Archive for the ‘product creation’ Category

You’re at a conference and you see someone you recognize. Smiles flash and you rush together to exchange hugs and greetings. It’s been a while and you’re excited to see each other. During the course of catching up, your friend asks if you have a copy of their new book. “No,” you respond, “I didn’t even know you wrote a book! I’d love a copy!” They take a book out of their briefcase, open the front cover, and write a special note. You flip through it and express congratulations.

“So have you created any new products, lately?” they ask. You go on to share about your latest webinar series and e-book you created. It’s selling well and they are excited for you. And that’s when the awkwardness begins. You’d love to share it with them, but since it’s digital, you have to e-mail them the login information later, if you remember to.  Even though it’s a great product, sharing a link with your friend feels impersonal. That night, you flip through their book and you think, “I need to create a physical book.”

I LOVE creating digital products…love them. They’re easy for me and can be sold any time of the day or night without my personal involvement at all. It’s the ideal product scenario…almost. Here’s the thing…even though I’m pretty prolific (I’ve created over 60 products), the products I love to show off the most are the physical ones! Why? Because you can actually SHOW them to people and GIVE them away. Of course, you can sell them too! The truth is that, as tactile humans, we “need” to feel the touch of things. It makes them more “real” somehow. And because of the “realness” factor, we assign physical products a greater perceived value.

Let me ask you a question…as a professional photographer, if I were to offer you a high-resolution digital copy of one of my photographs or a framed print, which would you take? You would obviously take the framed print because you can SHARE it easier with others. Visitors to your home would be able to see it hanging in your office or den and comment how amazing it looks. You could then thank them and share how it was a gift from your friend. Physical products establish a connection with your peers and audience that digital products will NEVER create.

I recently attended NAMS6 in Atlanta. David Perdew, the event creator, invited me to join the faculty and this was my first event. Knowing that I would have requests for business cards while there, I decided to do something different. I purchased greeting card blanks and envelopes at the local craft store and had 4” X 6” prints of some of my favorite photographs printed at Target. Using two-sided tape, I attached the photos to the blank cards and signed my name on them. On the back of the card, I pasted a shipping label that included my contact information.

At the conference, when someone requested a business card, I pulled out my 5” X 6.5” greeting cards and let them pick their favorite photo. People loved them! A few people asked for more than one. Now let me ask you…when is the last time someone asked you for multiple copies of your business card? Do you think my card will stand out compared to ALL the other business cards collected given it’s MUCH larger than the others? Sure it will! One last thing…David asked we all put our business cards in a bucket for prize drawings. Do you think mine card was easy for the person drawing the cards to find? You bet! I won a portable drive!

The point I want to make here is that, if you want to truly have an impact on your audience, you HAVE to create physical products! You should have a book at the very least. Now before you start thinking that making physical products is hard, I’m going to stop you right there because it’s just not true! Take my cards, for instance. If you can apply two-sided tape to a photo and position it on a blank card, you can make your own. That’s just one example of many…you get the idea! It’s only hard if you make it hard.

Just like with digital products, creating the “right” physical products requires good market research, the right tools and content! The selling process is also a bit different as well. Fortunately for you, I have demystified the process of creating physical products in my course, “Physical Product Success Secrets.” Over the course of four videos, I share a clear plan of how to create your own physical products. Video #1 covers the Mechanics of creating products. Video #2 dives into Research. Video #3 explores the different type of products you can create (and how), while Video #4 lays out how to market and sell those products. Did you know that with physical products, you can tap into a stream of 175 million “buying” prospects that you don’t have access to with digital products? Yep! I show you how in “Physical Product Success Secrets!”

And…by the way…THIS weekend (Labor Day), you can get started with creating your OWN physical products for less…I’ve discounted the course for the next 4 days! Finally, you won’t have to feel left out when you’re at your next family gathering, conference or event. Think about how good it’s going to feel to jot a note and share your product with a smile, knowing that you’ve just touched another person’s life. How cool is that?!

 Get Started with Physical Products!

