Tim Little Photography wrote:
Please forgive my ignorance: What's a "Wabbly Bit"?

Hi Tim! Glad you asked the question first. lolol. (Thread hijack-how are you btw? Shame you're not out here-exhibit opening tomorrow night...Hope you're well)

StMarc wrote:
I know this comes up from time to time, but as things do change fast on the Internet, I thought I'd see where everybody - or anybody - is regarding online print sales and fulfillment.

I'll start.

I took some very nice pictures for a catalog website - they turned out so well, I thought I'd offer them for sale on CafePress, where I already had a small store that was basically so I could order t-shirts of my stuff. Well, CafePress has a secret "no wabbly bits*" rule, and these were art nudes, so I basically wasted a lot of time and bandwidth.

So then I swallowed my pride and reactivated my deviantART account**. deviantART doesn't sell printed tile jewelboxes and all the neat tsotchkes that CafePress does (although they do have puzzles, go figure.) But they're much more lenient about wabbly bits and, in fact, have better quality prints and a much wider selection. Although their upload process is even suckier than CafePress's, believe it or not.

So I've uploaded a bunch of prints to deviantART and about to start whoring them every which way but loose. That's where I am right now. I'd be interested if anybody has any experience self-publishing or web-publishing/fulfilling small books, as I have a series of 12 prints that I am going to be doing a fine-art shoot for later this year and would like to offer a small bound edition of all the images.

M

*No, seriously. They do have it, but they won't tell you about it unless you break it. It's not listed anywhere on the site and, in fact, they won't tell you about it unless you press them to tell you which rule you broke. The first few emails just say that your content is in violation of an unspecified rule. If you point out to them that you're not violating any posted rule, they will then tell you about the secret no-wabbly-bits rule.

**I had deactivated my deviantART account, or at least as close as you can get, late last year for personal reasons. However, a print account, which allows for higher revenue sharing and better merch offerings, is a one-time purchase at deviantART so I still had one.

Good to know. Thanks for the tidbit!

StMarc wrote:
I know this comes up from time to time, but as things do change fast on the Internet, I thought I'd see where everybody - or anybody - is regarding online print sales and fulfillment.

I'll start.

I took some very nice pictures for a catalog website - they turned out so well, I thought I'd offer them for sale on CafePress, where I already had a small store that was basically so I could order t-shirts of my stuff. Well, CafePress has a secret "no wabbly bits*" rule, and these were art nudes, so I basically wasted a lot of time and bandwidth.

So then I swallowed my pride and reactivated my deviantART account**. deviantART doesn't sell printed tile jewelboxes and all the neat tsotchkes that CafePress does (although they do have puzzles, go figure.) But they're much more lenient about wabbly bits and, in fact, have better quality prints and a much wider selection. Although their upload process is even suckier than CafePress's, believe it or not.

So I've uploaded a bunch of prints to deviantART and about to start whoring them every which way but loose. That's where I am right now. I'd be interested if anybody has any experience self-publishing or web-publishing/fulfilling small books, as I have a series of 12 prints that I am going to be doing a fine-art shoot for later this year and would like to offer a small bound edition of all the images.

M

*No, seriously. They do have it, but they won't tell you about it unless you break it. It's not listed anywhere on the site and, in fact, they won't tell you about it unless you press them to tell you which rule you broke. The first few emails just say that your content is in violation of an unspecified rule. If you point out to them that you're not violating any posted rule, they will then tell you about the secret no-wabbly-bits rule.

**I had deactivated my deviantART account, or at least as close as you can get, late last year for personal reasons. However, a print account, which allows for higher revenue sharing and better merch offerings, is a one-time purchase at deviantART so I still had one.

Oops, have you tried http:www.lulu.com  ? I did an artistic nude calendar last year with no problem. Doing the same for this year too!
I believe you can do individual print there as well...

Rich