Society6: First Impressions
In an effort to avoid that whole “eggs in one basket” thing, I’ve opened up a new PennyCharmer store at Society6. I’ve been there less than 24 hours but wanted to share my first impressions of Society6.
The three things on Society6 that have stood out the most for me are:
- seems more strongly oriented toward visual artists than say commercial artists
- fairly straight forward to get started and apply your image to their products
- no customization available to the artist or the customer
I guess the third points really goes together with the first point supporting my impression of being more strongly oriented toward visual artists. For more commercial endeavors, being able to customize the product or personalize it with templates for names and such is a real benefit, whereas for more visually artistic endeavors, you probably just want your art applied as is to the available products.
(I’m not sure how to properly phrase my meaning so I hope you’ll go along with my “visual artist” and “commercial artist” distinctions as a means to get my point across) (:
As for getting your art on Society6 products, the process is very easy and setup like you are posting a message (or email) with an attachment. You simply start a new post to create Art Prints, fill in your Title and Description, then attach your art . Once you’ve completed these steps, an additional section opens up below the post that lets you set your profit for the various sizes of the Art Prints available to you (the sizes available to you will depend on the size of your uploaded image). Then you publish the Art Prints.
After publishing the Art Prints, you’ll be taken to a page where you can apply your image to the various other products that Society6 offers. Society6 has grouped their additional product offerings into 10 categories that each require a specific sized image. This means you’ll need up to 10 additional copies of your artwork, each cropped to the size specified for the additional products categories. With your artwork cropped, just upload the appropriately sized image for each category in which you want your artwork.
Compared to Zazzle, the process of getting your artwork on the Society6 product offerings is really quite simple. The trade-off is that you can’t adjust the image once it’s on the product, and you can’t offer customization or personalization without modifying your image on your end and re-uploading it for one-off requests. Also, the only product category where you set the profit for your artwork is the Art Prints category; all other categories offer set royalties. Zazzle also has a much wider product selection.
I’d have to say though that because it is so simple to get started and get your artwork on their products, I can definitely recommend Society6 as an excellent starting point for visual artists just beginning their Print-On-Demand journey.
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