The past few posts on using art for physical products…and specifically for prints…has created quite a stir. Paul even went so far as to say:

“Incredible article Tony. This one post is the basis of a potentially full-time job, all by itself. They should start calling you “Mr. Value.”

I like the sound of that…grin.

The truth is that Paul is right…what I’ve shared, and continue to share, can create a great income for you. That’s why I’m sharing it. There is big money in art (in case you haven’t figured that out yet). And so, to continue the discussion on how to profit from art even further, in today’s post, I am going to share a new resource that I just started using. I’m really excited about this company because their business model is awesome, their products and price points are great, and the truly understand third-party fulfillment!

Wall Hogs offers a unique spin on how to “hang” your art on your walls. While they DO offer poster prints, those are NOT why you need to use this company. They offer a technology much more “sexy” than poster prints. They actually give you the ability to produce your artwork or photos as removable vinyl cutouts that adhere directly to your wall. It’s likely you have seen this before. What is amazing about this company, however, is that their prices are reasonable and they make it simple to be a reseller for their services. I like that!

Recently, I uploaded a piece of art that was based on a Public Domain image and initially created as a t-shirt design. the upload process was straight-forward and easy. A minute or two and a Paypal payment later, my artwork was in-process for a 12″ wide vinyl cutout. And the cost? Just $12.99 plus a buck and change for shipping. Resellers get 25% off of those prices.

As you would imagine, my brain is spinning. The opportunities are huge. Wall Hogs is going to get a LOT of business from me. They should get a bunch from you Public Domain Image fanatics out there as well! To learn MORE about the services Wall Hogs offers and to get your own vinyl cutout made (you HAVE to try this…seriously!), check out their website HERE! I highly recommend them!

BTW…what I’ve been sharing in these posts is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what I’m planning to reveal in my upcoming webinar series, “Physical Product Success Secrets.” This new series may be one of the most important series I present this year on how you can build a profitable business using proven content from the Public Domain. Get all the details and sign up here:

Physical Product Success Secrets

Oh, and everyone who signs up by January 26th gets an insane bonus I’ve NEVER offered before…trust me, you would be crazy to pass this up!

Over the past several days, I’ve been sharing some in-depth strategies and insights on how to use Public Domain content to create Physical Products. With top traffic sites like Amazon, eBay, Etsy and others pulling in a whopping monthly
traffic volume of over 175 million consumers, it is INSANE to NOT be selling products on those sites!

The great news is that, with the vast collection of Public Domain available to us, is it easier now than ever to create and sell products on those sites. And that leads me to a VERY exciting announcement!

I just released the details on a brand-new webinar series I am teaching called, “Physical Product Success Secrets” where I will be sharing all the latest marketing research, product creation strategies and much more! This series will share,
step-by-step, how you can add profitable physical products to your business and benefit from the massive amounts of consumers looking for YOUR products. I will show you how to determine what sells and what doesn’t, the types of products
you can create (and how to do it), where to sell them online AND offline, and much more!

You can get all the details on how to get started here. You do NOT want to miss this:

Physical Product Success Secrets

It appears I struck a chord with the last two posts on creating physical products. I appreciate all the comments and feedback. In this post, I decided to up-the-ante by sharing a clever research strategy and combine it with another sneaky method for finding high-rez Public Domain images. This approach isn’t being taught anywhere so you’re learning it here first!

Imagine how powerful it would be to have 3.5 million art-buying consumers tell you exactly which Public Domain images they like to purchase. Information like that could revolutionize your “art” business, couldn’t it? Think about it…one of the keys to succeeding in business is to know what your prospects want (or the problem they need solved) and providing them with the answer. So, if we had a way where buying customers, and LOTS of them, would tell us what they like through their consistent purchasing decisions, the results would be a good indicator of what WE should consider selling as well, right?

Good news! That is EXACTLY what I am going to show you in this post! There are two websites online that sell a massive amount of art posters: AllPosters.com and Art.com. Between the two websites, they receive 3.5 million unique visitors per month. That’s HUGE! Plus, with each site offering around 500,000 art choices, it becomes pretty easy to consider that we may be able to identify buying trends. What’s cool is that both sites make our covert research pretty easy! Let’s get into the process. It works the same for both sites.

