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Post by desertopa on Jun 16, 2008 8:46:02 GMT
I feel weird starting a new thread for my very first post, but I thought this was probably worth saying. I know Tom has said he doesn't think the comic is particularly suited as a merchandising vehicle, and for things like t shirts, that may be true, but I know I'm not the only person who would love to be able to decorate my walls with posters from, say the Treatise pages www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=121and www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=295Has this prospect been discussed before?
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Post by Tom Siddell on Jun 16, 2008 9:16:01 GMT
I hear the posters do well at cons, but not very well on-line. In particular, since I live in the UK, the shipping would either make each poster too expensive, or not generate enough profit to be worth while. If there was a website that offerened a print/shipping service that didn't take a large amount of money then that might be an option, but normally on-line print and demand fees are fairly high.
If I was to make posters from existing art, however, it would be the Treatise pages you linked.
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Post by monkeybucks on Jun 16, 2008 9:58:22 GMT
I would love love love a GC poster! I have ordered a poster online once (it was the Swingers poster for my brothers christmas present...apparently it is "the best movie" and "the best poster"), and I thought the shipping was pretty reasonable, even to the most geographically isolated country in the world. I think it's a brilliant idea, although I am greedy and would hope there would be more than two to choose from. I really hope you think this over, Tom! I have been thinking about buying new posters for my room. Oh, and I should be able to buy the new book in about three or four weeks. By the way, I ordered my poster from www.allposters.com. I don't know if they offer a printing service there or not, but I thought I'd just say.
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Post by Tom Siddell on Jun 16, 2008 10:25:02 GMT
The problem is, while the shipping and price might be reasonable for a customer from an on-line service (which is the main draw), print on demand services take a very large amount of profit. For example, if I wanted to sell a poster for $10, a service might take up to $8 or $9. Take into account the exchange rate is £1=$2, I'd be making around 0.50p for each poster. These are rough numbers used as example.
Again, this doesn't matter to the person buying the poster, but it makes it harder for me to fulfil my greedy capitalist money hungry lust for cold hard cash.
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Post by desertopa on Jun 16, 2008 17:12:50 GMT
I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd certainly be willing to pay more than ten dollars for a Gunnerkrigg Court poster.
I normally don't even buy posters at all, so I can't imagine I'm the only one.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 16, 2008 18:58:30 GMT
Have you considered the smaller flat-folded posters? They can be run off cheaply in large numbers and sent through the mail like a normal letter. True, you wouldn't make much money per poster but posters are more about promotion; they put GC into cubicles and onto dorm and bedroom walls. That translates into more eyeballs for the site and more book sales down the road.
Instead of precisely selling them they could be donation gifts for people who've exceeded some floor but fallen short of commissioning a sketch. I think you'd see a spike in donations, particularly if you changed the offered poster often.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 16, 2008 22:24:46 GMT
If posters do happen at some point in the future, I think the Doctor Disaster splash page would be awesome.
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Post by nikita on Jun 16, 2008 23:09:34 GMT
I wouldn't buy a poster if I knew the artist didn't make money from it.
A (slightly less than) 60x40cm (22.5x15inch) poster costs about 14 dollars at zazzle. But I think a price up to $20 would be ok for a lot of people. Also, it's not like there was much of a choice. It's either print on demand or finding someone willing to print posters without making money himself. PoD is expensive, but they also take care of a lot of issues like international payment and shipping. I say: Give print on demand a try! It's not like you'd be ripping off your fans - you'd just react to their direct request and how evil could that possibly be? For the fan it's still better than donation - $20 for a full-colored poster versus $20 for a jpeg file. (Of course, for you, it's more efficient than donations only if you sell 4 times as many posters as you get donations.)
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Klex
Full Member
[REDACTED]
Posts: 170
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Post by Klex on Jun 16, 2008 23:33:39 GMT
What about a higher price if the posters were signed ? I'd LOVE that.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 17, 2008 2:39:30 GMT
It's not that using print-on-demand would rip off the GC fans, it's a ripoff for Tom. If he sets the price low then nearly all of the rewards of merchandising the GC fanbase built by Tom would be reaped by someone else. If he sets the price high he sells fewer posters, still doesn't make much money, and sets a bad track record for merchandising GC should he ever try to negotiate with some sort of firm. In addition to Tom's cut being depressingly small either way the short-run potential of the fanbase to support other and more profitable things would be depleted.
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Post by Tom Siddell on Jun 17, 2008 6:27:31 GMT
Yeah you're right, I AM an asshole to charge for those.
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Post by monkeybucks on Jun 17, 2008 11:27:46 GMT
Personally I think $10 is kinda dirt cheap in the first place, considering the posters at my local store usually sell for about $20. I agree about them being signed though, I'm sure people would be more interested in that. Unless you have a hideous signature.
