Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that once the server move was over the store would be there. Just that the server HAD to move before the store could be made available.

I think the store stuff IS there now (just publicly inaccessible), but they need to do some tweaking to make sure everything connects up properly, and a few ‘test’ stores will be made so Oz and I can get the hang of doing some of the admin stuff before the flood hits. :]

I think the press release or somewhere said the first week of February- I'm not sure what Platinum's timeline is, but I think the server stuff has set them back a bit and it might be a few weeks before it's a public thing.

I'd rather wait a little longer for something that works than have something go live with bugs and problems.

Hi drunkduckers… My name is Alex and I'm the ezprints guy who's been working on our end of this new store launch. I don't want to trump the big unveiling next week, so I won't share too much, but I'm just chiming in to add some details about our upcoming t-shirt options that we'll be rolling out near the end of February (and will very soon thereafter appear as options in the drunkduck store). As you noted, our current offering is fairly limited (unisex, white only), and many of you might prefer to have your content displayed on other colors or styles. Well… here are the early specs around our new t-shirt line:

-New T-shirts by American Apparel available in Black and White fitted Tee. available in Women's fit, Men's Fit and Youth Fit
-Women's sizes S-XL and Men's S-XXL
-Shirt are 100% cotton shirt. Made in the USA
-Black and White Pull over hoodies in Adult size S-XXL (not available in youth)
-Hoody is 100% California Fleece cotton construction. Made in USA

We're incorporating an entirely new printing process and the image quality I've seen in our tests looks outstanding. While we'll start the changeover with the white and black t-shirts and hoodies mentioned above, we'll soon thereafter be adding in a host of other colors as well. I hope this helps!

Let me know if you have other product related questions and I'll try to share any other upcoming product info I get here.

I think I've got a lock on orders in the Albuquerque market.

*hops up and down with excitement*

Oooo, new colours in the future aye? Exciting. And will everything be shipping worldwide?

harkovast
So is this still happening? It seems like the site freeze is over but there is no shop yet.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too.

Shouldn't someone be updating us on these things?

ezprintsalex
-Black and White Pull over hoodies

Ooh! I like zipper hoodies better, but this is very tempting for me…
Also, don't get too upset about this Ozone, just because they're available doesn't mean you need to wear them. ;)

Hippie Van

harkovast
So is this still happening? It seems like the site freeze is over but there is no shop yet.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too.

Shouldn't someone be updating us on these things?

see skool munkee's post. and the guy beneath her.

seventy2

Hippie Van

harkovast
So is this still happening? It seems like the site freeze is over but there is no shop yet.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, too.

Shouldn't someone be updating us on these things?

see skool munkee's post. and the guy beneath her.

Whoops! I was just in a car for like ten hours, sorry about that.

ozoneocean

Lonnehart
So how are the taxes handled with the money you make? Would you have to report this “income” to your local tax department? And would you have to get a business license or something?

You'll handle that the way you handle any extra income. It's your choice how you report it. How do people report their project wonderful balance, e-bay, cafe press etc?

I was curious about this, so I went to PayPal where their senior federal government relations officer discussed this topic. If I'm reading this correctly, currently PayPal does not report any sales volume to the IRS. But starting in 2011 PayPal reports your earnings to the IRS if:

1) you receive more than $20,000 in a year AND
2) you receive more than 200 payments in a year

Otherwise, it's up to you to report any earnings. Keep in mind, I'm not a tax expert, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Although now I'm curious if there are any lower limits on what you need to earn; for example, waiters and waitresses don't need to report tips of $20 or less. But I'm not sure what the rules are in this case. I'll see if I can find out….

edit: I did a little more research and found this Social Security page that says you must report self-employment income above $400. Other pages seem to confirm this. And the definition of self-employed is pretty liberal. Selling stuff on eBay can be considered self-employment. Spending every weekend going to garage sales and buying stuff and then selling them yourself can be considered self-employment. So the safe assumption is to assume that selling items through any online store, be it CafePress or the DD site, means you fall under the “self-employment” definition.

