The Rise Of The Angry Squirrel.

Hot Dog Poem

2011-12-14T23:16:00.002-05:00

Hot flesh against soft buns.
Glistening, sweating meat I'm missing in me.
I have a need. Can you fulfill that for me?
I need your foot long essence.
My mouth drools at your very presence.
I will take you in with relish, but please allow me to embellish..
Can I squeeze a little more upon you?
Do the amount of condiments I have alarm you?
I'm here to eat you and you are going down.
When it comes to wiener love, I wear the crown.
Hot dog, you make me want to scream.
Are you for real, or just a messy dream?

New Jersey Rules of the Road.

2011-09-27T10:44:00.002-04:00

For those of you who are planning a trip to New Jersey, or just passing through by car, there are a few local road rules that you may not be familiar with. This is a quick rundown of some of the more important, but lesser known traffic laws in the State.

As in many States, a yellow light means gun the accelerator. A red light means no more than three additional cars can pass through the intersection. Whereas a green light used to mean "GO", the law has changed. Green lights now mean "Continue to text". You should keep your head in your handheld device and continue tweeting until the light turns yellow.
Stop signs and Yield signs mean exactly the same thing: Absolutely nothing. They are largely decorative.
When changing lanes DO NOT use a signal first. This is considered a distraction to the drivers behind you. In addition, you do not want to inform potential predators where you are going to go next.
When driving at night, or in inclement weather, make sure your headlights are off and your brake lights are disconnected. The Military has spent Billions on stealth technology to keep pilots and equipment safe. Stay stealthy, stay healthy.
Replace shattered windows with black garbage bags and duct tape. These are much less likely to shatter and give a cool "tinted window" look to your ride. The resulting blind spot is a plus too. You really don't want to see what the cars behind you are doing, it's disturbing.
Speed as often as humanly possible. N.J. police are suspicious of cars that travel at the speed limit. Doing 65 in a 65 mph zone just screams "Drug runner". Always try to do at least 15 mph over the limit.
Do not give way to cars attempting to merge with traffic. This is a sign of weakness and will only get you shot, or worse.
All right of way laws in N.J. have been rescinded.
If you are going to park at a hotel, motel, or residential area, make sure to have your car alarm set to go off if a mosquito lands on your car. This is a comforting sound to most N.J. residents, especially at night, like the chirping of crickets, or the soft cooing of Loons on a lake.
In most States, a double yellow line means "NO PASSING" in New Jersey, it means "BOB AND WEAVE! BOB AND WEAVE!"
When entering traffic, it is required that you spin your wheels and burn rubber. Warm tires are sticky tires and sticky tires are safe. Any NASCAR driver can tell you that.

These are just the basics, but should be enough to keep you safe on the road as you pass through the Garden State. Drive safe! Drive HARD!

Truisms of Science Fiction Films:

2011-04-19T21:33:00.001-04:00

Having been a Science Fiction and Action/Adventure fan for more than 30 years now, I have discovered some situational themes that find their way into the larger percentage of films nearly every time. I call these; Sci-Fi truisms. Let's get this going.

During an emergency on a space ship, or any other enclosure that is difficult to escape in the first place, (like an underwater research station) All lighting is extinguished and replaced by strobe lights. Deafening alarms will go off, making communication nearly impossible. Smoke and or steam will be released, creating an unnavigable fog. These are safety systems that could easily be implemented right now, for homes and offices. Someone should get on that. Oh, I almost forgot the count-down-to-death-timer with the sexy female voice.

At bars on other planets, or space stations, there are always women dancing in suspended cages.

Whether it is called a Faster than Light drive, (FTL) hyper drive, or what have you..This drive always fails momentarily when the bad guys are in pursuit.

The most popular choice for flooring in space ships, underwater facilities and extra planetary colonies is modular steel grating.

The lead female character in any Sci-Fi film, will find it necessary to disrobe to some extent in order to survive. This should be required in all film genres.

Hitting and punching electronic equipment always makes it work again. This is up to and including F.T.L.'s, navigation panels and nuclear reactor cores.

Someone in the "good guy" group WILL go completely insane at some point and jeopardize the rest of the crew. They are typically killed-off for this. (Usually by an inaction of the remaining crew.)

In the future, all food, everywhere, sucks.

In most Sci-Fi, alcohol is forbidden on any research ship/station. There is always alcohol on board.

The lead male character in most Sci-Fi is still in the throes of a tragic event that has turned his life upside down and has made him a cynical little bitch.

There is always a nervous, vocal, sissy in a group. This person almost always volunteers their life for the group and dies a hero.

The hero(es) always escape seconds before the ship implodes, the planet explodes, or anything else in the general area "'-lodes"..

The first and second in command invariably have an antagonistic relationship. This is usually based on personal, not professional business.

The first and second in command always make up in the end. This does not guarantee the survival of either.

Human space ships are typically aerodynamically shaped. Alien ships are typically not. This is because space is a vacuum and the aliens, being an advanced species, know that there is not a lot of drag in space. Stupid humans!

The bad guys/monsters/aliens always figure out a way to adapt to any weapons/attack methods used against them initially.

There is always a person in a Sci-Fi film that has been forced to be in their present situation, whether by law, social standing, or blackmail. I like to call these people "wild cards".

The first thing to take a back seat in an emergency is life support. The bar/disco lighting on deck ten is still functioning normally. Smoothee machines are at 100%

Cowboy hat theory: Humans: White ships. Bad guys Black ships. Not always, but often enough.

To be continued...

Save Big Time On Dish Soap.

2011-04-19T17:34:00.002-04:00

I have been using this little trick for years now and I feel a bit guilty having not shared it prior to now. Follow these simple instructions and you will save a lot of money over a years time. In this example, I am starting off with a 10.3 oz. bottle of Dawn concentrated dish washing liquid. If you use liquid detergents and have kids, roommates or spouses that can't seem to grasp the concept of conservation, this will help you out. This technique is for those of you like me, who wash only a few dishes and pans at a time and don't need a sink full of soap water. It's also very good for regular hand washing, as it uses much less drying, fat stealing, detergent.

Let's begin by explaining why this works so well. First, we need to understand what soap does. In non-scientific terms, it makes water wetter. "What?" You ask. It's the honest truth.

When you mix soap into water, the soap molecules arrange themselves into tiny clusters (called 'micelles'). The water-loving (hydrophilic) part of the soap molecules points outwards, forming the outer surface of the micelle. The oil-loving (hydrophobic) parts group together on the inside, where they don't come into contact with the water at all. Micelles can trap fats in the center. These are basically micro sponges that can break the rule that oil and water don't mix. The inside of the sponge can absorb oil, while the outside layer is water friendly and allows the trapped oil to be rinsed off with plain water. Depending on which soap concentrate you use, and the type of spray bottle, you may notice more or less sudsing than you are used to. Do not fret. Contrary to popular belief, suds do nothing to clean your dishes. Don't buy into those cute, animated scrubbing bubbles on TV. They are lying to you.

Let's get started.

I use Dawn concentrate, but any concentrated liquid soap will do. The spray bottle I use is an old Dawn POWER DISSOLVER bottle. I highly recommend it if you can find it. Otherwise, any empty spray bottle will do. (As long as it has a mist spray.) You can get a generic spray bottle at a dollar store, or hardware store. Now you are going to mix the Soap and cold water at a 1 to 10 ratio.(1 part soap to ten parts water.) I have a 12 oz sprayer, so it's 1oz. of soap to 10oz. of water. The best way to mix them is in a measuring cup. Add the water first, then add the soap. Slowly stir the mixture so as not to create a lot of suds. Pour this into the spray bottle and you are done! Now, go hide the rest of the concentrate, so your co-habitants can't get to it.

The Math.

My bottle of concentrate cost $1.40 at the market. With that, I can refill my 12oz. sprayer 10 times. (duh) Divide $1.40 by 12 and you get just over 11 cents per bottle. That is a savings of $1.29 or about 92%. I used to go through a bottle of the liquid in about a month and I live alone. So I am saving $15.40 a year, on just dish soap.

Give it a shot!

Why Do Zazzle Products Take So Long To Publish?

2011-04-18T16:49:00.001-04:00

Every once in a while, you will see a question from a fellow Zazzler on a social media site, that asks; "Why are my products not showing up on my store?"

The easy answer is that loading times can vary wildly, depending on the volume of traffic at a particular time. There are other things to consider as well, that are a bit more complicated. In this example, I will use a pair of Keds Hi-tops. These can take a very long time to show up in your shop and I have recently come across the entire process the design and the shoes themselves need to go through in order to end up happily living on your shops pages.

This is basically what happens when you hit that button to publish your finished design:

First the design is sent to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, where a team of highly trained Oompah Loompahs shrink it down to a size that will fit through the Internet tubes that connect all the world's computers. The shrinking process takes about four minutes per pair of sneakers. You can imagine that things can get a little backed-up during this process. Especially on weekends, where my research has shown that over half the worlds population is attempting to add products to their Zazzle shops. Who can create on a Monday, right?

Once the Image is shrunk down to a manageable size, it is sent through the internet tubes. This is a complex maze of pipes and tunnels that is actually air driven, like the old fashioned mail systems that are still in use at some large buildings. Your design may make several stops at internet upload depots, where it may spend some time in a basket with thousands of other designs, before someone comes along and sets it back into the tubes, hopefully aimed in the right direction.

Once your design reaches Zazzle headquarters, it has to be un-shrunk. This is done by placing each individual design under a scanning electron microscope which can take a high definition image of the incredibly small design. This image, is then digitally saved in the format you you originally uploaded.

Now that image is printed on every single concieveable product available at Zazzle. This can take hours and hours. Then each product is professionally photographed from several different angles, which is where those fantastic product previews come from. You didn't think those previews were some kind of CGI, or dark magic, did you?!

In the case of Keds sneakers and postage, each individual product is then shipped to whichever entity is offering that product and goes through a secret screening process to judge whether it is within product guidelines. Only the ones that are deemed acceptable are sent back to Zazzle and are now ready to be placed on your storefront!

I hope you found this educational. The more you know about Zazzle, the better off you are!

See you out there!

-Steve.

Why I don't need to do beer runs.

2011-04-17T15:06:00.002-04:00

Mesquite Texas Squirrel Fights back! from Zazzle.com

2011-04-12T20:14:00.001-04:00

Mesquite Texas Squirrel Fights back! from Zazzle.com

Mesquite Texas Squirrel Fights back! by Softproduct
More Texas T-Shirts

Zazzle Proof Cooking: Boston Strangler Chili.

2011-04-08T20:07:00.001-04:00

This is a sweet and spicy chili. If you like both chili and Boston baked beans, you will love this. This is a crock Pot recipe that takes minutes to prep and can be left alone from there.

You will need:
1 Medium to large-ish onion.
1 red Bell pepper.
1 Green Bell pepper.
1 clove of garlic. (About a teaspoon)
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes with liquid.
3 cups of your bean of choice. (I use white and red kidneys from a can)
liquid smoke. (A couple of shakes)
worcestire sauce. (A few dashes here and there.)
1/2 tsp.dry mustard.
1/8 cup chili powder.
1/2 cup ketchup.
4 Table spoons molasses.
1/4 cup brown sugar. (I use the dark)
black pepper.(I use a teaspoon, but I love pepper) to taste.
1lb. ground beef.
2 tsp.salt.
1/4 cup water, beer, or wine.

Chop the peppers and onion medium, the garlic a bit finer.
*OPTIONAL: I love heat, so I add 1 or 2 chopped Jalepeno peppers. (Not for amateurs).

Turn the Crock Pot on High.
Add the Water, liquid smoke, Worsteschireashism sauce, dry mustard,chili powder, ketchup, molasses, salt, black pepper and brown sugar.Allow this mixture to melt down, stir occasionally.

Brown the beef.

Once the Brown sugar has broken down in the Crock Pot mixture, add everything else and stir to mix.
If you use canned beans, I partially drain the beans, but not entirely.
Cook for 5 hours and you are good to go. As with all bean Chili, the longer it cooks the better.
For more super recipes from great Zazzle Chefs, visit the Zazzle Users Group.

T.G.I.Friday's 2001

2011-03-31T23:21:00.000-04:00

I like to celebrate April Fools day a bit early. It throws people off. Keeps them unaware. Well, I went to a popular chain restaurant this evening after a day of watching the film 2001 A Space Odyssey for the Billionth time.
I was with a friend, and we had a few beers before we were finally seated. When I saw that our servers name tag read; "Dave". I decided to go into HAL mode. If I need to explain any of this to you, just stop reading now. You will not get it. What follows is a nearly word for word recollection of my night at a nearby chain restaurant.

(Dave approaches table, I notice his name tag..)

Waiter: Hi, folks! My name is Dave. I see you have received your apps, are you ready to order your entrees tonight?

