Making a website to sell drawings

RoyMi6 · 7 Jan 2013 at 09:42

Turns out a friend of mine has been hiding a secret talent - amazing at drawing!

(oh yeah, stop me now if I have "Britain's Got Talent 'crazy parent' syndrome" where it is in fact not worthy of anything)

After a bit of discussion she's got pretty interested in the idea of trying to make a tiny bit of money selling online.

I was going to fire her up a quick website to allow her easy advertising but for the actual manufacturing of "t-shirt, mugs, prints" etc I was thinking of setting up a shop with Cafe Press.

She's not planning on making a living from it but feels the exposure will encourage her to pursue her hobby a little more.

So, anyone got any experience with Cafe Press or can they recommend alternatives?

Cheers,
Roy

InertProtocol · 7 Jan 2013 at 09:56

Can't say I've used Cafe Press, but do have to say that picture is fantastic.

Always appreciative of good talents like this.

If your friend ever does any Pink Floyd pictures, please let me know

RoyMi6 · 7 Jan 2013 at 10:19

"Aww! Well, my day has been made"

First time she's ever had a comment on anything outside friends or family so appreciated my man

Oh, Zazzle looks like another option - any opinions on either?

cheechm · 7 Jan 2013 at 15:57

Why not use both? Given that it isn't for a living and these places will take a royalty anyway, then you might as well put her out on as many places as possible. It's also a lot easier than setting up her own website so as long as you can get some good scans, then just upload them to a couple of places (providing that in the terms and conditions they allow it).

Jhaemes · 7 Jan 2013 at 16:00

DeviantArt might be worth a try too.

Got quite a few buddies who sell commissions over DA.

Solaris · 7 Jan 2013 at 16:00

Redbubble.

RoyMi6 · 7 Jan 2013 at 17:25

Cheers guys, all good points and suggestions.

I'll still set her up a website so at the very least she's got something static to link to. All these other sites come and go (as likely hers will

) but if for whatever reason things change it saves the hassle of handing out Cafe Press links one year then Zazzle links the next.

Also with her own website she can link to multiple providers which each might have better prices than the other for certain products.

Solaris - have you had any experience with Redbubble? Not one I've heard of before.

EDIT: Sold on Redbubble just by their about page "What you won't find are any adverts, because adverts are put on websites by the same sort of people who talk in cinemas, ********."

RoyMi6 · 19 Feb 2013 at 15:18

Bit of a update for those that helped out and especially to Solaris for pointing me in the Redbubble direction!

http://mariadrummond.redbubble.com

Her website where she plans on just blogging a little about how she comes up with the ideas of what to draw is still a work in progress but more because she hasn't got time to write the content.

It's been up a couple of weeks and she's made a couple of sales already (5 actually!) but mostly to friends and family with the one exception being a sticker of the Cheetah sold to an unknown buyer

We bought a t-shirt and iPhone case to check the quality and it really is top notch!

So thanks again for the suggestions and IP, I think she's got something in mind regarding you Pink Floyd request