State taxes vary wildly from state to state, so ultimately the best thing to do, if you have any questions, is to ask a tax advisor. Actually, it's the best answer for all this stuff, because what do I know? :)

arteestx
Spending every weekend going to garage sales and buying stuff and then selling them yourself can be considered self-employment.

Wow… I hope the people at the local flea market don't get into too much trouble if this is the case…

Soon as I get the chance, I'm visiting the local tax department to find out more about this. I'm pretty sure it's gotta be reported anyway. Hopefully I don't need to worry about a business license as that's just gonna be more hassle for me. X_X

added edit: great… now I got the idea to use Forza Motorsport 3's livery editor to do something that could sell stuff from the store… create a paintjob on my car that advertises Drunkduck comics, then race online. Kinda the same thing as in real life racing where cars have logos from the various companies that are paying that driver to race. Yeah… Cars are rolling advertisement billboards. :)

I'm pretty sure you don't need a business license to sell things through a 3rd-party store service. THEY have the business license and are the ones managing all the merchandise and financial transactions. You are just using their service. If everyone who used cafepress, ka-blam, deviantart prints, etc needed a business license, no one would use them.

skoolmunkee
I'm pretty sure you don't need a business license to sell things through a 3rd-party store service. THEY have the business license and are the ones managing all the merchandise and financial transactions. You are just using their service. If everyone who used cafepress, ka-blam, deviantart prints, etc needed a business license, no one would use them.

That makes sense. Still, I'm gonna do an inquiry anyway. Last thing I need when I embark on something like this is a nasty surprise I didn't know about. :)

I'd be happy if I could turn in the $$$ I make from my comics to the IRS. That would mean I'd get to write off my losses too which are significantly more XD

Hmmm….I'd love to see the hard working artist get some cool art on products!!! It's neat to see ones stuff printed on mugs, shirts, etc. I imagine some cool stuff will come out of this.
Can't wait–

http://www.drunkduck.com/Tomb_of_the_King_2/

skoolmunkee
Since they are equally splitting the profits with artists, it's in their interest to keep prices low enough to interest people and to compete with sites like cafepress. The artists are getting a large enough percentage that they should still make more selling things here at a fixed price than on cafepress, where you can set the price but get only a fraction of it.

That's gonna be the tough thing. I think artists are gonna have to sell a lot of prints at a low price in order to get a decent amount of profit. I'll be waiting to see how others do before I participate in the store. Good luck skool and ozone. :3

theRedDeath
How versatile will the products we'll be able to offer be? Are we talking just regular sized comics? Will there be a page limit? How about trade sized books? Digest sized novels for the manga folks? Hardcovers?

And what about posters or prints, or other non-book specific print products?

EDIT: Nevermind, after looking at their official site, I see they don't actually do any book binding products, it's only prints and cards and stuff. Which is still cool, but I was hoping they'd actually offer book products. Oh well.

That's what I was wondering as well - I thought it'd be neat if I could do all my merchandising-type stuff through one place, but ah well. Still, glad they're going to implement this, as I'd definitely have no problem creating stuff for prints and such here. :D

mishi_hime
That's gonna be the tough thing. I think artists are gonna have to sell a lot of prints at a low price in order to get a decent amount of profit. I'll be waiting to see how others do before I participate in the store. Good luck skool and ozone. :3

Not necessarily. If you look at competing services (cafepress being the main one for much of this merch), the base cost of any item (of which cafepress takes all) is quite high to start with, sometimes seeming like more than the product is worth. The seller then has to raise the price which is their profit- but then numbers start to get pretty high and buyers start getting reluctant. The model they're going with here is more or less the same thing- only with a much lower ‘base cost’ so there's a greater percentage of profit, enough to split two ways and hopefully have the artist profiting the same amount… without the added bother of having to develop a product range.

I also know that cafepress (used to? maybe they changed) and probably some other merch-on-demand sites will only pay out once a seller accumulates a certain amount of profit, and only once a month. As I say, that may have changed, but that type of thing can be a real inconvenience to people who just don't sell much. Since the DD store will connect to paypal, any profits can be moved over to paypal at any time, no waiting for minimum payments or a monthly check.

