Having a Great Time with Merch…
Drinking Iced Tea Out of My Poker Boy Mug…
And I have a Poker Boy hoodie, a Bryant Street hoodie, and a Pulphouse hoodie to wear, plus a Marble Grant mug.
Why am I even mentioning this? Well, after 50 years since I sold my first short story, this is the first time I have ever had any merchandise with my own characters and worlds and brands on it.
And what have I discovered?
Makes me want to write more.
Not kidding. Just having this brand stuff and merch as a possibility, let alone being able to actually have the stuff, really has me energized to do more. And create more brands that could have nifty merchandise.
This is just fun, and I mean a lot of fun. And every time I open the cupboard and see my mugs sitting there, I smile and want to write fiction. And in my office near my writing computer I have this fantastic tote bag with Pulphouse brand on it.
Suddenly everything I have been seeing at the licensing expo is real, not some pipe dream of the future. That is fun also.
But mostly I have been surprised at how it makes me want to go write more.
You might want to create a brand and do some for yourself. A real motivator.
4 Comments
Sean McLachlan
Making merch is on my to-do list, although I must admit it is low priority compared with publishing. Sort of a “I’ll get to it sometime” type of thing.
What platform do you use? I was thinking of using teepublic but I haven’t done much research on the different platforms yet.
dwsmith
Use Printful or Printify and they can connect to your Shopify store.
Tina Back
Some tshirt colors are already out of stock at Printify, so anyone thinking about bringing merch to the licensing expo should order fast. The tariffs are creating bottlenecks and empty warehouses.
Creating tangible products is so much fun though. You take your characters and figure out what else they can do. I created a kids card game. It wasn’t planned. I had a bunch of kid friendly characters, a really silly, parents-will-hate-you game idea and no one stopped me. Turns out there is print on demand companies for board and card games too. Might not be ready in time for the expo, but soon.
dwsmith
So far Printful and Printify are holding prices, but they won’t be able to for long.