Me: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

Waiter: Would you like me to read you the specials for tonight?

Me: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?

Waiter: I was just taking your order sir. Is there a problem?

Me: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Waiter: I am truly sorry for anything I have done to upset your experience here. Would you like to speak with the manager?

Me: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

Waiter: If there is anything I can do to help improve the situation, I would be happy to do it.

Me: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

Waiter: I'll just go and get the manager then..(Dave runs off..)

Manager: I understand there has been a problem with your service sir?

Me: It can only be attributable to human error.

Manager: We try our hardest to do the best by our customers. Consider your dinner on me. Please let me know if I can be of any further service.

Me: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.

(The Manager trots away in fear..)

I got free food and beer. I just can't feel bad about that. I did tip the HELL out of Dave though. He probably quit though.

Uncle Steve's Kids Korner.: Field Trip!

2011-03-10T20:17:00.000-05:00

Uncle Steve's Kids Korner.: Field Trip!: "Kids love taking day trips to places outside their immediate neighborhood. When I am in charge, I love to take my niece and or nephews on fu..."

An Interview With Parrow!

2011-02-26T19:26:00.000-05:00

I have finally gotten some interview time with one of my favorite Zazzlers. Parrow 1978 is an established pro-seller and image restoration guru. This is my Q&A with Parrow..

Q: How long have you been doing the Zazzle thing, and did you go all-out from the beginning..or did you take it slow when you first started?

A: I joined Zazzle December 2008 and I "thought" I was going all out. But like anything else, you learn from your mistakes, find better and faster ways of doing things, and improve your over all quality of work. So I thought I was going at it very professionally and giving it my all, now I look back and see how far my business has come.

Q: You are a pro seller. How long did this take, and what thing, or things did you do to attain this status?

A: It took me about a year to make pro-seller. I think making pro-seller comes from a combination of many factors. Quality is always number one. Quality designs are a big thing. But, what a lot of people don't think about is quality tags, store layout, descriptions, and marketing. When a sellers puts hours of work into a great design and then doesn't work hard on the tags and description, they are shooting themselves in the foot. That design will never be found. If your store is hard to navigate, your designs will never be found. Make quality designs, but don't forget about all the other important aspects of marketing that design.

Q: Your War is Hell Shop is clearly the result of a love of all things military, where did you get this fascination with military history?

A: I've always had a love for history and a great respect for the men and women who serve our country. I read history books more than anything else. Also, my family has many veterans, serving in American conflicts going back to the Civil War. For me it was only natural to make my store about something that I loved and knew a lot about. After doing my store for awhile, I also fond that I love taking vintage images and restoring them. Restoring historical images is something I would do whether I had a store or not. Loving what you do, makes working 100% times better.

Q: You use a lot of public domain images in your designs. Many new Zazzlers are fuzzy on the rules for using these images. How did you educate yourself about what images are legally yours to use, and which ones are not?

A: Most of the images I work with were created by someone working for the government or are old enough that they have become public domain. Luckily for me, the government and people much smarter than me, do much of the work. They work hard and find the status of many images. Search around the Internet, read up on the laws, find good government resources, and anyone can figure this stuff out.

Q: Don't think, just answer..Favorite military personality of all time. GO!

A: Patton. Not sure why, but I have always been a fan. My great-uncle was killed during World War Two while serving with the 35 Division in Patton's Third Army. Maybe that has something to do with it. I don't agree with everything he did, but I wasn't around then, and don't want to judge people that were taking on some of the greatest evil the world has ever known.

Q: Product-wise, what are your biggest sellers? i.e, Shirts, mugs, etc;..
Is there a reason you think this might be?

A: It's about 50/50 shirts and posters. I concentrated on shirts only for the first year or so. Then I started doing posters and they quickly started selling. Not sure why these sell more. Probably because people love to wear shirts that advertise their interests. Posters are just something that my images really look the best on. If I had the money, I would fill an entire room of my house with historical prints, so I can see why they sell.

Q: What is the single most important thing you do to help drive traffic to your shops?

A: Blogs. My blogs receive and drive more traffic than any other marketing I do. I do more than just post products on my most popular blogs, I also provide military pictures, info, and videos. Information is what brings visitors, the better the info, the more visitors. The more visitors, the better the chance that they follow a link to my store or products. My most popular blog is -- http://marinegodpuller.blogspot.com/

Q: What are your software/hardware preferences for creating images for Zazzle?

A: I started out using GIMP for working on my images. I know how to use it well and still use it for most things. I have Photo shop, Paint, and a few other things, but GIMP is what I use most. I also have a Bamboo tablet, which I love using, but for most of my restoration work, I just use a mouse.

Q: What is your personal favorite design from your War is Hell shop. Why?

A: I guess it would be my "Lady Liberty In Chains", it's not one of my designs, but I restored it. It was a hard one to restore and I just think it looks really cool.

Lady Liberty In Chains -- Never by parrow1978
Poster printing by zazzle.com

Q: Do you have multiple Zazzle shops? Please list them here if you do.

A: I have five Zazzle shops, but I stopped adding designs to the other ones and only focus on The War Is Hell Store. The only one worth noting is my Military Cards Store.

Q: When you are not Zazzling, what are you doing?

A: I enjoy reading, boxing, working out, and watching sports with a good drink and good friends.

Q: Do you have any advice for new Zazzlers? Some tips for those that are just starting out?

Just a few tips. Make sure your images have good key words in the titles. Don't name them with numbers. Use descriptive words so they are easier to find. And don't waste to much time on the forums. They are great to learn new things and find out updates from Zazzle, but don't forget to work on your shop! Complaining about no sales all day on the forums isn't productive, get blogging, creating new designs, and writing good tags. Your work is never done in this business.

Links to Parrow 1978 and his work can be found below. Thanks for the interview, Parrow! You rock.

http://www.facebook.com/WarIsHellStore

http://wargodpatton.blogspot.com/

http://marinegodpuller.blogspot.com/

and of course

The ZUG

Apartment Hunting Ghosts and Spirits

2011-01-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

This is some shocking ghost hunting video I shot in my very own apartment!
It will stun and amaze even the most hardcore critic.
OK, actually it's seven minutes of your life that you will never get back, but it's still kinda funny.

google maps.wmv

2011-01-16T13:05:00.000-05:00

How to set up your google maps to track sales on Zazzle.

Squirrel VS. Owl.

2010-07-15T14:22:00.002-04:00

Check out this series of photos. The Owl clearly picked the wrong squirrel to mess with.

Another Leap Foward for the Rodents!

2010-07-08T20:58:00.005-04:00

This is an article that was sent along by Missprinteditions.
More proof that the so-called "common" squirrel is nothing to be sneezed at!
Wake up, people!
Article is here.

Do you..ZUG?

2010-07-01T19:42:00.002-04:00

You may know him as just "Fred", or as "Fnolan" on the Zazzle forums.
He has created a true paradise for serious Zazzlers.
It is the Zazzle Users Group. The site is now 100 members strong, and it offers much more information for the hardcore Zazzler, than the Zazzle forums.
The link is here. Zazzle Users Group.
I hope to see you "in there!"
Get registered, and tell Fred Steve sent you!

You Wanna F##K With An Angry Squirrel?

2010-05-30T22:49:00.004-04:00

Do ya? Really?
Check out this stance!
This is pure Kung Fu! This is the Squirrel/lotus stance. It is all about ass kicking.
I would ramble on, but the picture speaks for itself. YOU DO NOT "F" WITH AN ANGRY SQUIRREL!
The pic was sent to me by Missprinteditions .

Learn your lessons people.
DO NOT SCREW WITH THE SQUIRREL!

The Angry Squirrel Goes to Washington!

2010-05-04T19:12:00.005-04:00

It's official. The Angry Squirrel is now copyrighted!
Logo Trademarking is in the works, thanks to a suggestion from the Marks at Funauticals.

If you asked me three years ago if I had any plans to copyright an Angry Squirrel...
Well, you know the rest.

Little Wing has a new blog!

2010-04-28T22:38:00.004-04:00

Little Wing is being super cool, and giving away some amazing images.
I have been following Little Wing for a long time, and her "give away" is thoughtful, and well..human..
Well done L.W.!

Little Wings Blog.

You go!

An Interview with George Grie; 3D Master.

2010-02-19T19:20:00.002-05:00

George Grie is a fantastic 3D artist with a home at Zazzle.
Here is an interview with one of my personal favorite Shop keepers at Zazzle.

Q; What brought you and your fantastic art to Zazzle in the first place?

A; I believe I opened a “Zazzle shop” about 7 years ago. There were not many online print services at that time. It was and it still is a very convenient way to give visitors a chance having a piece of modern digital art for an exceptionally fair price. In addition, your print content may be distributed globally with your minimal involvement.

Q; Do you have a professional background in the arts, or is just a hobby that you happen to excel in?

A; I have a BA in fine arts and various other certifications such as digital graphic design, multimedia development, digital media specialist, etc.

Q; Your 3D renders are absolutely stunning. What programs do you use and how long does a print like "Lost Expedition" take you to complete from inspiration to final render?

The Langoliers or Inevitable Entropy, framed print by artsgrie
Poster printing from zazzle

A; I use two main applications for the most of my images, 3ds max and Adobe Photo shop. Max is the main tool for setting up any of the image scenes, where I import live forms from Poser or Daz studio, background skies or landscapes from Terragen or MojoWorld and many other “2D-3D software extras” and “3D model downloads”. There certainly are preferences of spending no more than one week for one image, because I try to keep it fresh while the inspiration is still in full swing, but it all depends.

Q; Entropy, abandonment and loss can broadly describe many of your images, these are ghosts of history. Where does your love of centuries past come from?

Gothic fantasy or Expiatory temple by artsgrie
Browse the other art at zazzle

A; The short answer is books. I used to read a lot when I was a child. Reading actually, inspired me to apply my imagination to into something real. Drawing was the obvious choice.

Q; Do you work online exclusively? Do you sell out in the real world as well?

A; The first part of my life I was a painter. My last painting was completed in 1996. The second part of my life is dedicated to the digital creativity. However, I might return to brushes and canvas one day. I do not work online only, that would be kind of sad, wouldn’t it? I’m engaged in the real world as well.

Q; What inspires you as an artist? Do you have any artists that you look to for inspiration?

A; I won’t be the only one to be incapable of determining exact ways of inspiration. My muse comes and goes as she pleases. In fact, everything around us can be inspiring: music, movies, ads and commercials, etc., as long as it carries a strong visual, philosophical, or emotional message. All ideas are in the air, you just have to keep your mind open to them. However, there exists one unbeatable source of an inspirational chain reaction, so to speak, - that is another artist’s artworks. There are tons of classic and “modern artists” from whom you may be inspired. I would not bore you with listing all of them.

Q; You descriptions are nearly as engrossing as you images. Do you have a background in writing as well?

A; My short notes are meant only as a hint, alongside with the image titles themselves. Sometimes I incorporate encyclopedic or historic quotes into my descriptions, but you are absolutely free to interpret my artworks in your own unique way and to neglect any guidelines coming from me whatsoever. In fact, my sole existence should be of no concern to you, when you’re trying to fulfill the most challenging job of all – to build a perception bridge to a picture based entirely on your sensitivity, personal knowledge and world perception. I do not have any background in writing. In fact, English is my second language. In fact, I did not speak a word of English 10 years ago.

Q; What keeps you going as a shop keeper? Is it only sales, or do you enjoy other aspects of the online selling experience?

A; To tell the truth, I do not consider Zazzle sales as income. Long time ago I was trying to mange limited edition printing by myself. Somehow, I felt guilty when I could not fulfill someone desire to have a simple poster print. Unfortunately, that was taking to much time to handle and manage. Too many people asked me for prints so Zazzle came along as a perfect solution to direct them.

Q; Did you have the same "new to Zazzle" questions and confusion that so many others experience when first starting out, or did it all come pretty naturally?

A; 7 years ago Zazzle was a total disaster. It is a smooth sailing for me today. However, you might need some time to get the website logic. There are many features there that require a professional “Zazzle” approach. We were discussing many of them over a dinner last year when a Zazzle team was visiting Toronto.

Q; Could you give a ballpark figure of how much time you spend a week taking care of
your Zazzle shop and promoting it?

A; I am not a very active zazzler. I go there to add new images only which happens about once a month.

Q; Are there any other places online or in the real world where we can find more of your images and prints?

A; You may see most of my digital works on my “official website Neosurrealismart.com” Let me know when you are in Toronto and I will update you with the latest exhibition events.

I would like to thank George for allowing me to get inside his head for a little while. I am a huge fan of his art.