The first step in the process is to identify what the best-selling images are on each site. Below are screenshots that show you where to click to discover that information for each site. On AllPosters.com, you want to click on the circled link, “View more in ‘category’ (Bestsellers)”. On Art.com, click the “Bestseller” link in the top navigation bar.

Once you get to the Bestseller section of each website, you will notice that you have several style options. I typically look at the “Fine Art” and “Vintage” bestsellers, since many of those bestsellers are actually from the Public Domain. The screenshot below shows the top-sellers in the Fine Art category on AllPosters.com. I also want to point out that AllPosters.com is SO kind to actually tell us the copyright date for the art that was purchased! How kind of them…grin.

Now we could stop there and, with just a little time, you would gain valuable insight into which images consumers are purchasing the most…valuable info!  But I’m not planning to stop there. It’s great to know WHAT people are buying, but what about finding the actual files for the images so that you can sell the same images (or related ones) yourself? Check this out…let’s pick an image, like the “Great Wave” image in the #3 position and right-mouse click on it. Choose “Copy Image Location.”

Next we are going to open a new tab and visit the site, TinEye.com. Once there, we want to “Paste” the URL we just copied at AllPosters.com into the “Enter image address” section and click “Search.”

TinEye will search through 1.8 billion images and return results that are identical or similar to the image URL you entered. Once the results are returned, you want to sort the results by “Biggest Image.” You will notice in the result below that our largest result is 4,335 X 2,990 pixels…large enough for us to print a decent 16″ X 20″ print! How cool is that? And, we know that the image is in the Public Domain because AllPosters.com listed the copyright date as 1829!

I hope you see the power in this strategy! Now, to be completely transparent, you will NOT find high-resolutions of EVERY image using the method I just showed you. However, it’s likely that you WILL uncover MORE images than you are currently aware of. Now, for the sake of completeness…let me show you another site that you can ALSO use to find similar image results. That site is GazoPa.com. The process for this site is very similar to that of TinEye, but the results work a little different. Below is a screenshot of my result using the same image URL.

You can see that GazoPa found the same size image as our results turned up using TinEye. I have found in some cases, however, the one site might return results that the other doesn’t, which is why I usually check both!

Okay…that’s it. In just a short period of time, we have not only identified some of the top-selling art images online, but have also discovered a way to connect us with some of those digital files as well so that we can create our OWN versions of those best-selling posters! Go have fun with it!

In my last post, I shared about the importance of creating and selling physical products. It’s a must-do part of your business for more reasons than just making money (like building credibility, new markets, etc)! In this post, I thought I’d continue the discussion by focusing on one of my favorite types of physical products: Art Prints. I’ve been conducting a lot of research on price and quality and have identified the best options for getting high-quality, low-cost prints made.For definition-sake, an art print can refer to any type of printed image, from maps and photographs to labels and posters.

It used to be that if you wanted to produce art prints, say 18″ X 24″ or 24″ X 36″, you had to go to a printer and have them produced in mass quantities to make them cost effective. When I managed the commercial printing companies in the late ’80s and early ’90s, my pricing model started with a base price whether you were printing one copy or thousands. The cost of creating a negative and plate for a job as well as the press startup were always the same. And if you wanted a 4-color job, it was expensive…especially in low quantities. Of course, with digital printing and large-format inkjet printers, all that has changed…and the pricing, if you know where to look, is pretty amazing.

Previously I mentioned Zazzle and CafePress as important considerations for creating and selling physical products. I still believe that, especially when it comes to testing new markets or product designs. But for long-term product creation…art prints for our example today…they are NOT good solutions. When I compare pricing models in just a moment, you’ll see why.

Two of the most popular art print/poster sizes are 18″ X 24″ or 24″ X 36″ and there are several options for having them produced. Some companies (like Zazzle or CafePress) will allow you to purchase just one copy. Other companies require a minimum quantity purchase (typically 100). Of course, in many cases, buying in quantity means a cheaper cost per unit, as we will see. In some cases, however, you may only want to purchase one print initially to test the market, and then increase printing numbers from there. Let’s take a look at our current pricing options for Art Prints.

