Support your local starving artist!

[ellenmillion]

*clears throat and shamelessly plugs*

For those of you who are squawking (and rightly so) about CafePress, do drop me a line; I am happy to set up an on-demand printing service with you individually, and I do have access to products that I don't list. Just ask. My prices are here, and I think you'll find they're competitive. I won't run a shopping cart for you, but most of you probably already have PayPal accounts and can do that on your own anyway.

I don't have any minimum sales per year clauses. I never will. I'm not going to charge anyone for something that doesn't sell; you collect the payment and then send some of it to me to get the products mailed. I'm not a big impersonal corporation that is too important to listen to you. And I don't require any of that copyright legal mumbo-jumbo because I'm not accepting money from a third party, I'm paid to print for you, the artist, and shipping to the customer, not printing your work for the customer directly. It's a subtle difference, but important.

And for heavens sake, they've always been a ripoff. You know how much blank mousepads cost? $0.99. Less than a dollar. (They do double in cost for me because of shipping to Alaska, but I *know* that CafePress does enough business to get better rates that I do on everything, so their markups must be absolutely ridiculous.) Transfers are $.67. Ink runs about $.50 for mousepad needs. I have to make a special trip into town to get them pressed, which costs me lots of time and money, but CafePress must have a press in-house. My price on mousepads is still cheaper than theirs.

If you have any reservations about quality because I'm such a teensy business, I invite you to talk to any of my customers. I have a complete satisfaction guarantee, and I haven't ever had an order, or any part of an order, returned in the ten years (come October) that I've been in business.

Email me at ellen @ ellenmilliongraphics.com if you have any questions I can answer for you.

End plug.

I have zebra-striped tights! And I drank waaaay too much coffee this morning.

Comments

cool!

[uneide.livejournal.com]

Zebra striped tights??? coolness! :D

And.. bleah, you are tempting me....*contemplates* I'll look over your prices in more detail.. ^-^;;

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to make copies of some of my kirins to get cards and prints and whatnot done to send to you, but I admit I've been kinda lazy lately. :-D

gnh

[ciri.livejournal.com]

I was going to do this, um, over a year ago? Then it kind of slipped by the wayside...

Since I'm rebuilding my website now this would be a good time to do it. Just tell me what I need to do.

curious....

[uneide.livejournal.com]

Bookmarks and other things that you carry as part of your store... can artists get you to do custom printing for that kind of product too?

[talysman.livejournal.com]

The question at this point really being, I suppose, are you putting pictures of zebra-striped tights on mousepads because you've had too much coffee? ;) I never really considered Cafepress simply because I never thought that enough people would buy the drivel I produce to make it worth my while. If I need something printed like that, though, I'll definitely look to you first.

Re: curious....

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Yup! I can also get my hands on mugs, ornaments, bags, ceramic tiles, T-shirts, caps... you name it and I can probably get it for you. I can even get embroidery done, though that may require some set-up fees. Of course, my prices won't be quite as *good* on the things I don't regularly stock, just by rules of mass quantity. Most of these things I do hope to start stocking.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Woot!

Re: gnh

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

Just get me some print-worthy files, set up a shopping cart (or some kind of payment method) on your webpage, talk to me about transfering payment (I recommend PayPal, just for speediness), and we're there. The only thing I really request is that you get me print files *before* you start advertising, just so I can check over the file quality.