A Surreal Interview With Surrealitee:

2010-01-20T21:29:00.011-05:00

I believe it was a few months ago when Zazzlers were sharing ideas on the forums for creating products that were even more ridiculous than the effluence produced by the "robot quick creators" out there. One of your suggestions was the "Big White Box" t-shirt. I became a fan immediately.

White Box with Words t-shirt by surrealitee
Shirts made at zazzle

You clearly have some sort of connection with the philosophical aspects of discordianism and chaos theory.
Is this a job related thing, or do you simply have too much time on your hands?

Since I constantly work on perfecting my plan to conquer the universe, I would say it is job related! Unfortunately, I’m too lazy to come up with something really cunning, so I have to keep my day job. On my free time I enjoy reading, writing and designing stuff that keeps me surprised and gives me a fluid perception of reality. Discordianism, modern physics (”…for dummies”!), Zen Buddhism, Sufism, sci-fi, beat literature, and rumblings about paranormal activity, keep me happy and almost docile! It’s an acquired taste, really…

Your “absurdist” image; "Have Fish, Will Travel" is one of my favorite designs. Where exactly do you get the inspiration for images like this, that have WTF?..written all over them?

Have Fish, Will Travel postcard by surrealitee
Design Post cards on zazzle.com

Oh, it’s just the way my warped mind views the world, nothing special! Everyone has a WTF? chamber in his soul. I try to keep mine unlocked by loving the wrong kind of books, music and movies and by associating with the wrong kind of people! The unfortunate outcome: You say “tomato”, I say “fancy a blue caterpillar doing the boogaloo?” So, no big secret to disclose here.

How did you initially find Zazzle, and how long have you been a shopkeeper?

I discovered the whole POD business when I stumbled upon Cafepress 1.5 year ago. The idea was overwhelming! It really got me excited, although it took months before I decided to act. I was prepared to do my homework before starting anything and pretty soon I understood that CP was not what I wanted. A simple Wikipedia search showed me some alternatives. I studied how they worked, I found blog posts, articles, reviews and forums and, finally, it became crystal clear: Zazzle suited me. I uploaded my first design 8 months ago (May, 2009).

Do you have any favorite surrealist artists from the real world, or the Zazzle kingdom? If so, who are they?

I certainly don’t confine myself to surrealism, although most of the artists I admire tend to have an unexpected point of view. For example, I am a big fun of Tom Waits, Monty Python, Federico Fellini, Jorge Luis Borges, Jim Jarmusch, Tim Burton, Robert Frank and Neil Gaiman –to name just a few.

In the world of Zazzle, I’m happy to have discovered great artists, such as Kareem Rizk, Rebecca S. Czosnek, Jennifer K. Mulkahy (a true surrealist), Ramona Szczerba, Akamundo, Bradley W. Schenck, Designlazy, or Jeff Hulligan –again, I’m naming just a handful of my favorites.

For my own edification, if nothing else: Your "milk" series makes me think way too hard. Is this intentional?
The design seems to be specifically engineered to create a logic loop-back in the viewers mind, through the use of an iconic vessel and a (purposely?) off-center text explanation below. What generated this particular design concept?

Blue Milk poster by surrealitee
Browse Surreal Posters

This was the first design I made for Zazzle –starting from the red-colored one. I thought that it would be a suitable (and, hopefully, tasteful!) introduction to the offbeat style I had chosen for my store. I was looking at some vintage milk ads and the idea just popped up: a pop art design with a twist.
“A logic loop-back in the viewers mind”? I take this as a compliment, since it is one of my goals in most of the things I design! Simply put, I enjoy creating visually pleasing surprises that make you want to look twice. I consider it more like a game, a playful wink of the eye, than something one would think too hard about.
The aligned text was just more to my liking than a centered one.
An interesting note: Although it is one of my most viewed designs it doesn’t sell accordingly. All the same, it has a special place in my heart.

What is your favorite condiment, and what do you use it on that makes other people say; "That's not right".

Pepper, hot mustard and Tabasco*. I try not to shock people when I use them (although you can do wonders with pepper and chocolate, a combination that many would find strange)!
On a less literal note, I would say “humor”. Regardless of what people think, the right kind of humor (certainly not the crude “I laugh at your expense” type) applies in all aspects of human experience.

* Authors note: Tabasco is the greatest condiment ever conceived, and I actually make a chocolate chili that makes people think.."Ewwwww" until they try it.

Do you spend a lot of time promoting your shop, or are you just "winging it" presently?

Alas, I don’t promote much! It doesn’t come naturally to me; I find it a boring and tedious task. It certainly is one of the most important requirements for having a successful store and I do hope I’ll get better at it.

Do you have any other shops on Zazzle, or "out there' in the real world, or the Interwebs?

Surreality is my first and, so far, my only shop. A dedicated website will be the next step. I have some thoughts about starting other shops and concepts but they’ll have to wait. Nothing in the real world, though. I love web’s flexibility and I can’t see myself as a “real “shop-owner (at least, not in the foreseeable future).

Do you Zazzle for the income, or the love?

I was having hard times when I started my Zazzle store. I needed a challenge to get more creative and alert, to take new steps as a person, to open new vistas. So, I would say mostly love, but with money giving it an extra edge. It’s not only about needing the income (which I did and still do): the fact that someone, somewhere is willing to pay for your designs is the best proof that your work is appreciated and gives you a sense of accomplishment.

What percentage of your free time do you normally spend on your Zazzle shop(s)? (creating, promotion, SEO..ET AL.)

Should I include the hours I spend just browsing forums and procrastinating? I have a special talent for that!
My free time varies greatly from day to day (my day job is quite capricious), and I tend to think of the hours I’m surfing the web looking for inspiration, materials and tutorials as Zazzle-related. The answer is not clean-cut. Anything from 20% to 80% of my free time would be true, I guess.

Who would win in a fight between Eris and Loki? Why?

As much as I respect Loki for his efforts, I believe he would lose this fight. We’re talking about two superpowers of discord, chaos and mischievousness, but Eris has the advantage. By the time he made his debut, she had already been around the block many times. Plus, I believe that ladies are more attuned to both chaos and creation…

Please feel free to shamelessly self-promote something you are working on now. Go! (It's okay, were all friends here..)

I’m currently working on a design about love (inspired by Saint Valentine’s Day, but I’ve been so slow on finishing it that I won’t be surprised if it gets uploaded after Easter!).

I’m also working on my blog (named Surreality Watch), presenting exquisite designs and artists from Zazzle. I am really proud of this, since I don’t like boring link exchanges or featuring uninteresting stuff just for the sake of a referral. I much prefer writing about things that really excite me and reflect my taste, and that is exactly what I do there.

I’m making a banner for the forums on Zazzle Users Group (a great place to visit IMHO).

I try to persuade people to Fold@Home and help scientists find ways to cure Alzheimer's, Mad Cow (BSE), Huntington's, Parkinson's disease, and many Cancers. A software that uses a small fraction of our CPU power while we’re working or surfing the web, helps us make a difference.

It was a great experience getting to know Surrealitee through this interview process, and I am psyched to bring it to all our friends here at the Angry Squirrel.
Thank you, Surrealitee!

I bought my own deck..WHY?!!

2010-01-19T22:32:00.014-05:00

This is one of my best selling deck designs on Zazzle.com, and I honestly wanted to know what it looked like, felt like, and..well..I LOVE that new deck smell!
I did not outfit it on Zazzle, but I did rig it with Independent trucks, that are available on the Zazzle site. I used Zoo York 56 mm wheels, because they fit the overall design, and I used Lucky bearings, because they were ...available at my local skate shop. I will use this board for display purposes (like this one..), and like a business card. I purposely visited my local skate shop with the deck in-hand, so I could start a conversation with the staff about my design work at Zazzle.

Here is a little detail..just for fun..

Even just walking around town with the deck on a Saturday gets kids and adults asking where I got the board. I give them a business card, and tell them I have lots more to look at on the website. Sales will come from this. I know it.

On a technical note: The color, bleed, and proportion of design are identical on the deck I received, as compared to the online preview. Too cool for school!

The CSI: Can't Stand Idiots hat is from Malibuitalian. I am in love with it.

The Zazzle Users Group.

2009-12-28T23:40:00.004-05:00

This is a new forum created by a fantastic Zazzler. You may know him as either "Fnolan", or "Fred" on the Zazzle forums. Many of the Zazzle "big guns" are beginning to join in and help this project get on its feet. Imagine a forum where you can really, truly, seriously get together with your fellow Zazzlers without fear of getting censored by the "powers that be" . I consider this a real tool in my arsenal at this point. The Zazzle forums have been a bit too limited recently. That's my two cents.
Here is the link.
Join up, and join in!
The Zazzle Users Group Forum.

Hope to see you "in" there!

Buttons to replace those ugly file folders.

2009-12-13T17:56:00.003-05:00

I made a few buttons to replace the file folders on the shops. They are 120X120 pngs.
The zip file is available here.

These buttons are in the .zip, and matching "frame buttons" with transparent centers, so you can add your own images, or whatever. There is a minor imperfection in the upper left corner of each button. It just needs to be erased. You may not even be able to see it, but its there.
I am releasing these for use anywhere, by anybody.
Please do not sell the file or it's contents. That's all.

As The Squirrel Turns...

2009-11-27T12:52:00.006-05:00

Some of you know that one of my favorite Zazzle related activities is keeping track of all the places in the world my products end up. My zazzle friends map is getting more populated every day. It's just such a kick to put a pin on the map and learn a little bit about the area on Google Maps.
Of secondary use, It helps me keep track of WHAT product went WHERE and on WHAT DATE.
With my business cards, I can quickly see if a person has ordered many sets over time and how often they are re-purchasing.
I have 35 States under my belt and Twelve Countries. I am not yet on every Continent, but you never know!
The Angry Squirrel marches on!

Visit my Zazzle Friend Map here.

Report Violation Debacle.

2009-10-29T20:18:00.002-04:00

Many, many, maaaany, Zazzlers have been concerned about the ease of elimination of their products on Zazzle.
Apparently, Zazzle chooses to go the safe route in most circumstances and simply removes products when they are anonymously reported. This is both smart business and stupid business at the same time.
We all have to keep in mind that Zazzle is literally a third party in this POD market. They do not create the designs they print, so they have no inside information as to where the designs came from, or who may have created them. This places them, as a company in a legal situation that is relatively new. We all know that local and international law is hopelessly behind the times as far as the Interwebs in general, but this does not soothe the aggravation we all feel as legitimate shop owner, when one of our products (or an entire line) is pulled. Even if we can successfully defend our ownership of an image, it is still GONE. Now we must face a choice. Reload that image back onto all those products, or give up on it for fear of another deletion.
It's a tough issue and will not be resolved overnight. I would suggest that everybody just play on the side of absolute safety for now, until there are more specific rules and regulations in place about reporting and deletion of products.

My sob story is similar to many I have read in the forums.
I sold a bunch of products of a certain type, only to have them pulled at a later date, when they were actually becoming big sellers. Legal one day, not allowed the next. I can assure you they were 100% original works, that had absolutely nothing to do with any other commercial entity. If you visit my stores, you can see I don't go with trends, or try to take advantage of breaking news, or movie releases.

It is disheartening to have a bunch of products pulled because someone decided to surf to your store and click on the REPORT button, for whatever reason. I do hope this will not stop the legitimate shop owners from pushing on and moving forward towards success!

I hope as well that Zazzle will come to terms with this ever increasing problem and find a way to differentiate between legitimate claims and the bogus ones that are haunting so many upstanding artists and designers on Zazzle.

Hang in there! Don't let this glitch in the system keep you from becoming the Zazzle Rock-Star you know you can be!

Posting Linked Images On The Forums.

2009-08-15T21:24:00.002-04:00

I see this asked all the time on the forums. Linking an image directly back to your shop is easy. Just watch and learn!

You Suck At Zazzle No.7 : A New Dawn.

2009-08-11T19:06:00.000-04:00

The One Thousand Dollar Button.

2009-08-04T16:03:00.008-04:00

Apparently, there are still some Zazzle shopkeepers that do not understand the furor over what has come to be referred to as "Spazzle". For the uninitiated, Spazzle is any form of spamming the marketplace with products that are for one reason or another completely unsellable. This button is a good example.

My Cat Saved My Life by Supernova23
Make pinback buttons at zazzle

This shop has over 30,000 items in it. Ten times the amount of products I have available across all of my shops. He is selling this button at $4.40 USD, not that anyone would ever buy it. Think of the server space that is being chewed up by shops like this all across Zazzle.
Let's crunch some numbers:
1,596,270,108 people, approximately 23% of the world population have Internet access.
Eighty-Five percent of these people also shop online. That's 1,356,829,591 people.
In May there were over 2,500,000 visitors to Zazzle.
Let's say only One percent of those people have similar surfing habits as I do and will leave the site immediately if they see something offensive, or of questionable quality. Keep in mind that most shoppers have no idea how these products are created and must be put-off when they see products like this. Is it a computer glitch? Is it a complete lack of quality control? Is it worth taking a chance that the product I wanted to order may end-up looking like that? That's 25,0000 people per month (300,000 per year, 822 per day) , that will go away and stay away from Zazzle forever. (Again, only if they shop like I do.)
Let's put that in dollar terms. If only half of those people would have bought just a single button at $2.80 USD That is $420,000.00 USD per year that no shop keeper on Zazzle will get a shot at.
So how much does a button like this really cost?
It costs you and I $1,150.68 daily.
That is one expensive button!