(Prices are Cost per Print and do not include S/H fees)

Zazzle.com: 18″ X 24″: $19.95 24″ X 36″: $34.95

CafePress.com: 16″ X 20″:  $16.00 23″ X 35″: $19

ShortRunPosters.com: 18″ X 24″: $2.97 24″ X 36″: $9.97

As you can see, the best option by far is ShortRunPosters.com. Their quality is excellent and are, in my opinion, the best solution for short-run art prints/posters. If you find that you need 100 or more art prints of the same image (such as for a promotion or of an image that is selling well), there are better options that will drive your costs down even further. I recently found a company I had not heard of, JiperorPrint.com, who produces all types of printing including posters. While they require minimum runs, their prices are amazing compared to former solutions I’ve used like PrintPelican.com and PSPrint.com. Let me give you an example based on the above sizes.

(Prices are Cost per 100 and do not include S/H fees)

JiperiorPrint.com: 18″ X 24″: $109 ($1.09 per print)  24″ X 36″: $179 ($1.79 per print)

The prices are amazing! And if you bump the quantities to 500, check out the cost per unit:

18″ X 24″: $175 ($.35 per print)  24″ X 36″: $336 ($.67 per print)

Think about this…why purchase 100 18″ X 24″ prints for $109 when you can get 5 times that many for $66 more?! Amazing! Now perhaps you’re thinking, “That’s great, Tony, but what if I want to print smaller sizes? It looks like my options are limited.” Well, I’m glad you asked! The thing is, just because you’re printing an 18″ X 24″ print doesn’t mean the image HAS to be that size! You can fit two 11″ X 17″ prints side-by-side on a sheet or even four 8″ X 10″ prints on a single sheet. So let’s say you want to produce 8″ X 10″ prints of four related images…you could put one of each on a sheet and drop your cost for each of the four down to just $.75 (when printing at ShortRunPosters.com). Below are examples of a recent print order I had produced at ShortRunPosters.com that demonstrates what I mean:

Full Size

Two-Up

Four-Up

As you can see, there are a LOT of possibilities for ganging your prints!

In closing, I want to mention one quick note about using ShortRunPosters.com…they have a $10 flat shipping fee so ordering just one print is still expensive. What I do (and recommend) is order multiple prints of several layouts. The shipping cost remains the same but is spread out over your order of prints. Also, make sure you use as high a print resolution for your files as possible. I recommend NOT going below 180 DPI with 300DPI being the ideal!

I hope that this article has inspired you to consider getting your own prints made. The art print market is HUGE (especially on eBay), and with the cost of prints I’ve shared above, and the millions of images available to you in the Public Domain, you now have ZERO reason to venture into this profitable market! So go get ‘em!

As information product developers, we often spend a lot of time trying to get traffic to our websites so that we can increase sales. More traffic = more sales…or so the theory goes. But we often get SO focused on “digital products” and “traffic getting” that we miss some huge opportunities for capitalizing on massive traffic that already exists. The catch, however, is that to benefit from this traffic, we need to sell PHYSICAL products, not digital ones (with one exception which I’ll address later).

I love creating digital products as much as the next person. They’re fast and easy to manage. But with the abundance of “physical product” traffic that is available, it’s time to re-think your product creation process. The truth is, that in many cases, your digital products can easily make the jump to physical with minimal effort. You will understand what I mean when I reveal the traffic sources.

