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A Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community
About Me :
I'm a grownup nerd living in the Boston burbs. I write computer programs for a living and plays for fun.
I'm married to a wonderful woman, and we share a nice little house with our daughter and our cats.
I'm a humanist, a technologist, an artist, and an idealist. I believe in reason, freedom, love, equality,
and democracy. (Did I mention that I'm
an idealist? I did, OK.)
I'm also a pragmatist and an empiricist. I reject ideology and dogma, especially when they conflict with
practical facts (i.e., pretty much always). I particularly hate willful ignorance, which tends to go hand-in-hand
with ideology and dogma.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Like the alignment of the planets, this blog gets updated as I have the time, inspiration, and inclination to do so.
Friday, March 26, 2004
CafePress and Playwrights' Platform
The Playwrights' Platform Store has just gone live. I have to say, even though the products are pricey, the convenience of CafePress is hard to beat. If you've got art, and you don't want to pay any setup fees, CafePress seems like a good choice. I learned of them because my company used them for its own promotional products.
CafePress's model is very simple. They combine their products (t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, notebooks, and the like) with your art in an on-demand manufacturing process. They provide the web front-end, credit card processing, shipment, customer service, and everything else. You provide the art and the promotion of your "store". They're assuming you'll be able to provide interested customers who want your art on their backs. There are no setup costs and no minimum runs. Each product sells for a base price, which CafePress keeps, plus a markup, which you keep. In the case of Convoq, the markup is zero, since they're only interested in spreading their logo around. However, for Playwrights' Platform, I'm interested in using Platform-branded products as a fund-raiser, and therefore our products have a substantial markup.
I'm going to reserve judgement on them until I've actually got some sample items in my hand, but so far the experience has been very positive. Although setting up the store and its products wasn't a trivial process, the hassle was as low as it could possibly could be. The work also let me dabble in being a graphic designer: all the artwork on the store (and on the Platform's web site) is my own. I'm actually very pleased with the way the "Write Power!" graphic turned out. (...and that it's found a home at last -- I originally designed it for another group, but they didn't care for it.)
The Playwrights' Platform Store has just gone live. I have to say, even though the products are pricey, the convenience of CafePress is hard to beat. If you've got art, and you don't want to pay any setup fees, CafePress seems like a good choice. I learned of them because my company used them for its own promotional products.
CafePress's model is very simple. They combine their products (t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, notebooks, and the like) with your art in an on-demand manufacturing process. They provide the web front-end, credit card processing, shipment, customer service, and everything else. You provide the art and the promotion of your "store". They're assuming you'll be able to provide interested customers who want your art on their backs. There are no setup costs and no minimum runs. Each product sells for a base price, which CafePress keeps, plus a markup, which you keep. In the case of Convoq, the markup is zero, since they're only interested in spreading their logo around. However, for Playwrights' Platform, I'm interested in using Platform-branded products as a fund-raiser, and therefore our products have a substantial markup.
I'm going to reserve judgement on them until I've actually got some sample items in my hand, but so far the experience has been very positive. Although setting up the store and its products wasn't a trivial process, the hassle was as low as it could possibly could be. The work also let me dabble in being a graphic designer: all the artwork on the store (and on the Platform's web site) is my own. I'm actually very pleased with the way the "Write Power!" graphic turned out. (...and that it's found a home at last -- I originally designed it for another group, but they didn't care for it.)