My Zazzle store – first week recap and new products
It has been one week since I launched my store, and it kept me busy!
First, I got some nice feedback about my “Seen by an angel” design from the people who I was able to attract to the store, so I am happy about that…
But more importantly, I have learned a lot from just the fast few days. Here is a recap of some of the things that comes to mind (if you want to skip this and just see the new products, please scroll down):
- Like everyone says, it’s a lot of work. And as I mentioned already before, I am not afraid of that. Creating new images and products on the store is one thing, and I had to go through several changes of some of the products because of typos (ouch), image scanning and the such. But more than that is the marketing effort involved. Like I mentioned last week when launching the store , in traditional Art Licensing the artist is not involved in the marketing efforts of the products, but Zazzle (and other Print to Order services) is such a huge place, that without self marketing, the store will fill up with dust! There are many ideas on how to do this elusive marketing, but the approach I took till now (and I admit that I didn’t have too much time to spend on it…) was to Tweet-it, Facebook-it, email it to all my friends and family, mention it on LinkedIn, and on one-on-one conversations.
- Continuing the marketing efforts topic, one of the exciting things that happen is that I offered last week’s blog to EmptyEasel.com, and Dan, the editor, decided to use it! In his own words, “I think you make some great points about how Zazzle (and potentially other online print-on-demand sites) can help an artist get their foot in the door with licensing deals”, especially the six Reasons to Zazzle. Dan will publish it tomorrow (October 16th). Please check it out [Update: Here is the link to the article] and also subscribe to EmptyEasel, it is an amazing resource for artists.
- I have also posted my questions from the blog on the Art of Licensing group at LinkedIn, which is managed by Cherish Flieder. I got some great comments and made some new connections. Here is a summary comment I made to at the end of the discussion, with some new thoughts:
I also tend to believe that putting the art on products doesn’t devalue the art itself. It also shows the manufacturers and agents that I am the type of artist that is willing to put his work on their products, therefore easy to work with!As for the merchants not wanting to use the designs that are already on Zazzle – first, I am not planning to put all of my designs in there, just some of them, so there is more where it came from. Second, what I am showing is my signature art and style. So I can always produce more new designs specifically for new clients/manufacturers. And lastly, I can always pull these designs from Zazzle. It is up to me to control it, and if I understood the licensing agreement with them, I give them the license to use my design only as long as it is available online. Once I pull it off, they can’t use it any longer. As for the mock-ups – I can actually create them on Zazzle and keep them private, so I don’t really have to sell it to anyone… just make screen captures from them…. which is really easy to do.
- EmptyEasel publishing my article on Friday created a deadline for me. I wanted to have new designs and products in my store for all the traffic coming from EmptyEasel. And I know there will be a lot of traffic (relatively speaking) from the last time my article published there few weeks ago. So I cancelled all my evening plans this week (thanks due to my wonderful wife to keeping with that!), and worked till late to create some new designs. Here is what I came up with. I am not sure yet if these will fit into my MA5X4 project, but if they will, it’s an extra bonus! These are the 3 new designs, one for Season’s Greetings and two for Happy Hanukkah. I am showing here only the customizable cards, but the store has many more products with these designs, such as party invitations, postage, buttons, mouse pads, bags, and much more! So please check it out.
Snowy Pine Cone by mikanovsky
Browse more Season Cards
Hanging Hanukkah Candles by mikanovsky
More Hanukka Cards
Playing My Dreidel by mikanovsky
View more Hanukkah Cards
- Now all is left to do, is tell everyone about this blog… Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/email are waiting… here I come….
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Cheers, thank you for reading, and have a wonderful weekend!
Moshe