I’ve been conducting a LOT of research and testing on sites like the ones I’m about to share BECAUSE of the traffic volume they receive…that’s the ONLY reason. The numbers are simply too big to ignore! As a matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that if you are not selling on ALL (or at least most) of the sites I’m about to mention, you’re missing a huge opportunity to boost your income. And the BEST news (as far as I’m concerned) is that Public Domain-based products are PERFECT for these sites! What websites am I talking about? Here is the list along with their traffic numbers (from Compete.com):

• Amazon.com (82.1 Million Visitors per Month)

• eBay.com (67.2 Million Visitors per Month)

• Etsy.com (6.5 Million Visitors per Month)

• Zazzle.com (5.7 Million Visitors per Month)

• CafePress.com (5.2 Million Visitors per Month)

• iOffer.com (1.9 Million Visitors per Month)

When it comes to selling physical products, the above sites are the cream of the crop. There are addition sites out there with traffic numbers under a million per month, but these six sites should be a part of your product-selling strategy…period…simply because of the traffic. Think about it, is it easier to create a river or stand in the middle of one? Obviously the latter approach is easier. By offering your products on the sites above, that is essentially what you’re doing…standing in the flow of their existing traffic!

So…what should you be selling there? Be smart and do your research. Find out what people are already buying and them sell them more of the same! Most of the sites offer best-seller listings…use them! And with today’s on-demand technologies, turning Public Domain content into physical products to sell couldn’t be easier!

Here are a few places to begin your research on the top three sites:

• http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/

• http://pulse.ebay.com/

• http://www.craftcount.com/ (Top sellers on Etsy)

I’ve been teaching a webinar series for my Step-by-Step Members lately on creating different types of physical products from Public Domain content. And so, for today’s post, I thought it might be beneficial for you if I listed some of my personal favorite resources for getting physical products created.

First of all…WHY physical products? Aren’t digital products easier to manage and more profitable? Yes and no! The truth is that, in spite of the rise of the iPad and other mobile devices, many people still enjoy having a tangable, physical “something” to hold and stick on the bookshelf or share with a friend. And besides, try “wearing” a piece of digital art…grin. Physical products also carry a certain sense of “realness” that digital products don’t have. Then there is the perceived value piece of it. Try an experiment…tell someone you wrote an e-book, and then tell them you also wrote a print book. Somehow, having a book in “print” carries greater weight in the mind of the reader because you’ve been “published.”

So what types of physical products are able to be created using Public Domain content? With, with the advent of many different types of on-demand technologies, there are quite a few types of physical products you can create. As recent as just a few years ago, many of these technologies either didn’t exist or were crazy expensive. All that has changed now and will continue to evolve…for our benefit!

Some of the most popular physical product creation methods available to you include:

• Books (paperback, hardback, photo books, etc.)

• DVDs (movies, digital collections, software, etc.)

• CDs (music, digital files, software, etc.)

• Binders (workbooks, course modules and more)

• Apparel (t-shirts, totes, jackets, hoodies, etc.)

• Prints (posters, maps, artwork, photographs, calendars, etc.)

• Other Printed Pieces (magazines, calendars, greeting cards, etc.)

• Household Items (drinkware, window decor, tapestries, etc.)

As you can see, there are quite a few options for you to choose from for creating physical products. Please bear this important point in mind though…if you don’t actually CREATE the products, you can’t make money from them. Seems obvious enough, but you’d be surprised how many DON’T take action. So to make “taking action” as EASY as possible, here is a list of some of my favorite sites for creating products in a “physical” way. As Olivia Newton John once sang…”Let’s get physical…” lol.

Books

• Lulu
• CreateSpace
• 48hrBooks

Photo Books

• Blurb
• MPix
• SnapFish

Apparel

• Zazzle
• CafePress
• Spreadshirt

Prints

• Print Pelican
• Shortrun Posters
• BayPhoto

Magazines/Calendars

• Print Pelican

DVDs/CDs

• Kunaki
• CreateSpace

This morning, I had a 5-hour drive to pick up my daughter. When I first began my drive, I thought about the different types of business-related activities I’ve accomplished while being on a long drive. Stuff like coaching calls, teleseminars, masterminds and other phone-related activities (I strongly recommend using a headset or bluetooth device so you can keep both hands free) came to mind. I have also created videos while driving…the camera was on the dashboard. Of course, long drives are also a great time to catch up on audio training and audio books (something I do quite regularly).

Then I got an idea. I wondered if I could create a different type of content while I was driving by using the interactive power of Facebook. So I pulled off the road, made a post to my Facebook wall using my iPad and asked for responses. The results were pretty cool, and showed just how powerful (and fun) interactive, user-generated content can be.