Edit: Sorry, that last bit of info has changed. Since the paypal transfers have to be done manually at this point, profits will just be deposited once a month- but there's no minimum amount (unlike cafepress)

skoolmunkee
I also know that cafepress (used to? maybe they changed) and probably some other merch-on-demand sites will only pay out once a seller accumulates a certain amount of profit, and only once a month. As I say, that may have changed, but that type of thing can be a real inconvenience to people who just don't sell much. Since the DD store will connect to paypal, any profits can be moved over to paypal at any time, no waiting for minimum payments or a monthly check.

Yep, that's right. Bloody cafe press. If you don't sell much you may NEVER get your money from them.

And artists will make 100% profit right away. That's who this works.
Consider: you have artwork, just lying around, made especially for comics or whatever, not working for you, not making any money. Now you can- you put it in the store, someone gets it printed on a mug, you get your share of that sale.

Any money you make is 100% profit because you didn't outlay any costs to produce that artwork for sale or market it ;)

It's not all roses though, when the store goes live thousands of others will be trying to sell stuff too. Likely those who make the most will be the most popular comicers or those who try and market themselves so their store GET's popular. That's the way it always is with this stuff..
You MAY also outlay funds to make work especially for the store or whatever, but that's up to you. This store will just offer you a way to make money off of work you have lying around for whatever readers you have who are interested in buying something with your stuff printed on it. :)

Yep… the competition will definitely be fierce, so advertising will be important. Time to figure out how to do that short of buying airtime from the local TV and radio networks… :)

well hello everyone… been gone for a while and stopped by and found this discussion. Sounds very exciting to say the least especially for those webcomic makers who have a huge following like Ozone and others. And the variety of products looks frickin' sweet. Next thing they'll have is a toaster or pogostick or some other “wink” implement with your comics image or logo on it like Hello ‘frickin’ Kitty! If you can make some extra scratch why the heck not!
I hope this frickin' works out!

TheMidge28
Next thing they'll have is a toaster or pogostick or some other “wink” implement with your comics image or logo on it like Hello ‘frickin’ Kitty! If you can make some extra scratch why the heck not!
I hope this frickin' works out!

Heeeeey Midgey!^____^

I want a CTV vibrator.

Wait, so does this mean we could put up our own merchandise for sale? Sorry but I didn't want to read that long post. I'll be so pissed if we can't, that would be a great way to get more members on this site.

Walrus
Wait, so does this mean we could put up our own merchandise for sale? Sorry but I didn't want to read that long post. I'll be so pissed if we can't, that would be a great way to get more members on this site.

I think it's the standard “put your art on a T-Shirt or other item” that the store has in stock.

so this was supposed to be up in the first week of Feb. any more of an ETA?

We wanted to get it out in August last year. :)
But we want it working as well as we can make it before it goes live. It's in the very last stages now, we're doing some final user type tests to go through and see if we can find all the bugs… That will take a couple of days. The programmer is working pretty hard on it.

I think the end of this week or next week some time. We want to be really sure that it works first!
Then it'll be the turn of you guys to try and break it ^_^

This sounds like it's going to be pretty cool. I'll be looking forward to it!

Buttons would be awesome. Well its not like i actually have a webcomic that anyone reads or that matters but it would be cool to have my own merch. Although i do have a cafepress shop. This should be better.



Also some of the things i sell are babys clothes and it would be wrong to try and make a big profit off them. Even the base price is over priced :(.

Buttons are one of the things on the product list. Different sizes. :] No baby clothes though. :[

skoolmunkee
Buttons are one of the things on the product list. Different sizes. :] No baby clothes though. :[

I know. Im just saying what im selling :P. Noones gonna buy my baby stuff though :(. Or any of my stuff at all. I just had fun making it. :)

Although i can see the idea of a DD store being a good one.
I mean just look at this campain.



Surely it speaks for itself. Excuse the horrible spelling. Its 3am.