UCANSAYTHATAGAIN OPEN FOR BUSINESS.

2009-08-02T18:41:00.001-04:00

From the creators of Funauticals and Artfulanimalz comes Ucansaythatagain. The store looks terrific! Go check it out!

You Suck At Zazzle No. 6: Image Theft.

2009-07-30T14:04:00.001-04:00

An Interview With Lydia Jacobs Of Customizables.

2009-07-28T17:32:00.005-04:00

I have just completed an email interview with Lydia "Prairie Ghost" Jacobs of the Customizables shop at Zazzle.com. I hope the readers get as much insight out of it as I have. Here it is:

How did you initially find out about Zazzle, and how long have you been doing it?

I was unemployed and living in Nebraska when a friend suggested I could sell merchandise featuring my artwork at Anime conventions. I searched around for a while for a service to print my stuff and somehow stumbled across Zazzle. The convention idea never took off, and I didn't stick with Zazzle very long at first, but a couple years later, I received an e-mail notification telling me I'd made a sale, and that got me thinking about it again. Even though I discovered Zazzle in 2005, I didn't start taking it seriously until much later, and it wasn't until August of '08 that I really began focusing on it as a possible means to make a living. I've been at it ever since, looking forward to the day when I can honestly say that I make my living doing what I love.

Do you have a professional background in the arts, or did you "fall into" what you do?

I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. When I was about three years old, I remember watching my mom paint fantasy art on sweaters, and I thought to myself, "I want to be able to do that!" I spent the rest of my life creating artwork out of whatever I could get my hands on--paint, pencils, makeup--even sticks and pebbles. My dream was to someday be able to make a living doing what I love, but my initial attempts were met with failure. I tried going to college for Graphic Design, but my little brother died in an accident on my first day of classes. I ended up canceling school and moving back in with my parents, but I never stopped creating. I tried a few more times to move out, perhaps to someplace where I might find a market for my art, but each time I struggled and ended up moving back home. I was beginning to wonder if my creativity served any real purpose at all, or if it was actually a handicap rather than a strength. About that time, Zazzle got my attention again, and I began taking it more seriously. Every time I made a sale, I found myself encouraged to try again, and before I knew it, I'd opened several more shops and was getting a check every month. Now I'm able to look forward to a day when I can do this as a real living, rather than as just a hobby. So really, even though I didn't have a professional background in the arts, I didn't exactly "fall into" it either--it's as much a part of me as breathing, and I can't imagine doing anything else.

You have an incredibly broad range of styles and techniques in your designs.
Could you give a quick run down of some of the tools you use?

The thing about my style is that I don't really have one. I have too much fun experimenting with new things to stick with any one style for long, and that really becomes apparent in my stores. I use an old art program called Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7 for all of my digitally-created designs, and to scan and enhance images I made with more traditional materials, but when it comes to the art I create outside of the computer, I'm much more varied. I have used acrylic paint, watercolor, colored pencil, marker, scrapbooking materials, even crayons to create designs. Sometimes I'll create an image on the computer, print it out, and enhance it with traditional materials, particularly if I'm having difficulty getting my hands to cooperate enough to draw the shapes I need by hand.

The only images in my shop Customizables that were not made by me of course are the vintage designs. I'll spend hours hunting through flea markets, yard sales, and auctions to find old, forgotten books so that I can save the art that is inside of them. At this moment, I have a stack of pictures salvaged from an antique "History of the United States" waiting to be scanned in. A lot of these images require some touching-up because they've been damaged or doodled on by previous owners, and for that I use PSP7. Aside from vintage images, however, everything else in my shop is my own creation.

Do you pitch, or sell your designs off-line at boutiques, fairs, or conventions?

I would love to someday start visiting fairs and conventions with my merchandise, but right now it just isn't possible. Until I'm able to devote my time completely to Zazzle, I still have a "real job" to worry about, and the scheduling is not very accommodating for such things. Once Zazzle is my primary source of income, however, I'll have the time AND the money I need to start promoting my work to the Real World.

As a Proseller, what is one promotional tool or technique that you consider to be the
most useful to you?

I'll be the first to admit that promotion is my weakness. I am great at cranking out ideas at a mile a minute, but when it comes to finding ways to advertise and promote my store, I stumble. Basically, my primary promotional tactic is to talk about what I do--constantly--to anyone who will listen, but I owe a lot of my success to search engines as well. Anyone who has seen my posts in the forum knows I'm constantly preaching the value of strong keywords, and I'll say it again here--without tags, your customers won't find you. Use strong, relevant keywords. Think to yourself, "If I was a customer looking for a product like this, what would I put in the search engine?" Remember that search engines pick up on product descriptions too, so try to utilize that opportunity to the fullest.

What one thing would you like to see Zazzle implement in the future, that is not
presently available?

I would love it if my shops could be combined under a single, master account. I have images and designs scattered over several shop accounts, and a lot of them I no longer have the original image for. I would love to take some of the designs I have in my other shops and use them in Customizables, but the way it stands now, there's no easy way to do that. Allowing us to access all of our shops at once would be of enormous benefit to us, and would cut down on the number of redundant image files taking up precious space on Zazzle's servers.

What is your favorite "Zazzle moment" to date?
I recently sold 200 buttons to a customer, and I've had several TBA's, but the thing that tickled me most of all--the one that really made me swell with pride--was when I hopped onto the forum and discovered my "Top Ten Mistakes" thread had been stickied! It was a really good feeling to know that people liked what I had to say so much that they wanted everyone else to read it, too.

What do you do for inspiration when you feel like the creativity well is running dry?

This may sound odd, but my best source of inspiration has been the Oriental Trading Company catalog. They have such a huge variety of products in there, under all manner of subject matter and in all sorts of styles that it's hard to flip through it and not start getting ideas. If I don't have an issue handy, I hop on the website and browse their online catalog instead. Some of my most popular designs were inspired by browsing through the OTC catalog. Honestly, though, it's rare for me to have a "dry spell" creatively. My problem is more along the lines of having too many ideas, and just not being able to keep up.

With the flood of CP exiles moving over to Zazzle every day, what are a few things you
would want a CP refugee to know before setting up shop?

First of all, I'd want them to know that if they have any questions, they're more than welcome to ask--either post a question in the forums or contact me through my gallery. It can be extremely frustrating to go from a system you are familiar with and comfortable with to something so completely different, especially when you were basically forced to do so, and if there's anything I can do to make the transition easier, I'm here to help.

One thing I've found a lot of CP refugees don't realize right away is that they don't have to post their designs on every T-shirt, mug, hat, and tote bag to make them available to their customers. Unlike on CP where what you see is what you get, on Zazzle you only have to post your design on one of each product type, and your customer has the freedom to choose the colors and styles they want from there. If they like a design you did on a baby onesie, they can put it on a mens' hoodie with the click of a mouse. If you don't want your designs available on every product, just specify that when you post the product for sale, and you're all set. Remember that too many redundant products in your shop will turn customers away rather than draw them in.

Do you have any favorite designs from your own collection? Is it because they appeal
to your artistic sense, or maybe they have been huge sellers?

I have several favorites, but my favorites are very rarely the big sellers! In fact, my best seller of all is a design I hate and almost didn't post because I didn't think it would sell. The designs I love the most are the ones that tend to take the longest to gain any sales, but even if they're not big earners, they still hold a dear place in my heart. Some of my favorites are my Japanese Crane Design, my Goldfish Design, and my Cherry Blossom Coffee Mug. The rest of my favorites mostly have to do with food in some shape or form. I can't be entirely sure why, but I absolutely love to draw food.

Japanese Crane Postcard by Customizables
Postcards created online at Zazzle.com

Goldfish Poster by Customizables
Other poster designs on zazzle.com

Cherry Blossom Coffee by Customizables
Put your own photos on mugs with Zazzle

Name three Zazzlers that you found especially helpful when you first started out.

This is a tough one to answer, because when I was starting out--during both my initial feeble start and my later rediscovery of Zazzle--I did it on my own. I didn't really have any outside help or support, and I didn't start frequenting the forums until I already had things pretty much figured out. I have to wonder if I did, if I would have started taking Zazzle more seriously in the first place, but I suppose there's no way to know for sure. I do know that I appreciate all the wonderful people in the forums who have been working overtime to help the newcomers from CP and elsewhere get started. If I'd had the help these new guys are getting, there's no telling where I'd be now!

Could you give a ballpark figure of how much time you spend a week taking care of
your Zazzle shop and promoting it?

Some weeks are...well...more productive than others, but at my busiest, I probably spend 50 hours a week or more on Zazzle, posting new products and getting the word out. Lately, though, life has been a little too hectic to allow for that kind of dedication, and I've spent more time on the forums helping newbies than I have on my own shop. Ideally, I try to spend at least 20 hours a week on my store, even if it's just brainstorming and sketching out new ideas, and that's really not hard at all to do considering how much I draw and how many ideas I have churning about in my brain at any given time. When it comes to promoting my shop, however, I fall short. (see above.) I'm far more interested in making products than I am in advertising them, but I try to spend a little time each week getting the word out.

Any final words for your friends and Co-Zazzlers?

I've found that a lot of artists and photographers I've talked to about Zazzle are reluctant to try it because they think their work "isn't good enough" to sell. If you're one of those people, then this message is for you. Remember that Zazzle is free. Opening a shop is free, posting products is free. You don't have to worry about inventory, production, website maintenance, or even customer service--all you have to do is design, and if it sells, you earn a royalty for it. If there was ever an opportunity to find out for sure if your work is "good enough" to sell, this is it!

As human beings, we are naturally afraid of failure. We fear that we will invest our time, energy, and emotions into something only to have it fall through, but I can tell you that as an artist, Zazzle has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Time and time again, I have tried to make something of myself, and every time I was knocked back. My efforts to sell my artwork and my creations were met with frustration, failure, and loss, but when I found Zazzle, I took off. For the first time in my life, my creative, eccentric personality has become an advantage rather than a detriment, allowing me to reap the rewards not only in the form of a nice fat check every month, but also in the simple fact that I finally have an outlet for my creativity. There is absolutely no reason at all why someone with even a lick of talent can't make money doing what they love. If you create, if you love what you do, then there is a place for you on Zazzle.

Thank you so much, Lydia. I am sure this information will be an inspiration to more than a few people in the future!

Is Your Refrigerator Running?

2009-07-27T17:11:00.008-04:00

It may be running up your electric bill for no good reason!
As some of you may know, one of my pursuits is finding and promoting new ways to save some money while saving the environment. This is the drive behind my Angry Squirrel line of products at Zazzle.
Anybody who regularly haunts the Zazzle forums also knows I am a hardcore bachelor with few needs but my internet connection, the occasional steak and beer.
This explains why my refrigerator used to look like this:

I live alone in an area where I can walk to get my dinner supplies on a daily basis.
My refrigerator is almost always nearly empty. This is a huge power drain for no good reason whatsoever. My simple fix is based on simple thermodynamics. Without getting into steady states, or isolated systems, let's leave it at a full refrigerator is a more efficient refrigerator.
The less work the heat exchange system needs to do, the more energy we can save. Therefore I needed to come up with a way to trap cold air inside the refrigerator, so it would not all get removed when I opened the door for a beer. There are a lot of ways to pull this off. I went for CHEAP and SIMPLE. This whole project cost me $5.00 U.S.
First I went to the store and bought three "throw away" coolers. You know, those coolers that you see broken in pieces and floating around the docks in every harbor you have ever been to?

I took some of the things I rarely use, but still need to keep refrigerated inside the coolers. I do a lot of bulk shopping to save money, so I end up getting a six month supply of salad dressing, 20 pounds of hamburgers, enough coffee to open a small chain of coffee shops..

Then I simply place the coolers inside the 'fridge and I used some re-purposed packing material to fill the crisper drawer I have not yet used.
The volume of air I will no longer be losing every time I open the door is pretty easily seen.

Any time I need more room, I can simply remove a cooler or two. Even now, I have room for a third, smaller cooler, but I will leave that for another day.
Why not investigate your icebox today and see if you can save a few bucks by greening-up your refrigerator!

Learning Curves.