Below is the actual dialog from my Facebook wall from earlier today. The conversation will likely continue to grow. Occasionally you will see where I interjected additional thoughts. Those were the times I stopped for breaks. Enjoy the dialog and feel free to join in below in the comments!

Tony Laidig: While I’ve been driving, I’ve been thinking about the things that cause us to think or act irrationally (not including alcohol and controlled substances…grin). A couple ideas…seeing a friend or family member in danger. As a guy…women…lol. How about you? What makes you do things that defy logic or reason?

Heddy Rhea: Anxiety…and stress.

Heddy Rhea: And should you be doing this while you are driving??

Tony Laidig: At a service plaza…grin.

Monty Craig: Seeing a Semi coming toward me as I am thinking too deeply while driving! Ha ha…

Kristen Eckstein: Dealing with a psychotic client who expects a best-seller quality book cover in less than 10 seconds & bugs me every 5 seconds for it until it’s ready. (I bet you can relate, Tony!)

Apothecary Jeri: Government agencies come to mind ……MVA, USPS …not that it ever happens to me of course :p

Therese Sparby: Things that defy logic or reason?!?!? I do this all the time… Every time I make a commitment that requires faith, and I follow my instinct. (for example- becoming an entrepreneur and building a business to many people… often including myself… defys both reason and logic)

Laureen Falco: I would say one of the things I’ve done to defy logic or reason was to skydive. I’m one of the few – that didn’t really enjoy my tandem jump – and that one minute free fall felt like a lifetime – especially when you’re thinking that this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done! Had I had a great time – it would have been exhilarating. But the whole time, it was being filmed, and I kept trying so hard to keep my lunch down.

Elaine Ireland: Seeing my kids/grand kids do something that I KNOW is going to hurt them and not being able to do/say anything to prevent it. Sooo, I go do something stupid to compensate for it. Silly, huh?

Tony Laidig: Great comments everyone! Here are a few more I thought of (no I’m not typing this while driving). Unresolved emotions or trauma (like road rage), fight or flight scenarios, fear, faith, peer pressure and my personal favorite…chocolate.

Elaine Ireland: Since when is chocolate…anything, but GOOD for body, mind and soul?

Tony Laidig: True Elaine…but it still makes me act irrationally at times…especially when I NEED it. lol

Heidi Walter: Interesting, chocolate has never made me act irrationally. Must be my genetics. LOL.

Cathy Colonna Rogers: KIDS – Especially your own. They have a way of getting you so frustrated in an argument you can’t even put together a coherent sentence!

Tony Laidig: BTW…I am not suggesting that these triggers will always lead to irrational behavior or will do so in all people. I also realize that “irrational” is subjective. I just find it fascinating that there are influences that can control us with…out explanation. That said, here are some more possible triggers I thought of: Self-preservation, belief in a cause, a need to belong or fit in, the supernatural, organized groups or religions, chemical imbalances or food allergies, group devotion (like sports fans…grin). Any other thoughts?See More

Taylore Vance: This is Scary and we need to realize that this is behind unrest…and social problems including substance abuse — why try if you are hopeless? (Good question) http://ymlp.com/zBy5lG

Heidi Walter: Oh, Tony, you’ll have to get Maxine Jones’ book on agreements when it comes out later this fall. I am editing it now. It’s all about the conscious and unconscious agreements we make, like aging (which doesn’t have to happen) and needing food to survive (That was a human consciousness agreement that built up over the centuries). Fascinating and empowering stuff. We don’t know the title yet, but I’ll be writing about it once it’s ready.

Audrey Spiegel: All great comments and insight….I’d like to add insecurity. Oh, and being hungry and tired.

Susan L. Strahosky: My predominate psychic sense is feeling. I’ve realized it can make me feel crazy when I feel things. I’m aware of things, but there is not physical or outward validation. Like there’s an elephant in the room and everyone else is in denial.

