dear forums members, i need some help and advice
the calendar project isnt finished yet, but it showed many many things,
- first of all it showed how many work it is to create a product that is available via bookstore, amazon, ebay and stuff.
some things occured can be handled by me, e.g. writing a small database to keep track of orderings, and sendings, none of the publicly available selling system was able to handle different
ordering locations
- organization of a calendar product has to be due in mid of previous year
- distributing - it showed that a world wide distribution of a product from one source in germany leads to exorbitant shipping costs, and takes a loong time to delive over-seas
the least i need is a distributor that can take a package of 50 items, and i will then contact and transfer money to the person when an order is placed, alternatively it could
be sold by the person directly, but this is not my intention, i think i would like to keep control over everything, but if someone wants to place a bigger ordering ( >10 ) to distribute
it it is ok to make a better price so that the person can earn money as well with it... some solution needs to be found for this...
- HOW TO Advertise ? trhis year showed, that the real buyers are all somehow connected to the forums, so, this was a "freak buyout" barely some calendars where sold, but the question is: "how to sell those stuff to 'non-fractalists'?"
* dudes, anyone holding an exhibition next year, please contact me at least 3 weeks before, so that i can send some exemplars
* my personal idea to increase popularity of fractals is to make a web-tv show at the beginning on a monthly base, which will then later on be used to announce the calendar, usually the people when they "saw" the calendar they wanted to have it ...
* google adwords has been tried out, but didnt lead to any significant effects .....
* people that bought calendars, hang them out publicly
- what products could be sold as well through a shop system that i am willing to build up ?
- one idea is to create a crystal-glass-ball-with-3d-mandelbulb-printed-inside
- usual stuff, e.g. sell coffe-cups mousepads, or other fractal merchandise ...
A NOTE ABOUT PAYMENT TO CONTRIBUTORS
this year was a complete test, to check out how this works, and how much revenue is generated, the answer is: NONE REVENUE was generated ( calculating in the real amount of money on my bank account, and the spend time to organize and ship the stuff ) my personal calculation would allow a small payment ( e.g. 250€ for each entry ) that could be generated if 1.000 exemplars are sold for the full price, roughly 10% of earnings could be used to give out
to contributors....
ABOUT MY ROLE IN THIS WHOLE STUFF:
i wont create art that is for sure, my plan is to live by selling fractal merchandise in near future, selling 2.500 - 5.000 calendars a year would bring me into the position to make a dream come true, to create a living based on fractals
i want to be fair to all contributors, but i need to keep track of my own needs, the support of the forum is incredible
my future plan is to create the "fractal bible" containing the whole development and programming stuff that is needed to enter fractal world, especially detailed description of last decades fractal developments ( e.g. flame fractals, triplex fractals....)
so, the question is:
HOW WOULD YOU POPULARIZE 3d FRACTAL MERCHANDISE?