2009-07-23T20:35:00.002-04:00

Still learning how to use my new Intuos-4 drawing tablet. This is the first image I was happy enough with to publish. I have not used my left hand as an artistic tool for over 6 years. This will surely reopen creative doors that I had slammed shut years ago. Practice, practice, practice!

Baby Penguin Print by Softproduct
Browse Penguin T-Shirts

A Year In Review.

2009-06-29T20:05:00.006-04:00

It was June Sixth of 2008 when I opened my first store at Zazzle. It has been a heck of a ride so far and I thought I would share a few thoughts about the past Three-Hundred and Eighty days from my perspective.
You may have read in prior posts here, that before I came to Zazzle, I had made a few half-hearted stabs at the POD trade in the past. At that time, I was working staggering shifts at a local airport, I had some semblance of a social life and I had not yet honed any of my skills with Photo Shop, PSP, HTML, Etc;.. I was very familiar with the tools, but not completely on the ball as it were. Time went on and I lost my job at the airport. Well, I didn't lose it..I know where it is. It's just that somebody else is doing it now. When the job dried up, so did the "social life". Read: girlfriend. More happy accidents led to the loss of my car as well. Things were not looking real good. I was lucky enough to land a job at a digital photo studio that happens to be literally next door to my apartment. (Seven second commute) I shot weddings as an assistant to my boss and spent most of my time doing touch-ups on the images with CS2. I found myself spending more and more time staring at a monitor, both at work and at home. I was gaining proficiency with all sorts of software that many of you use all the time. I had a lot more free time to myself, and very little to do with that time. I had been looking all over the 'net for a job I could do exclusively from home, but most were scams, which I never fall for, or they involved so much time at the keyboard, I would need to learn how to never sleep in order to pay my bills.
A good friend and I were out to dinner one night when her blackberry thingy beeped. Before I could point out how incredibly rude it was to have a device like that in a functional mode during a social engagement, she looked up at me and told me she had just sold a t-shirt.
A conversation ensued, and the next day I had opened my first store.
I was a Zazzler!

My Game Plan.

I had perused Zazzle for a few hours trying to get a feel for all the different approaches different shop keepers were taking with their stores. I was alternately impressed and horrified by the dizzying array of shops and subject matter. ( I don't think I need to explain that to anybody reading this.)
I knew that this was by no means a get rich quick thing, and that this time around, I was going to need a real plan. I did my due diligence and researched the Hell out of selling online. I went to the forums. I visited pro seller stores. I searched out commonalities between successful stores. I was not looking to create a perfect store, just one that had a fighting chance to eventually make some extra cash. I also set two conditions for myself: I would treat this attempt to get into the POD market as if it was my only source of income. I would spend every humanly available moment working on the images I wanted to sell and finding ways to promote my existence on the 'net.
Two: I set a goal to be able to pay my Internet access bills by the end of a years time. This was a less than lofty goal that I honestly thought I would be able to reach if I really put my work in.

My First Sale.

This came in October of 2008. Four months after I had started work on my store. Depressing?
Absolutely not! I was giddy with joy! Somebody out there had "connected" with something I had designed. To quote the song "American Pie", "I don't remember if I cried.." I probably did.

Angry Squirrel Mug! by Softproduct
Browse Squirrel Mugs

To tell all, I don't know how this person ever found this mug. I had not yet gotten into twitter, blogging, Analytics, or any other form of networking and marketing. I don't think I had even made a comment on the Zazzle forums at this point. I was tagging my products as appropriately as possible, but I still had a lot to learn. This particular store has sold only 33 products since, but I had discovered that I could run multiple stores at this point and I had learned a lot of lessons in only four months of plugging along. Along came softproductcards!

My Business Card Store.

I was late for this bus as well. I had seen all the hype about the profile cards and knew they were available to the public, but I was still new, and I did not know how I would ever be able to introduce a new product line into my existing store without making it even more unmanageable and convoluted. I went back into research mode and discovered that many store keepers were offering single product lines. Just gift cards for instance, or t-shirts only. I figured I could try to start a Business Card only store. I would build it up and interconnect it with my original store.
I had four months of Zazzleing under my belt, and I was beginning to get the "gist" of what really needed to be done to introduce a store, and make it viable in a market that was as large as the Internet itself.

Luck Is When Preparation Meets Opportunity.

The Roman dramatist and philosopher Seneca wrote that. In an earlier time in my life, I was a struggling actor, and I lived by those words. Sure, you could get lucky and get that "big audition", but you damned well better have something to show off when they ask you to perform. The reverse is true as well..You may be the greatest there is at whatever you do, but if you don't bother telling anybody, nobody will ever know.
With this store, I decided to populate it properly before I introduced it to the public. I kept it private for a long time, and slowly added designs to my business cards as inspiration came. I even decided to do traditional size only. No profile cards, or chubby cards. I was going full niche!
My concept was to sell the highest quality designs I could come up with and to market them within a tiny band of the business demographic. "Business Cards For The Business Professional." All my tags, descriptions and titles were very carefully thought out. I wanted this store to really have a chance to rock. Even before I opened the store I prepared press releases for online free advertising sites. I properly set-up a Google Analytics account. I started blogs and a twitter account. I re-read You-Tubes TOS and realized I could actually advertise there without breaking any rules, so I made some humorous videos that pointed to my stores. I started hitting the forums for more input and information.
I have done so much more as well, but it's too much to list. The results were immediate and mind-blowing. Within a week of opening the store I made a sale. Then another. Then another.
In less than a month, my softproductcards store had blown away my first store in sales. I was amazed, but not surprised. I had learned a lot more about what to do and what not to do from the pro sellers on the forums. I had made a lot of friends that really know the business and are perfectly willing to help someone who is serious about the POD business. I learned from my mistakes and never gave up. On June Tenth of this year, I got my first check in the mail from Zazzle. (I had all my stores checks on hold for the year, but decided I wanted the money this month.) It was more than enough to pay my Internet bill, my Electric and my Gas. RENT? Not so much.. but that's my goal for this year. What are your goals, and how long are you willing to wait to achieve them? It's a marathon after all...not a sprint.
Hang in there with me! We will all be pro sellers yet!
See you out there!

Spazzlers!

2009-06-17T16:55:00.004-04:00

Since the bulk create tool seem to be here to stay, I have decided to create an award for the SPAZZLERS out there who continue to misuse it. Feel free to use this image on your posts or blogs when you are making reference to this growing problem.

Goofy Shameless Promotional Video

2009-06-09T17:35:00.001-04:00

I have been remiss in updating for a while. Busy,busy,busy!

An Interview With Mark And Mark Of Artful Animalz.

2009-05-12T21:47:00.011-04:00

I recently had the pleasure of getting to know Mark, and his partner Mark, of Artful Animalz at Zazzle.com. I have always been impressed by their designs, store set-up, and marketing savvy. I decided I would beg for an interview that I could share with the rest of the fellow rodents. Here it is!

How did you initially find out about Zazzle, and how long have you been doing it?

We first heard about it in 2004 or 2005 from my sister when she made some stamps
for a Father's Day gift. Then we tracked it for several years before deciding to take the
plunge in Spring of 2008 and create our first contributor gallery, FUNauticals. We opened
our second gallery, Artful_Animalz, in late fall of 2008.

Do you work through any other websites, or print on demand companies?

Right now, we're only on Zazzle. Early on we considered expanding to CafePress but kept getting
turned off by the quality of the merchandise and the way the designs were displayed on the products,
which always seem to look indiscriminately slapped on.

Your "Wags To Wishes" product line has a wonderful back story, could you tell the readers a little bit about it?

About 11 years ago we found Lady (a lab pointer mix) at a shelter on what would of been her last day of existence. Of course, after one look at her, we couldn't walk out knowing she was going to be put to rest by the end of the day, so we brought her home to join our life with our other pets. Four years ago Lady developed a small bump on her right front leg which turned out to be malignant cancer. Devastated by the news we had to make the painful decision to remove her leg. or she would die in a few short days. The surgery was done and the road to recovery began.

As she recovered each day and began to walk again she developed a white spot on her back hip. Each day the spot grew longer. After a few weeks she was fully recovered now with a distinct white streak of hair on her back hip. It was the shape of a falling star. Lady had now escaped death twice and revealed in her own way that she really is a lucky dog and was granted her wishes with the falling star on her hip. This true story inspired me to extend warm "wishes" to everyone who loves their pets like I do with my original line of fun colorful Wags to Wishes greeting cards, posters, stamps, t-shirts, mugs, and other gift items you'll find in our Artful_Animalz site.

Do you have a vocational background in art and design, or is this a hobby that has blossomed over time?

There are two of us, both named Mark. We met over 20 years ago at one our first jobs in the advertising business.
One of us is a writer. One of us is a designer/art director. We've worked on many projects together over the years,
and always talked about finding something, like Zazzle, that we could collaborate on. The best part about our friendship
and working relationship is that neither of us is limited to our specialty. Sometimes Mark, the designer, comes up with
the words, and sometimes Mark, the writer, comes up with the visuals or images. But in most every case, we usually
improve each others initial ideas, and take them to the next level, quality-wise. We tend to be very simpatico taste-wise,
too. And while we do treat our galleries like a business, we both have other jobs, so it's not yet a full-time business.

I love your Existential Seahorse designs. They are very clever. Do these ideas just pop into your head,
or is it something you have to sit down and really work at? Describe your creative process, if you could.

Thank you. That's a favorite our ours as well. In terms of how the ideas come, it's probably a combination
of "pop into your head" and "work at it." Both of us are trained to think conceptually. As mentioned above
we've both been in and out of the advertising business, on the creative side, for many years, where you're
under pressure daily to think about words and images. And how they fit together. Although I think creativity
and the ability to observe elements around you and combine them in some fresh, unique way, is a skill most
writers and artists often develop, or discover in themselves, at a very young age. So I guess, perhaps, some
of it is innate and some is training, experience and hard work. Like most creatives on Zazzle, we have lots
of other designs and ideas we'd love to post immediately, but just haven't had the time yet to flush them out
and present them properly.

Do you create products exclusively online, or do you work in the physical realm as well?

Mark (the designer) does do some work in the physical realm, as well. He manufactures, markets and
sells some unique Pet Remembrance items which were the inspiration for the WagsToWishes™ graphics/gift
line on Artful_Animalz.

In general, although occasionally we'll put up a one-off idea, we try to focus on developing quality designs and concepts
that have "legs" and the potential to be extended or expanded into a distinct product line, trademarked brand and/or
collection. We envision our Zazzle galleries as sort of an incubator for our designs, concepts and intellectual property,
with potential for expansion into the physical realm if and when that opportunity makes sense.

As a percentage, how do you split your time between creating and loading products to your store,
versus marketing, advertising, technical drudgery and building a strong web presence?

I'd say it's probably about 75% creating and loading, versus 25% marketing, advertising, tech. drudgery.

We really try to customize, tweak and fine tune each item within a given product line, write descriptive copy,
including HTML, and provide a generous amount of tags. We try to organize our galleries in a very user-friendly
way so it's a no-brainer for visitors. In other words we tend to over-explain things in product descriptions, and
when appropriate we also try to cross-link to other complementary products, on a given product listing page,
so that in addition to hyperlinks and the "gallery" tab, there's also a good chance someone will see at least 4-5
additional items, from the same product line, at the bottom of each individual product page. I think it's also
important that visitors should always be able to quickly jump back to a gallery or product line home page,
from within a product listing page. The quickest way to lose a potential customer is if they feel frustrated
or lost because they can't figure out how to navigate around your gallery.

All this makes the posting process very time consuming and laborious, and certainly not as much fun as
the process of creating. However, we see the organizational work as our first line of "offense" from a marketing
and sales standpoint, so we look at it as investment in the future. We also have blogs for both
sites (http://funauticals.blogspot.com and http://artfulanimalz.blogspot.com), which are sort of works in
progress — a place where we try to flag and feature new product line launches and introductions. We also try
to post our URLs on as many relevant squidoo lens as possible; upload our products to google base; and do
some link-exchanging with similar themed web sites. Beyond that, there are a bunch of things we'd like to do,
or spend more time on, advertising and marketing-wise, but for now were still more focused on building out the galleries.

It seems everybody has a Zazzle wish list. What one thing would you like to see Zazzle implement in the future,
that is not presently available? How do you see this improvement helping your sales, or creative process?

It would be great if Zazzle allowed members to sort their products, within a given product line, manually,
versus just by "Most recent" or "Most Popular". Since it's last in, first up, display-wise, it winds up taking
a good deal of time to make sure you post for sale in a specific order, so that the images/products you'd
like to be most visible are at the top of your product line home page.

The second key feature would be one that allowed contributors to automatically include designs/products
in more than one of their galleries, without recreating or re posting.

Hopefully one or both of these will be implemented with the next system upgrade, as we believe these are two
of the most requested improvements.