Debby Hall: Love…any and all kinds, romantic, parental, friendships. Logic and reason can go out the window when it comes to love and that’s not necessarily a bad thing:)

As Information Marketers living in this digital age, we can easily become myopic with our product creation, meaning, we often focus on creating digital products without considering the physical alternative. There are a few, extremely valid reasons for this. For one, digital products provide instant access with zero additional effort once they’re created. Certain types of digital products can also be created very quickly. I’ll be honest, nothing beats finishing a teleseminar or webinar, knowing you just created a quality product in a relatively short period of time. So what about physical products then? Should you consider adding a physical product line to your existing business? It depends…

While we cannot look at all aspects of physical product creation in this post, I would like to explore one option that is dear to my heart…image-based products. Because of our “bent” toward the digital, when we think of artwork or photographs, we often see them as playing a secondary role in our product creation. We use them for our product covers, header graphics, Powerpoint slides and Animoto videos. Seldom do we consider them as products, except as collections on DVDs or as an upload to our favorite microstock photo site.

However, a quick search on eBay will show you that image-based physical products, prints for instance, are very much alive and well. They can also be quite profitable. And that’s where the Public Domain comes in. When it comes to selling physical prints, nostalgia rules the day! I’ve seen it over and over again where individual prints of a certain image ALWAYS outsell collection CDs or DVDs that include the same image. It has been my experience as well.

So, what does it take to make and sell prints online or offline? You need to understand what people want to buy, a source for the content and a delivery mechanism. If this process sounds familiar it’s because it’s the basis of pretty much ALL successful selling. When it comes to prints, the easiest place to research to see what is selling is eBay. With 65 million people visiting per month, you can get a pretty good feel for what’s hot and what’s not. As for the source of your content…you guessed it…the Public Domain! There are many online sources for finding great, high-rez images to use for your prints. I share many of the best sites in my book, Easy Money Picture Project.

When it comes to the creation process of your prints, you have a few options. You can print them yourself using a large-format printer, although I wouldn’t recommend this approach if you’re just starting out. There are also a number of excellent online companies that can create the prints for you. If you want to go high-end with your prints (like canvas gallery wraps or metallic prints), I would recommend using BayPhoto or MPix. On the other hand, poster prints may be a great option for you as well. My two favorite sites for poster prints are Shortrun Posters and Print Pelican. For instance, at Shortrun Posters, you can prints 18″ X 24″ posters on 80lb. cover stock for $2.00 each. That’s a tough price to beat! And if you don’t need a large size like that, consider this…two 11″ X 14″ prints will fit on an 18″ X 24″ sheet. So you could get full-color 11″ X 14″ prints for $1.00 each. Hopefully you can see how HUGE this is for profit margins. Upload your digital file and in a few days, you have your prints!

Hopefully this post sparks some ideas for you. Over the next 90 days, I will be sharing more Physical Product creation strategies. Until then, get started with this one!

Many information marketers today create and sell digital only products and do quite well with that method of delivery. Personally, it’s my favorite form of product creation. No physical production costs, shipping issues, etc. Plus the customer has instant access to your product, 24/7. However, having said that, I believe it’s STILL important to PLAN for physical product creation…even if you only intend to offer your product in digital form. Here’s why…

Whether you are designing a product (book, video or audio) for physical production, all the processes are the same as far as pagination, cover design, book editing, video editing, etc. so why NOT plan for physical? So ALWAYS plan for physical but offer as digital…whether you’re creating online videos and need a digital cover for those, offering an MP3 and need a cover for that, or an e-book. There is always a chance you may want to go physical…DVD series, CD, print book, whatever. If you plan for it in the beginning, you’re covered…plus it doesn’t require additional work to design high-res. However, if you design for web only and then decide to go the physical route, you have to re-create everything, which is a waste of time, effort and money. Not good.

Almost none of my products are currently available in print or physical form, but every one of them have been designed that way, just in case. Every online video series I’ve created and sold has print resolution covers designed for them. Every e-book I sell has print resolution covers designed for them and every video can easily be re-rendered at DVD or HD resolution for physical products. You should consider doing the same.