As many of you know, I spend an awful lot of time on this website. If I had my wish, I'd use this website as my summer job. As it stands though, this site doesn't really get that much money. I get about $100 to $200 a year from google advertisments which is just enough to cover hosting costs. The idea of offering paid subscriptions with additional features has come up and I'd like to get that up and running this summer if possible but it probably wont come until next month at the earliest.
I am trying to think of other ways to generate revenue that would at least compensate me financially for this site. I've added a donation button at the bottom of all of the pages. I'd like to get into merchandising though. Maybe sell t-shirts or mouse pads. I've been looking at http://www.cafepress.com and they offer a TON of stuff. What's great about it is that I don't have to have an inventory or anything. They just print on demand. The problem is that I've heard that sometimes the picture comes off easily from washing. But cafepress has a 30 money back guarantee which makes me think, well maybe there are some defects out there and if you get one, send it back for a refund.

What I'm asking of you is what what are your thoughts on all of this? Would you all be interested in buying mousepads that say Paper Demon or bogusred.net and have my artwork on them? I can't use copyrighted characters so fanart is out of the question.

How many of you would be interested in selling your artwork on items from cafepress through me and you'll get part of the cut? You could of course do it yourself and keep all the money for yourself but if you go through me, your stuff would be advertised on Paper Demon and the Red Curtain. As it stands, the Red Curtain doesn't have any advertisements because google doesn't allow their ads on mature content pages so there is plenty of advertising space available.

If you are interested, let me know what artwork around the site you'd like to see on shirts, mugs, etc. and what type of object you'd like to see it on. For a list of all available products, go to this page of cafepress:
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/products/

Let me know if you have any other ideas for generating money.

I absolutely love the idea. I would buy *anything* that had anything to do with BogusRed.net. One picture of yours that really sticks out to me is your drawing of the man dancing.
I'm not sure how well it would go over, being that it is one of your Red Curtain pics., but it is one of my favorites from you. :worship:

That sounds like a really great idea! I buy T-shirts from cafepress.com all the time. It would be a great place to open shop for bogusred.net

I'd like to buy two mousepads, one with bogusred.net on it, and one with Red Curtain on it.

bogusred.net mousepad image would have to be your picture The Hero Link - Take Me Away, but there's that stupid copyright thingie between... Then it has to be Hawaiian Coral Reef.

Red Curtain mousepad image would have to be Fairy, definitely Fairy...

BUT that's just my opinion (as usual)

I think it's a great idea, and I would be very willing to sell through you in order to donate part of my profits to the website. Like I said, I'll go searching to see if I can't find a good printing house... The problem with me looking is that any place I might find would likely be in Canada, and then we run into shipping costs for almost everybody...

Oh yeah I didn't think of that. I'd prefer something in the US. I'm seriously considering cafepress at this moment and I think I'm going to order a couple things just to see what they look like.

I was also considering another shop just for Zarbon merchendise. I could put together sticker designs that just have a headshot of the character and a famous quote of theirs such as:
"I'm not gay" - Zarbon
"We could square off in a tennis match or something manly." - Nappa
"My bakery is called 'The Bane of Chris O' Donnel" - Frieza
"Let's cap the white boy" - Nappa
"I'm never gonna get me a woman 'cause I can't read" - Nappa
I'll have to go through all the episodes again to find the best quotes. They would make great stickers.

Do, do! Order a few things, see what the quality/cost ratio is, and go from there. The worst that can happen is it will be bad quality, in which cse, we're back to where we are now.

Well, i just have to stick my head into everything...

If there's bogusred stuff to buy i'll be damned if none of it wouldn't be shipped here (Finland that is). :mad:

LOL! Don't worry, luv. I'm sure (especially if you pay shipping and handling) that BogusRed wouldn't have a problem shipping our wares. If they were only available to the US, what good would it be?

The mini posters are looking pretty good. They have a low base price of $5.00 and we wouldn't have to worry about them wearing out from the washer. The size is 11 x 17 inches.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product_change.aspx?attrib_name=copy&attrib_value=92

There is also a small poster size available at a base price of $14. It's size is 16 x 20 inches.
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/product_change.aspx?attrib_name=copy&attrib_value=53

My first impression is I'd probably sell the mini posters at a price of $8-10 and the small posters at $20. What do you guys think? Media miner sells 11 x 17 posters for $7 + $2 shipping but I have a feeling they just print it at home so the quality probably isn't as good. Cafepress also offers framed prints but they get to be pretty darn expensive.

The buttons are only $1.25 base price. A 10-pack is $10. These would be good for handing out or selling at conventions. (This is more of an idea for Zarbon's MT).

The mouse pad, which is probably my favorite choice because it's useful and stylish, is a base price of $11. I'd probably sell these for $14-15.

The throw pillow might be good too. It's base price is $16.

There's also a BBQ apron that I think would be totally fitting if it had Redneck Nappa on it with one of his silly quotes. It might be good for a gift or something.

Ooooh calendars! It's an art print and a calendar in one! This is probably the best one because it's both useful and artful. They are 11 x 17 and are only $4 base price. But this is for the kind that doesn't have pages. It's just a poster with all the months and days. That's cheaper than the mini poster which is the same size. I think the image only goes in the upper half though so it only fills 8.5 by 11 of the space.

There is also the wall calendars that have a separate page for each month. This would require 12 to 13 images of artwork. Base price is $15. I'd probably sell this for $18-20. This might be a good Red Curtain product. I saw some erotica calendars in cafepress so I don't think we have to worry about content rules. Too bad we couldn't do something like "The Bad Boys of DBZ" or something with erotic artwork of DBZ men..... yum.... Mr. September, Vegeta. :lol:

Anyway, let me know your thoughts.



EDIT:
I did some looking around on ebay and found that some people are actually selling fan art in a round about sort of fasion; commision. Here's an example of a great artist doing just that:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1345&item=5979429493&rd=1
So the question is, is this legal? I can't find ANY fanart artwork for bidding, only commisions which I suppose is legal since you are not really purchasing artwork? I don't know. If I found that this was legal, I wouldn't do it through ebay, I'd just have a PayPal thing or a page somewhere on my site for it. What do you guys think of the prices that person has listed? They look good to me.