale yet. I'm hemming and hawing on what products and service I want to offer. Should I offer the same photos as in RedBubble? If so, should I match the prices? This shop is a little more work - I actually have to schlep down to the post office to mail the photos. The horrors!

At suggestion of a friend, I think I'm going to offer custom cards - baby, wedding, party announcements, and other similar service. Once I make up the templates, the work I need to do will be pretty minimal.

There are tons of competition, however, so we'll see how successful this endeavor is.

One other change: some - probably all - of the future photos posted here will not have the watermark anymore; I'm going to start using a signature in the photos I sell in these shops, and it seems redundant to have two copies of the same image, one with the watermark, other with the signature.
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In other news: Vinyl and no AC...not pretty.