Oh, actually it just occured to me that $20 NZD is probably only a few pounds anyway, and maybe like $15 USD. I guess you'd have to make the price reasonable for the currency of your largest market (probably America, I guess). I think people who don't live in America are used to paying more for stuff on the internet anyway, because, well, you can't get it from Not-America? Whatever. What about those Deviant Art art print things? I don't know what the deal with them is, but it is something to think about.
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Post by nikita on Jun 17, 2008 11:33:53 GMT
You know I didn't say or mean that.
I'm done with that topic. Everything has been said. The options are clear.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 17, 2008 12:41:31 GMT
Money is always a tricky topic, it's up there with religion, death and taxes. Personally I think $10 is kinda dirt cheap in the first place, considering the posters at my local store usually sell for about $20. I agree about them being signed though, I'm sure people would be more interested in that. Unless you have a hideous signature. True but for Tom to sign posters they'd have to be sent to him first plus he'd have to reship things himself. That would add two additional layers of expense. I think people who don't live in America are used to paying more for stuff on the internet anyway, because, well, you can't get it from Not-America? Print on demand is still a new and emerging thing. As I understand it, part of the reason that prices are so high now is that PoD's growth was fueled by American consumers who were having things made in very small batches for themselves or as gifts, sometimes one at a time. Because of that PoD has become very convenient but also pricey. The price had to be high enough to put the PoD company in profit with the first unit sold; I don't know of any PoD place currently designed with merchandising something like GC in mind. This will change over time. I suspect that as the years pass competition will force slightly better prices and possibly some PoD places to offer discounts for multiple items made/shipped in the same batch; perhaps they could print small lots and hold them for expected sales. Further, because the merchandise sold is mostly interchangeable from PoD to PoD and country to country, I think we can safely predict that several will someday merge to form a single umbrella across the English-speaking world. When that happens it will greatly reduce transportation costs, since all those posters, books, T-shirts, coffee mugs and whatnot will be made locally instead of being shipped across borders. There are other options that print on demand; I think I've covered them thoroughly in the GC Merchandise thread.
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Post by headwired on Jun 18, 2008 9:41:58 GMT
Maybe this has been mentioned, but what about topatoco? I don't know how much Jeffrey Rowland charges in order for someone to get there stuff sold there, but it could be an option.
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Post by Tom Siddell on Jun 18, 2008 13:12:00 GMT
I've already looked into Topatoco, and if I was ever to do the usual range of merchandise (shirts and such) then I would use them.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 18, 2008 19:35:05 GMT
I had never heard of Topato Co. before seeing it in this thread, which is sort of odd as I've read Cat and Girl off and on for quite a while. I always thought Gambrell self-shipped; I suppose I shouldn't have taken her "I've got a bunch of crap in my closet and it is available for sale" ad literally.
Brunetto's prices look pretty decent. I assume you inquired of Topato but learned that once their revenue structure was factored in that they nearly as bad as print on demand places?
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Post by Tom Siddell on Jun 18, 2008 21:39:48 GMT
Nope, it all seems fair, and a lot of ther webcomic guys use them. The main reason I haven't used them yet is because I don't have a shirt design.
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Post by cenit on Jun 19, 2008 0:54:54 GMT
wasnt there like a very ooold thread about shirt desings?
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 19, 2008 3:28:10 GMT
Here is a link to the old T-shirts thread. It seems like a lot more people have taken the poll there since I last looked. I've also posted some strange T-shirt ideas to the GC Merchandise thread. I am unexpectedly delighted to learn about Topato. As humans we are slightly farther along to embracing a new and more enlightened business paradigm than I thought. Tom, I'm sure once you decide who you'd like to sell shirts to a design will take all of two hours to accomplish.
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Post by Tierra Y Libertad on Jun 27, 2008 4:58:07 GMT
If posters do happen at some point in the future, I think the Doctor Disaster splash page would be awesome. You mean this page? It sounds cool. A bunch of the chapter title pages would be beautiful posters.
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Post by monkeybucks on Jun 28, 2008 0:52:31 GMT
Holy smokes, I would love that Doctor Disaster page as a poster. It may or may not complete my life.
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Post by Count Casimir on Jun 28, 2008 4:17:09 GMT
I would spend dollars on a Spacemonaut poster. Either that or a larger view of the Fangs of Summertime cover.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 28, 2008 4:41:11 GMT
If posters do happen at some point in the future, I think the Doctor Disaster splash page would be awesome. You mean this page? It sounds cool. A bunch of the chapter title pages would be beautiful posters. Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about. No joke, that was the chapter that convinced me that GC was my favorite webcomic ever.
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