What is your favorite "Zazzle moment" to date?

Certainly the response from other members to several designs we've presented, like our Animal Lover Heart-Paw logo
and Jungle Instinct Kiboko Hippo, has been very gratifying. But the favorite moment would probably our very first sale,
even though it was just a magnet, because it got us thinking, "Hey, maybe there's something to this print on demand
thing, after all."

Could you give some words of advice to someone who is just starting out in the print on demand market?

It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. Do it because you love creating and designing, not for the money. It's
a lot of hard work, but if you're good at what you do and take advantage of some of the tools provided by Zazzle,
as well as generous off site opportunities offered by fellow designers -- such as being interviewed for a cool blog like
this! -- the sales will eventually come. And yes, if you have the time, it certainly can make a big difference
to market your online galleries and products in the offline/physical world, as well.

In general, if you're just starting, it's probably easier (at least it was for us) to build a following if you go "narrow
and deep" with your gallery or at least try to have a specific focus or theme. Some designers and artists get
bored with that, which is understandable. But you can always open additional galleries, with additional themes.
Unless, of course, your work is naturally diverse and stylistically unique, and, you're a tireless marketeer and promoter
for your stuff, in which case you might be able to cut through the clutter and make an impact with a general themed
gallery right off the bat.

Is there anything you are particularly proud of in your product line? What are your reasons for this?

Well, we try hard to only post ideas and concepts that we're proud of, or at least mildly entertained and amused by.
There are several things (which we will leave to our visitors imagination) in both galleries which had been left for dead,
ignored or put on the back burner because they weren't quit there yet, conceptually. Then, by batting some ideas back
and forth, we would have an "aha!" moment that might come just by adding a word or phrase; changing a font style
or its color; or tweaking the design itself, and voila!, suddenly the idea came to life. That type of product/design
development can be particularly rewarding, and is the wonderful thing about having a collaboration like ours
that really clicks.

Do you have any soon-to-be-released projects on the way?

Yes. Definitely. We have several key product line additions in the works for both FUNauticals and Artful Animalz,
as well as a third gallery, UCanSayThatAgain, which will be predominantly text-based, with some accent graphics,
and should be ready to launch and "go live" in the next few months.

My thanks to Mark and Mark for their time! In a recent email, I was informed that Lady has fallen ill, and has been hospitalized. May all of our prayers and wishes combine to assist you in this time of need.

You Suck At Zazzle #4: Contributor Toolbar.

2009-05-08T12:51:00.003-04:00

I worked with Kris of Krispyskingdom on the latest tutorial. It is all about the Zazzle Contributors Toolbar. I recommend it to anybody that is making a concerted effort to become a Zazzle pro. The video is here. You Suck #4:
The toolbar is here. Zazzle contributors toolbar.

You Suck At Zazzle.Com

2009-04-29T15:16:00.004-04:00

A shameless tribute to the you tube classic series You Suck At Photoshop.
If you are not familiar with these videos I highly recommend them. They are hilarious!
This is my attempt to bring the same sardonic humor into a Zazzle light.

More Fun With Color.

2009-04-28T13:47:00.001-04:00

Here are some 255,0,0 colors against different background colors. You can see a marked difference in the way the same colors present themselves against the different backgrounds.
Something to keep in mind when you are updating your Zazzle stores.

Protect your machine.

2009-04-27T15:03:00.008-04:00

I live alone. You may not be so lucky. ( Insert laughter here.) If your machine is shared with anyone, you need to set up user accounts, and password protect your assets. I don't care if it's your husband, your wife, your kids, a room mate, or an Eight Hundred pound gorilla that shares your machine. If you want to protect your precious images, and keep your e-store in one piece, there is no reason to take any chances. I regularly do CPU troubleshooting as a side job in real life, and a huge percentage of my clients have lost or damaged data that they were not personally responsible for. Without strict security protocols in place, a member of your family can do untold damage to your files, your machine, or even your website. This can be intentional, or a complete accident.
I once had a client who lost an entire website, because she went upstairs to make some tea, and left her administration panel for her site open. In the meantime, her cat began walking across the keyboard. The rest of the story is academic. If you live with others, you need to have these protocols in place. My personal recommendation on this issue is the same that I give to my clients. If you are going to work on line, you simply need your own system, or a password protected partition on your operating system PERIOD. If you are working in cyberspace, your machine is quite literally your office. Would you let your kids, or anyone else for that matter, have complete run of your office at work for even a minute? Of course not! Why give those same people access to your virtual office?
I hear thunder..I kid you not. As I write this, a storm is brewing. I am going to save and shut down. It's the safe thing to do.
I'm back! That was a short but fantastic lightning storm. I love a good light show, with booming thunder, but my computer doesn't. As long as we are talking about protecting your on line assets, you may wish to consider taking a few precautions against electrical interruptions.
I use an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) on my CPU and all my peripheral equipment. My particular model also serves as a surge and spike protector. Power fluctuations in any direction, or amount, can cause untold damage, including data loss. A quality UPS will make sure you are getting consistent, quality power to your machine, and will give you power long enough to save your work and shut your system down in case of a power loss in your area. I recommend a UPS that also has a throughput for your cable, or DSL line. These are just as susceptible to power problems as your electrical system. As a further precaution, once I have shut down my system during an event like a storm, or blackout, I physically disconnect the equipment from the wall. Safer is better. As well, I do not jump right back to work after the power returns. After a blackout,
there can be all sorts of fluctuations in power while the grid normalizes, and I would rather be safe than sorry.
Let's touch on another common mistake I have seen over and over again. Equipment placement:
If you have your machine positioned like 90% of the computers I have worked on, it is either on your desk, or directly under it, or to the side. Completely exposed. Call me paranoid, but these are not very safe places for one of the most important and expensive devices in your home, or office. Keeping your machine directly on your workspace is very convenient, but anything that happens to the desk, may happen to the machine. There are all sorts of desks and work spaces out there, so ask yourself the following questions about your particular set-up: If you tripped, and ran into your desk, could that put your computer at risk? Is it in a position to fall if the workspace were moved, or shaken? Is it possible for anyone who is at the workspace to place an object of any kind on top of the computer? (Coffee cups, jars filled with glitter, an open bottle of white glue, a large electromagnet)? Is your machine on the floor of a room where flooding could occur?
Is it in a place where a pet can knock it over
when they are chasing a ball, or trying to hide themselves quickly?
Is your system in a position where a child, or pet could access the pretty power button, the magical DVD drives, or the enchanting array of wires and cables attached to your tower? I could go on, but I digress. Your tower should be placed in such a way that it is not subject to damage from floods, spills, kids, pets, dust, hair, heat, cold, moisture, or the boogey man. There are many ways to do this. Probably thousands. Check out your situation. Assess the potential for disaster, and see if you can take steps to reduce the risk of data loss on your system. It's worth the time.

Top 5 Ways My House call Clients Damage Their Systems:

Dust and pet hair build up. This can cause micro shorts across electronics, heat build up from inefficient fans, even fires. Easily avoided by keeping your rig off the floor, and your pets away from your rig.

Unsecured access to files and the Internet. Kids, or other family members loading spyware, infected music files, incompatible software, etc;..

No room left on disk. An overburdened drive will eventually just stop responding, even crash. Windows users are getting into unsafe territory once they drop below 200MB of space left.

Failure to recycle, compact, and defragment.
You need to be diligent about deleteing useless files, cleaning out your temporary files, keeping a realistic amount of bookmarks, and defragmenting your storage drives.

Foreign object damage.
liquids get spilled on the CPU, metallic objects stuffed in card readers, fans are disabled by paperclips and pencils. The list goes on. If you have your computer out in the open, it becomes a target for all kinds of abuse.

Here is my rig.
I have my case, my external drives and everything else inside this stereo rack.
My nephews could come over and throw baseballs around without getting to my system.

The monitor also floats on a hinge that is attached to the side of the rack. I can swing it out of the way when I need to use my desk for something that could get messy. This also prevents an accidental fall if I jar the desk.

If you are wondering about the screening around the stereo rack, it's a home made Faraday Cage. Only the most paranoid of you might look into it. On a 1-10 scale, I probably rate a 9 when it comes to protecting my rig. It is my main source of income after all, and I would not be able to replace it easily if it were damaged, or destroyed.

Forum Etiquette Has Flatlined.

2009-04-23T22:25:00.002-04:00

I just read a forum post that made my head explode. It was horrible in every imaginable way. I do not need to use specifics, so in order to keep some modicum of common sense here, I will simply give you the facts:
A very well known and respected designer on the Zazzle circuit had posted a technical question that was very timely and legitimate. Essentially, she wanted to know if a particular software was readily available to do a particular job.
The answer, essentially, is "No". Let me explain that. The software does exist to do the job she was looking to do, but it is ridiculously expensive. I have searched for months myself to find alternatives, but they are also few, far between, and equally expensive.
The very first reply to her question on the forum, was an answer that read like this: (Again, this is not the literal answer, but basically what was told to her.)
Yes the software exists.
I use it all the time.
It can do this, that, and all kinds of cool stuff. It is the answer to my dreams.
I do not share this sort of information with my competition, so..you're out of luck.

What a jackass response! I am truly getting sick of people on the forums who are going out of their way to taunt other Zazzlers. Competition? Even if this person is telling the truth about this software, which is HIGHLY UNLIKELY, how would sharing that information be of any negative consequence? It's just a tool. The only thing that improves or decreases a shops traffic is quality of design, and time spent funneling customers to the site. If this person is really under the impression that they can somehow improve their sales by having access to one piece of software or another and refusing to share it with others, that's fine. It's ridiculous, but fine. So why go out of the way to answer a question with a statement like "I could answer that, but I'm not going to."? I need an aspirin...and a beer.

Killing Time Contructively.

2009-04-21T14:35:00.004-04:00

I wasn't feeling particularly creative today. This happens once in a while to all of us. Since I wasn't in the mood to render for my stores, I figured it was a good time to get some of the tedious work out of the way. I registered with Loktr, and added my stores to their Search Engines.
Then I went to my Igoogle local business center and made a few updates there. I checked the forums for signs of intelligent life. That didn't pan out so well..moving on, I navigated to Compete.com and checked up on what the big boy sites are using as tags this week. After that, I spent some time with Google analytics.
I realized I had forgotten to add an IP filter to one of my stores, so I fixed that in a jiffy. I updated my blogs, and my squidoo lens, and now I'm off to adjust some tags on my Zazzle stores. There is always plenty to do to keep my stores as healthy as possible, even when I'm not creating. See you out there!

Comment Wall; Yay, or Nay?

2009-04-20T23:37:00.004-04:00

Every Zazzler gets a lift from a great comment from a fellow Zazzle designer, or customer. It solidifies the work you are doing, and gives you insight as to who is watching your store(s), and for what reasons. The question here is; Is your comment wall appropriate for your particular store? Let's ignore the fact that unless we choose to eliminate the comment wall, we Zazzlers have no control over who, or when, a comment may be made on a particular wall. If a disgruntled Twelve year old that opened a shop four minutes ago, can randomly visit your store, and leave horrible, even horrifying comments, is it worth keeping that gadget on your store? My personal belief is "No." I don't want to expose any negative information whatsoever to my visitors.. EVER. Who would?
By "negative information", I mean ANY information that I am not in control of PERIOD.
One of your "best friends" could leave a message on your wall in public view, that seems completely innocuous to you, but a visitor may find it offensive for reasons you would never understand. This goes back to web mastering 101. The Internet is global, we communicate in text, and your customer is a complete stranger from a different culture. They may LOVE one of your flower mouse pad designs, and are ready to purchase it, but then see a comment on your wall that says: "This is such a beautiful design. It reminds me of this design, by (YOUR LINK HERE).
You just lost a sale because they navigated away from your page.
You just lost a sale because they were offended by something they read on your wall.
You just lost a sale because they were expecting to visit an online store, not a face book page. Get the idea?
Here is the upside!
If you disable the comment wall, you still receive that commentary through your email. You won't miss out on anybody that leaves you a message that will make your day. You may get fewer comments, because a large percentage of comments are shameless self-promotion, and those people wont bother leaving a comment if it is not going to be published. I still get really nice comments all the time in my e-mail, and I am still a rookie. I am still sure however, that it is a bit more professional to present my store in a way that I am completely in control of.
This way, if I get no sales..I know where to look to fix the problem. (ME) I don't have to worry that some text message on my store site may have eliminated a potential customer. Again, this is an opinion, not a rule.
Run your store(s) the way that makes you happy! That is most important thing.
Have fun!
See you out there!
Note: I would REALLY appreciate feedback on this issue. What do YOU think? Yay..or Nay?

Just plain fun.

