Make personalized gifts at Zazzle.
The benefit for me of the Zazzle store is that once the products are designed, my job is done. I strongly recommend them for other photographers who are looking for promotional gifts for their own sites; or trinkets to send to customers along with prints. I made a bunch of mistakes in terms of organizing things when I first started, so here’s the main thing: spend the time to upload the largest images you are going to use. PNG format with sRGB color space works best. Make sure you unclick the box about having whites show as transparent unless you really understand what that is going to do. Dark fabrics definitely work best, but the white fabrics are okay for certain images if they don’t contain too much white.
If you have a main site (like I do) where you are selling prints, make sure to include a link back to that site. You’ll get some traffic from that. It won’t effect search engines as Zazzle will put a “nofollow” in any links. Check out the Beta Store stuff and don’t be too afraid of it. You can usually revert to what you had before if you mess something out, and it allows you to modify many things such as the order of modules in the sidebar.
Let people have the option of removing your logo if you stick it on a product. Most people I’ve met while wearing a shirt actually like seeing the web site logo on the shirt; and having it on the back of cards and calendars is just one more possible way to have someone visit your main site.
I’ve made hundreds of cards so far; and plan to do the same for some of the other products. Why? It helps when people are searching for stuff in Zazzle. In other words, maybe one shirt that has Central Park stuff will appear in a Zazzle search, but if you have 50 Central Park shots there’s a better chance that you’ll get some activity from the Zazzle (as well as other search engines) searches.
Plan your categories carefully. If you are going to have tons of any one product, it is very helpful to break it into smaller categories. I still don’t have that part fully figured out. And don’t expect overnight sales, but expect that you’ll get a few referrals that may surprise you. i.e. someone looking for a Central Park shot finds you, but then goes to someone else’s product in the Marketplace store. If they’ve come from your page – it counts as a referral and there is money to be made this way.
Well, that’s what I’ve learned at the time of this writing which is one month into the Zazzle experience. It has definitely helped me more than anything else I’ve tried, i.e. Google Adsense and/or Amazon Associates – and the reason is that rather than pushing people towards someone else’s product – you are referring them to your own products which makes more sense.
I’ve been very interested in your Zazzle posts, because I’m thinking about going that way myself. I’ve never really merchandised my photos, and Zazzle seems like a pretty low-key way to start.
I have a question, though: When you put an item on Zazzle that has a recognizable person in the photo (the Laughing Man, for example), is a model release required? I’ve never bothered with model releases, which would mean a number of my photos would be ineligible for this kind of sale.
In any case, thanks for the detailed rundown on Zazzle. Helpful stuff.
Mark Dodge Medlin
24 Jan 10 at 1:44 am
I don’t know the answer to that. If you are selling the Laughing Man at an art gallery, then it is considered art falls under editorial usage laws.
If you are selling it as a print in a web photo gallery, then I think the same editorial usage applies.
Now the question is, if you make a poster from it to sell… ok / not ok? What about a postcard? Ok / Not Ok. Or a shirt? Ok / Not OK.
In my own case, obtaining model releases is not a possibility. I might take 100 shots of different people during a day, and decide that one of them is worth showing.
Laughing Man happened in a split second on a busy street and was one of maybe 30 shots of different people I took in front of that window.
So in short a) I don’t know the answer and b) I can’t worry about it because it isn’t feasible for me to get releases. If Laughing Man sues me, then we’ll all have a good laugh over it
dave
24 Jan 10 at 6:48 am
This looks great.
Craig Nisnewitz
24 Jan 10 at 9:22 am
Mark and Dave:
I have put on my attorney’s hat for thisone.
My recollection of a recent court case in New York is that if someone’s photo, likeness, etc. is displayed as art and probably sold as art (the case did not reach that issue), a model release is not necessary. If you use the photo in a commercial way and its vreates revenue than you need a release, i.e. photo on a box for someproduct. This issue tends to be governed by syaye law so you must look at the law in each state at issue.
Craig Nisnewitz
24 Jan 10 at 1:39 pm
Craig – so do you think that selling a notecard with someone’s image that you took would be considered art or not? Or is it something that needs to be looked up, and would it be the law of the state that was doing the production, or the state of where the image was taken?
And keeping your lawyer hat on – wouldn’t you also need releases from say, the owners of the Empire State Building to put it on a postcard?
dave
24 Jan 10 at 2:03 pm
Not sure, would have to look into this.
Craig Nisnewitz
24 Jan 10 at 6:59 pm
That’s about what I figured. With street photography, there’s no way to get model releases. And you’d think Laughing Man would be quite flattered to show up on a note card. In any case, he doesn’t look like the litigious type. Heh.
Thanks for the reply.
Mark Dodge Medlin
24 Jan 10 at 8:14 pm