Challenge,  Fun Stuff,  Licensing

A Little Group Help…

July 24, 2023 /

Looking for Anyone Who Has Tried This…

Or bought something from them. There is a new place that you can crowd fund a limited edition plushie. It is called Makeship.com.

I have not signed up for an account to get behind the scenes, so I was wondering if anyone out there has tried it yet, either as a customer or started a campaign? Or has other information about them and their business.

I know the campaigns run for 21 days, are very basic with one product (the plushie), and charge the customers retail value.

I have figured out that they are limited editions and will not even start production unless they hit 200 backers. The number of the final backers is the number of the limited edition on the tags of each one.

I do not know if or how the creator makes any money or if the creator gets discounts for buying a bunch or anything like that.

Or a bunch of other questions. But considering the costs of doing plushies for our books and such, and the fact that we have to ship them and warehouse them, for 99.9% of all of us, they are not possible. And very expensive up front costs.

But this combination of fan funding, limited editions, and Makeship shipping to customers directly suddenly seems sort of attractive. Especially if we make money per plushie.

And fairly easy.

Looks like it is another nifty idea in indie publishing, gaming, and comics for a tough-to-produce product.

So anyone got any more information than I have? They seem to be very new.

Thanks!

 

13 Comments

  • Alexander Boukal

    July 24, 2023 at 4:24 am

    I have found a guy on youtube who went through the process to make a plushie. He even had an interview with someone about how the process worked.

    For more information, you can either…

    Go Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LsXmEECTSo

    Or…

    Go to youtube and do a search for makeship.com and watch “I Made my own Custom PLUSHIES!” by Ten Hundred

  • Lee Allred

    July 24, 2023 at 4:59 am

    Most of the YouTube channels I watch do plushies the usual way (order bulk product, do the warehousing/fulfilment themselves). I’ve heard of a few YouTube channels using Makeship, but they seem to have follower counts in the 100k+ range. That might be the audience size needed to make this practical.

    Makeship is based in Toronto, iirc, and plushie quality seems to be quite excellent based on review sites.

    You might want to watch this video that goes into the design process (with screen time from the Makeship folks). Doesn’t speak to campaign details you’re wanting, though, unfortunately.

    https://youtu.be/2LsXmEECTSo

    Sorry I can’t help more, Dean.

    • dwsmith

      July 24, 2023 at 2:07 pm

      It’s the cash outlay, the storage, and a person having to ship each one that makes them a problem for us. Through the factory in Poland (there were at the licensing expo), I can make the math work. Just don’t want to. (grin)

  • Rob Kerns

    July 24, 2023 at 9:31 am

    I posted your question about Makeship.com in a couple of the indie author groups I follow, but so far, none of the commenters have any direct experience using the site as a creator.

    One even went so far as to ‘helpfully’ answer that she’d never heard of it.

    Otherwise, the comments have been along the lines of, “Well, I know someone who…” or simply regurgitating what we can all read from the website.

    If something more concrete does come of my questions, I’ll reply to this comment.

  • LM

    July 24, 2023 at 12:05 pm

    I’ve seen a couple of webtoon artists go back and make a second, so I think it’s at least a decent enough experience to get repeaters. And good reports from the buyers/fans too.

  • Kate Pavelle

    July 26, 2023 at 10:52 am

    There’s a woman who started out making LGBT plushies, small, by hand. Pip and some other similar name. She will develop a pattern, make a run, and sell them individually online. I forget her name but I sent a shout-out. This might be ideal for her! Also, it’s quite possible she tried them or is using the service by now. The only snag I see is that her characters had particular expressions and were pretty complex. I don’t know how that would translate if somebody else did it for her. Worth a shot though. Thank you!

  • Nathan Haines

    July 26, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    Ooh, the video game company I’m translating tie-in novels for did a Baby Boron [squid alien] plushie campaign on Makeship before a big update. I thought to myself, “hmm, clearly a business expense, and it’s cute!” so I bought one.

    It came in a box in a nice, cotton Makeship drawstring bag, and the plushie itself is nice and large, about 7×6 inches, seems to have nice stitching. Does have great embroidery, and the fabric is very soft. I’m actually quite happy with it. And I think $5 extra got me the pattern in my email, too. Not that I sew, but I was curious.

    I have no idea if the company made any money off of it, but it definitely makes me smile whenever I see it!