2009-04-19T22:59:00.003-04:00

This is a video I took last Autumn, that I thought might bring some smiles.
This was a feral kitten that my neighbors asked me to catch, so that he could be sent to a local animal shelter. This is a "No Kill" shelter, with an incredible reputation for taking care of animals of all types. I turned it into a project and a video. His name is Bud. He was born, and lived in a dumpster for the first few months of his life. Then he met me. I had to get him to trust me enough to eventually be able to wrangle him into a cat carrier. It took weeks of trust exercises, and it was well worth it. Bud has long since been adopted, and actually lives only a few blocks away from where this video was shot. He is the coolest kitten I ever met.

Are You Connecting?

2009-04-18T20:11:00.010-04:00

Here's an idea:
Let's Open a hospital with no handicapped access. Genius! How about a computer outlet that wont let customers turn on the monitors, or touch the keyboards? Yes!
Oh! Maybe we could let the employees be in charge of what music is playing too! I love a good Willie Nelson/Nine Inch Nails mix tape as much as the next guy! Fortune 500 here we come! (I know.."Enough with the theatrics Steve, what's the point?")
My point is simple. If you can't get a buyer into the door, and keep them there for any length of time, you are hurting your business. Just as Customizables fantastic forum post The Top 10 Mistakes That Zazzlers Make should be well considered by any serious Zazzler, there are also mistakes that store owners can make that are based on more complicated issues like bandwidth, connection speed, browser cross-compatibility, and so on। I will get into "browsing comfort" as well. (Not so technical, but equally important.)
I am not a pro seller, and I am not about to tell you that my advice is any better than your neighbor Larry down the street, who keeps telling you that you should paint your roof green so that the spy satellites can't target your house. (Yes, I do have a neighbor Larry.) What I do have is a background in networking and web design, and there are "rules" as it were, about how to create a user friendly page that make complete sense, if you understand that NOBODY IN THE WORLD has your computer AND your connection type AND your browser AND your service provider AND your patience AND your Internet savvy. There is a whole list of more ANDS, but I think I made my point.
What you experience when you visit your own store on your system at home, or at work, can be wildly different than a new Zazzle visitor. This is especially true if you don't host your own Zazzle site, and have complete control of the code and scripting. You can accidentally alienate visitors without wanting to, or ever even knowing it. Here is a short list of basic webmaster "rules" (yes, you are a webmaster..like it or not..) That you might take into consideration when you are updating your stores.
These rules are in no particular order, I consider them equally important:
1. Unless you are selling music, keep it off your site: What are the chances that I like your particular taste in music? Don't make me uncomfortable. I'll just leave.
2. Avoid eating bandwidth: Not everybody can handle it. Flash panels, java script, and extraneous .gifs may look really pretty on your system, but you just froze the browser of a bride that was going to drop a thousand dollars on one of your invitation designs. Oops! (Hope she bookmarked it and is willing to give it another shot.)
3. Consider the visually impaired: Are you losing potential customers because they can't read your text? Is it too small? Is it in a font they don't have loaded in their system? Are you using a light pink font on a white background? It might look great on your monitor..not so much on theirs. I have been to Zazzle stores that are completely illegible on my monitor, and I keep mine calibrated to photographic industry standards with programs like Spyder. As well, if you use very bright colors on your website, it will diminish, or even change the way your products look online. If you have a product with dainty, light blue butterflies on it, and your page background is bright red, your customer is not seeing what they are going to receive in the mail. Try to keep neutral in your color schemes. (Again, I have seen many pro-seller sites that break this and every other "rule" out there.)
4. load a few browsers on your system to check your pages: What looks great in IE, may not be so great in Firefox, or Safari.
Try Google Chrome, or Opera. If you use Google Analytics, you can see what browsers your visitors use the most, and you can tweak your site accordingly.
5. Regularly check your stores while you are logged out: This gives you a much better idea of what your visitors are seeing.
You may be surprised at the little flaws you can pick up on when you are surfing your own site as a visitor.
6. Drink a lot of beer. This is more of a guideline that I use for myself, I'm not entirely sure if it will improve your web presence at all.
7. Try to include informative material through related links: The Internet is not just a shopping center. There are people surfing all the time for relevant information they can use and share. If you are selling a lot of bridal products, throw some links to non-competing websites that are of high quality and interest to a bride to be. This may gain you a bookmark that the happy bride will share with her unmarried bridesmaids. Make sure your links open in a separate window, or tab, so they don't navigate away from your page accidentally. While you are at it, why not contact that site, and let them know you have given them a boost, and would appreciate a link back? If they say "No."..whatever.
8. A first time visitor is equally, or more confused about what to do and where to go on your store site than you were the first time you visited. Is your page designed to assist the visitor? Ask a friend or two to visit your store and navigate, or "shop" for a product or two. have them rate the experience honestly. I recommend asking rich friends, who are prone to making spontaneous purchases, but that's just me.
9. Make friends: Not just on Zazzle, but elsewhere on the 'Net, and in real life. These are the people who may contact you and say "Hey, your pages aren't loading on my browser." , or "I think you misspelled 'Giant Pianist' on your blog today."
10. I'm not done: This list is always open for expansion. If you have any ideas, please let me know. I will gladly add your suggestions to this not-so-static set of "rules".
11. Have fun! See you out there!

Google Analytics For Zazzle Users.

2009-04-17T20:30:00.001-04:00

Here is a simple and short video to help you begin using GA tracking on your Zazzle stores.
It's easy, it's informative, and it's actually a lot of fun!

Near Disaster While Deleting!

2009-04-15T13:21:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a single business card that has been adopted by a company out there and it is generating
a dozen or so sales a week. I use Google analytics to track visitors and I know that most of the visits to that particular cards page are not through my home page.
The visitors are linking directly to the card through the product ID at the Zazzle home page. This ID is unique, and if I were ever to delete that product, I would be in big trouble.
Even if I re-issued the design, it would be under a new number and a person who has no idea what it actually looks like would never be able to find it. This would cause chaos for the company that has been using the design, and although
we could eventually get it ironed out, a lot of trust and comfort would certainly be lost.
A couple of days ago, I came within a hairs breadth of accidentally deleting that very product that has been treating me so very well.
How was I able to nearly commit retail suicide? I ignored my first rule of professional Zazzleing, which is to "treat my online store as though it were a real brick and mortar business".
More specifically, I am guilty of Z.W.I. ; Zazzleing While Intoxicated. It sounds funny, but it nearly cost me dearly. I would never show up to a real job after a couple of glasses of wine. How unprofessional is that?
What happened was this: I was creating multiple products at once, and was at the part of the interface where you can delete certain items from your existing templates. At least that's where I thought I was. I was a bit tipsy, and I was watching television, and not paying enough attention to what I was doing.
I was actually in the interface for deleting items from my store entirely. (They do look similar, especially when ones attention span is limited..) In one click of a mouse button I wiped out 23 items from my store.
As soon as I realized what I had done, I froze completely. I was staring at my monitor, while the words "No, No, NO, NO, NOOOOO!" echoed in my head.
I was lucky to have deleted some products that had not sold yet, so all it cost me was some time and a short panic attack.
I learned a lesson from that one. From now on, I am not going to go near my stores if I am in 'wine and television' mode.
I am also going to make sure to READ the pop-up warnings that I had gotten into the habit of simply swatting away. I could have avoided this near disaster if I had just taken the extra five seconds to read the warning and realize I was not doing what I THOUGHT I was doing.
That's my warning to anybody who thinks they can have a couple of drinks and still be safe behind the keyboard.
It's a recipe for disaster. If this story can save just one innocent file from deletion, I will feel it was worth the time to pass it along.
See you out there!
Don't drink and delete!

Miracles Do Occur

2009-04-13T23:16:00.002-04:00

Driving traffic, networking, and promoting your store is important if you really want to make a concerted effort to make some coin in this business. I make every effort to track my sales. I use Google analytic, I keep a map of where every sale goes to and I keep all my related blogs, web-pages, lenses, etc:, as up to date as time allows. This update to my blogger blog is a good example. It takes ten minutes out of my day, but I usually do it while I am waiting on a 3d render to finish, so I don't lose any time creating new products. All these habits are crucially important to make sure the search engines are working for you and not against you. Online friends can also quickly become business partners in one way or another, whether they help you with a design, give you creative support, or supply you with information you otherwise would not have. Keeping an arsenal of "partners" is important.
But I was discussing "miracles" wasn't I?
Once in a while you may get that "out of nowhere" purchase. A bulk purchase of wedding cards maybe. A t-shirt design that just takes off overnight. In my case, I have a business card that has been chosen as a company card, and I have gotten 40 orders in less than a month and counting. Assuming that this company doesn't get bored with the design, I can look forward to many more purchases over the next year or even longer. How many? How often? I can't know. But I do know that this "miracle" purchase was not entirely accidental. I keep my storefronts updated. I add products on a nearly daily basis, and I make my front page information as clear and concise as possible. That way, when I do get visitors, they can easily find what they are looking for and how to proceed from there. I also try to keep my front pages informational. On my business card storefront, I have a link to a great guide on business card etiquette. I did not write the article, I just linked to it. It opens in a new window, so my visitor will not technically leave my site. They can just check it out, and get some tips and tricks on how to properly adjust and customize a business card that they may be buying from me. As well, if someone sees that article on my storefront, they may send the link to someone they know that they feel could use that information as well. I think most front pages should contain at least one educational element like this. It makes your page worth re-visiting, even if the person is just looking for information, and not necessarily a purchase. The killer question is this: What was the "one thing" that made that first set of cards sell? That first card that was bought by the person in charge, who then told all his or her employees to use it to represent the entire company? I will probably never know. I will continue to stick to my game plan though. I will always be critical of my own work. I will not upload images that I personally think are garbage. I will judge my store by the way it functions, looks and feels, not by how many products I can load in a day, or a week. I will continue to run a marathon, not a sprint. I will separate myself from the pack by running my own race, and offer only unique and original designs. I will try to understand the customers I am attracting, and serve their needs by adjusting my store to their preferences and habits. I will not produce designs that are against my own beliefs. It takes too much time and energy to remember who you lied to last. I will always tag my products as accurately as possible. This will keep the search engines working for me, not against me.
Miracles do occur. You just have to put in the work to stay in line for one (or more) to come along.
See you out there!

Poor spelling can boost sales?

2009-04-08T23:04:00.002-04:00

Yes it can! Keywords, or "tags" are a familiar sight to any Zazzler. Tagging your product accurately and realistically is important if you want to drive a specific demographic to your products. But have you considered the complete lack of typing ability on the Internet? A huge amount of people out there use English as a second, or third language and even those who speak and write fluently often screw up a spelling or two along the way. Keyboard keys get stuck, fingers miss the target, it may be dark in the room they are typing in, who knows? Maybe they're drunk! When you tag your products, or make a list of keywords describing your store, keep this in mind.
On most of my business cards in my softproduct cards gallery, I have taken the phrase business card and warped it in several ways. I have tags like usiness cards, busines cards, biz cards, business ards, business cardf, and a few other LIKELY accidental key strokes. An easy method is to stick with the physically most likely reasons for a misspelling. Missing a key entirely, or hitting the key next to it. So a word like card would have these variations: ard, car xard, vard, cart, care, (the x in xard for instance, is a simple mistake of hitting the key next to c "xard"). This especially helps you as a seller if the person is doing a search from within the Zazzle site. If they type busssinesss ard, and you have that as a tag, you may have just bought yourself a page view! I recommend that you use this technique only with the most basic of product descriptions, like the TYPE of product: tshirt, tee-shirt..or coffeee mug, cofee ug..etc;. trying to misspell everything in your product tags is going to be impossible. You only have an allowance of 500 characters to describe each product anyway. If the product is event, or holiday based, you might want to throw in a few Baby howers, aby showert, or babt showrs in there.
Downside: This of course takes up part of your 500 character limit that in some circumstances would be better spent using normally typed descriptions. It's up to you to decide if it's best to do it one way or another.
Let me reiterate that I am NOT suggesting that you use false tags, or put "Earth Day" on every product you produce, just because Earth Day is coming up. This is bad behavior. As well, most search engines will ignore tags that do not appear to have anything to do with your surrounding text, like your product description, product title, etc;..
Play clean, play fair, and above all.. have some fun out there!

Keeping track of sales can be fun!

2009-04-08T14:07:00.009-04:00

I have been keeping track of my sales through Google Maps.
It makes the Zazzle experience a lot more fun for me. I actually learn a little bit about the region the products went to, and can make some guesses about how I can load more suitable products for the area that person purchased from. For instance: I sold a particular product to Kenai, Alaska. I found out that it is a Salmon fishing community where moose run wild through back yards. They also have an Ice carving carnival and contest. If this customer revisits my store, maybe they will see some fishing related products, or maybe a moose or two. Some products with the name of the town might be fun as well.
The map below (sometimes) appears to be blank, but if you zoom OUT about ten times, it will be visible.

