15/08/2023 0:11:03 ¶ ●

# fair print-on-demand for artists?

i’m making this its own post for more visibility - feel free to reblog, i’m primarily looking to hear from other artists rather than from customers.

quick definition: a print-on-demand service (POD) is a company that allows you to upload your designs (that you retain full rights to) and have them printed on a variety of products - usually t-shirts & other apparel, stickers, mugs, etc. - by the company itself or a subcontractor. the key here is that you’re not ordering a supply of products to sell yourself (or not) at a later date, you’re offering customers the ability to go to this website and select a potential product which is then printed on demand, and the company handles all the interaction with the customer (shipping, quality & returns, etc.). because they’re doing the manufacturing & shipping, they take a significant cut, but different companies have different pricing structures & some are more fair to artists in terms of profit margins than others.

TLDR: i’m looking for a new POD service to replace my Redbubble account, which i deleted after they decided to severely undercut creators (especially small artists). more details below, please read before you rec!

so the nice thing about POD is that it’s passive income - you made the work, you put it up & leave it, people buy things when they want & you get a bit of money when that happens. i also - infrequently! - run an Etsy shop where i sell things i’ve either handmade or ordered from suppliers (mostly stickers). i get more money from that, yes, and also it’s a lot more work on my end. i primarily work as a freelancer illustrator, i’ve started selling at (COVID cautious) in-person events again, & i’m disabled - this is why my Etsy has been empty all year.

i am very lucky to have enough of a following to be able to regularly sell all my stock when i do put it on Etsy, and (when I had an account) to have a smaller but steadier trickle of income from POD. i do not have enough of a following for it to make sense for me to order large quantities of apparel-type products & sell them myself.

it’s frustrating to see that many alternatives to Redbubble (like Bonfire or Spring) have moved to a “campaign” model where you release a design in a time-limited campaign with a selling goal, aggressively promote it on social media, & then all the products (shirts, whatever) are shipped at the same time. i understand why it exists - larger batches mean lower manufacturing costs & higher profit - but for someone like me who doesn’t have a massive social media following or really even a big presence now that Twitter is dying, i’m not sure it could work. for me the point is that i put it up, i leave it alone, i direct people towards my shop & the small handful of beautiful weirdos who vibe with my work can buy what they want on their own time (i adore you, weirdos! there are so many more of you than i ever expected, but i am not, as the kids say, an “influencer”)

i’ve been researching various companies & i keep finding that Redbubble, prior to their nasty fee restructuring, seemed to have some of the fairest profit margins due to the ability to set your own pricing above the manufacturing costs. what i want to hear from other artists is where you sell & if you feel like different systems (Society6’s 10%, for example, or Threadless’ artist cost-setting vs. letting them manage your shop & offer discounts to move more products) work or are ripping you off.

thanks so much for reading & solidarity to all the other working artists who are struggling to stay afloat as various social media collapses & corporate greed continues to cut our opportunities in half!!! for the love of fuck just let me make things & get paid

31/08/2023 3:16:45 ¶ ●

ALT

corona moon

revisiting this little vent from May 2020 & thinking about how much has changed / how little has changed / how difficult it would be to explain my current anxiety & grief & anger (as a disabled/immunocompromised person who has never stopped masking) to the version of me that drew this. i’m not sure i would have believed where we’d be in 2023. it’s not over & we’re not disposable.

[ID: a pen drawing of a bandaged crescent moon with a virion floating inside, over two full moon faces. one face is biting the nails on the hand of a detached arm with multiple joints and spikes through the forearm. the other face is crying into the hand of a second detached arm that loops around the first.]