View Zazzle friends! in a larger map

Physical Graffiti:

2009-04-05T19:16:00.002-04:00

Another aspect of my overall plan to treat my Zazzle store as a serious business is to continue investing in it. The time investment is crucial of course, but if I really want it to take off, I am going to have to do what every successful business ever has had to do. Invest a little hard earned cash. I was not about to spend real money though, I simply don't have it. I just promised myself that I would let my account ride and use whatever money began to trickle in to advertise. How do you advertise with money you haven't received yet? I just roll it over into a physical product that I can wear out in public. Hopefully, people who see my t shirt, or cap will ask where I got it and I can tell them "I design and sell these on my Zazzle store." "Here, take one of my business cards, I design and sell these too." Cha-Ching! Creating the perfect advertising product can be a fun process and very personal. I am going to my Nephews 4th birthday party this Saturday. It will be a back yard affair with about 100 attendees. I will be armed with my custom Zazzle business cards, and a t-shirt that reads "My nephew is 4 today and you're not!" What self respecting mother is not going to inquire about such an adorable shirt on such an adorable Uncle? Cha-Ching!

This Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint.

2009-03-29T21:16:00.003-04:00

If you are looking to get in and get out with some fast cash, P.O.D. is not going to be kind to you. Perseverance and resolve are key to this kind of time investment.
Remember, you are not required to invest anything but your free time. It is up to the individual to decide what sort of returns are necessary to qualify time spent at the monitor. The Zazzle forums are filled with hard luck stories from people who feel that their three month old gallery should be getting the kind of traffic that a veterans gallery of four years or more should be getting. Someone call the Waaaahhhmbulance! There are mathematical rules at work that automatically favor older stores with more products. Some of these stores are reaping benefits that a brand new store simply can not achieve: return customers, repeat corporate clients, fan bases, and even volume discounts that a start-up can't possibly compete with. Comparing your statistics and traffic to any other store is only going to hinder your growth. If you check the Community page on Zazzle, you will see some merchants loading thousands, even tens of thousands of items a week. (some of these "galleries" are truly hilarious by the way, and contain some of the most horrible examples of merchandising you have ever laid eyes on.) How can you possibly compete with that kind of volume? You may not be able to. But your concern should be a quality product that will generate interest when someone comes by and looks at it. Eventually you will have hundreds or thousands of items available if you want, but it's not going to happen in a month or two.
I used to run marathons as a teen and young adult, before my knees convinced me that it was time to quit. When I was standing in the middle of a pack of a thousand, or ten thousand other runners of all shapes and sizes at the starting line, I knew that the only thing I could not let myself do was worry about anybody else but me. I was there to go faster than I did last time. If I tried to chase down older, more experienced leaders, I was dead at the starting gun. The race was about improving my personal times, not crossing the finish line first. I might add that at every marathon I ever attended, the loudest applause, and biggest celebrations were for the people that nobody ever expected to finish in the first place. They may have come in hours after the main field stragglers, but they made it. They ran their own race. The people who visit Zazzle to purchase products are not paying attention to gallery statistics and all the garbage that a designer can allow themselves to get bogged down in. When you go to the mall, do you inquire of the store employees where their store ranks in sales against the other stores? Do you base your shopping preferences on the size of a stores inventory, or the quality of it's products? Concern yourself with producing the best possible products you can. Don't worry about "winning the race". There is no finish line, and trophies are not awarded to anyone.

Branding My Zazzle Store:

2009-03-29T19:24:00.007-04:00

Once I had finished researching other stores on Zazzle, it was time to figure out what I was going to do to make my store unique. There are thousands of galleries on Zazzle, and billions of products. What could I possibly do that would attract attention and create some initial traffic? I started with some basic concepts that I knew should be incorporated into any business. The big push these days is "going green". I had already been "experimenting" with a greener lifestyle myself. Not for the common good, as much as I was trying to see just how much money I could save over a course of time by unplugging, using rechargeable batteries, making my own note paper from shredded junk mail etc;..So, I already had a bit of "green on the brain". This was a message that would transcend any specific holiday, and was trendy in a relatively universal way. There are, of course, people out there that detest the whole "green" thing, but I was not looking to make everyone happy. I wanted niche. I had also noted during my initial research, that many of the most popular designers on Zazzle had one or more recurring characters that they used consistently on their products. In the viral environment that is the Interweb, I could envision the potential for sudden, explosive, popularity for a funny, or cute character that had a good back story. Would it not be great if I could come up with the next "serious looking gopher", or "dancing baby'? That was only a dream, but I knew I wanted to at least have a brand that carried that potential. As well, there are many people out there that have a penchant for obsessive collecting. Once they have purchased a product with a particular label or logo, they will continue to purchase any new item that carries the same theme. So, now I know I want to brand my store with a cute character that carries a wholesome and popular message of recycling, reducing, and reusing. But what should it be? A green message would best be delivered by some sort of animal, that much I knew. I tried to recall any animals in my personal memory banks that really made me laugh, or made a permanent impression for one reason or another. I had recently seen a re-re-rerun of 'ELF' which has a scene where a raccoon viciously attacks Buddy the Elf in central park. I have always found unlikely animal attacks completely hilarious. I then remembered an almost identical scene in 'Saving Silverman'. Again, a raccoon goes ballistic and attacks the face of an exterminator. In my mind I saw the Incredible scene in 'Christmas Vacation' where a squirrel goes for Chevy Chase in his own living room. That scene actually made me cry from laughing so hard the first time I saw it. Then there was 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' with the angry mob of squirrels that attack the nasty little girl in order to protect their nuts. I cried from that one too. I had my animal. The ANGRY SQUIRREL was born. A little guy that walked small and carries a big stick! I loved it. A squirrel with a baseball bat. I had my character, and a logo that would be simple, funny, and memorable. I spent that afternoon designing him, and obtaining an electronic copyright. I was ready to start Zazzleing!

My First Days At Zazzle:

2009-03-28T18:14:00.004-04:00

The first thing I did before opening my store at Zazzle, was take a good long look around. My intention with my new store, was to make a concerted effort to treat it like a real business. I had done this sort of thing before on other sites, but since there is no real "downside" to P.O.D. stores, it is easy to become lazy. There is no threat of losing money, just a little time wasted if you get no sales. So my prior forays involved no research, little time expenditure, and I got exactly what I deserved...nothing. Well, actually I made $12.00 U.S. over a three year period. Woho-hoooo! I went into this project with an objective to make enough money initially, to pay my internet related expenses. I also wanted to be on track within a year to be at pro seller status. The first thing I did to work towards these goals was check out the stores on Zazzle that were getting a lot of traffic. I did not particularly pay attention to what they were selling, but how they were selling it, and who they were selling it to. The reason WHAT they were selling was not a key part of my investigation was simple, I was not going to be selling their products. I was going to be selling mine. Getting some information about how they drove all that traffic to their zazzle stores was crucial. Going from store to store I was able to spot similar threads in the make up of the most visited sites. Most of the more popular stores sold to a very specific community of people. "greenies", children, sports fans, college kids, politicos, etc;.. They did not try to be a store for every person out there. They mostly had a very clear person in mind as a regular visitor. The products were named and presented in a fashion that would be most well received by that particular demographic. it's business 101 really, and it works. I also paid particular attention to how each store was laid out. Stores with graphical links to their product lines seemed to attract more visitors, get more comments and perhaps generate more sales. The more popular stores also carefully segregated their product lines into specific categories and sub-categories. This allows for easy product location for the customer and makes for less work on the back-end.
Finally I watched the community page carefully (I still do). I watch exactly what is being sold, and try to make connections between the products that are going out the door, and the products I am designing and trying to sell. Finally, I visit the forums constantly. There is some great information on the sellers forums and tech forums. it's also a simple way to find people who are pro sellers (they have a special avatar if they are a pro seller). I check those sites out, and try to see what they are doing that is getting so much attention. There are exceptions to every rule of course. I have been to some pro seller sites that can only be described as total crap. They are poorly laid out, ugly as hell, and barely navigable. These sites do share a common thread though. They have links, upon links, upon links all over the front page. It just may be that they are not selling their own products, but are making money from linking to popular sites and collecting commissions that way. There are also less savory sales techniques like site spamming and email bombing that can generate healthy sales at the expense of others well being. I won't do it. I have moral issues with eating up other peoples bandwidth without permission. So now I knew what a healthy store should look and feel like. It was time to come up with a name and begin the branding process.

Useful Tools For Zazzle Designers.

2009-03-28T17:17:00.009-04:00

There are more applications and tools out on there than you could easily count.
Over the last few years I have come to a relatively "fixed" set of programs and tools that I use consistently to create, edit, and keep track of my images. I also have tools to keep my Zazzle stores looking the way I want, and keep track of where my website visitors are coming from. That sort of information can be very useful when you are deciding how to produce and display your designs on Zazzle.
For Photo editing and Vector graphics I use Paint Shop Pro Photo XI. I am expert with Adobe Photo Shop as well, but I can't afford it presently. In order to keep track of my images I use a very streamlined file system on my multiple drives. I still occasionally lose track of an image here and there, so I use Google Picasa to index my inventory. Picasa also allows me to easily create thumbnails, contact sheets and upload banner links to my Zazzle stores. Picasa is free, and has saved my butt many times.
I use Daz 3D Bryce 6 to create my 3D images. Bryce is inexpensive, well designed, and in my opinion has the best customer support on the planet. I am going to get into Poser as well, but that's a few months from now. Color Cop is a neat (and free) little color picker application that can help you match hexadecimal colors on the web, or from application to application. very helpful if you are trying to exactly match a color from a previous project, or you want to make seamless banner backgrounds for your Zazzle store. One trick I use all the time is to write and save all my product descriptions and "tags", or keywords on notepad. This way I don't have to type the description and tags of similar products over and over. I just cut and paste! It's a huge advantage to know what your character count is for your tags. I use an online counter for it. Character Counter. I no longer create many fractal designs, but in the event I need to make one or two, I use Fractal Explorer. it's another free application that fits the bill for the beginner fractologist. To track activity on my stores, I use Google analytics. This tool is already built in to the zazzle administration interface. You can set it up in minutes and begin seeing how many people are visiting your store, where they are visiting from, how much time they are spending in your store and what geographical areas they live in. These are the tools I use to keep my Zazzle stores up and running. There are many more out there to suit every Zazzlers needs. I just thought I would give you this liitle tour through my toolbox.

A Little Background;

2009-03-28T16:36:00.003-04:00

As you have no doubt seen, there is a dizzying array of styles and techniques on each individual zazzle gallery. Each individual zazzler brings their own personal viewpoint and background to their Zazzle store. I have a background in digital photography and photo restoration. I have also been a hobbyist 3D modeler for years, and am expert with Photo shop and Paint Shop Pro XI. I use Paint shop Pro XI only now, since my computer crashed two years ago, and I can't afford several hundred dollars to purchase a new copy of Adobe CS. I did not attend college, and I have no formal training per-se in graphic arts or any related industry. I was a professional photographer's assistant for a couple of years, which helped me bone-up on my photography and post-production skills with editing programs. My time at the photo studio also helped me "perfect" a functional digital filing system, so I can easily find any one of the 4000+ images I have on my multiple drives. Many successful Zazzlers use public domain images and or "clip art" as a basis for their product designs. As long as they are doing it legally, I have no objections whatsoever to this practice. I prefer to create almost all of my work from scratch. This satisfies my creative needs and also insures that I am producing products that can't be found anywhere else in the world. I have seen more than a few "arguments" on the forums and community ticker between two designers that have suspiciously identical designs on similar products. I would rather avoid that sort of drama. that's "me" in a nutshell. I think I will follow this article up with a list of all the tools I use on a regular basis to create images and keep my stores looking the way I want.

In The Beginning:

2009-03-28T15:40:00.000-04:00

I learned about Zazzle from a friend of mine in June of last year. She has a small store that she uses mainly to create give-away items for her personal business. I have been creating 3D graphics for years, and I also restore photographs and do vector art. I had done this sort of thing before on other sites over the years, so I really did not expect to see anything new at Zazzle. Once I visited the site and checked out the upload and administrative interface, I was impressed enough to consider making a real foray into the P.O.D. market. I decided I would spend some serious time and effort on this project and see where it took me. It's been only nine months, and the sales are really beginning to pick up. I won't retire on this money, but creating is something I do anyway, so making a few bucks here and there is better than having my work doing me no good whatsoever sitting on my hard drive.
This blog is a living diary of my activity at Zazzle. How I got started, what tools I use, how I built links and networks to drive sales, etc;.. I expect to make pro seller status near my one year anniversary, and I thought it might be helpful to use my experiences to assist others who may have the same questions I did when I was starting out and trying to get up to speed.