This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I had an account at RedBubble, a print-on-demand place for artists to share their work and make a mint with their art printed on stickers, phone cases, T-shirts, postcards, etc.
I had an account with them a few years ago, left, and then last year or so came back to them. I wanted to try and get more involved in the community, see what other artists had to offer, and try to actually sell something.
RedBubble is not the first print-on-demand art site that I’ve tried. Years ago I had an account on Zazzle.com, which was by all accounts a failure. The upload system they had was clunky, their storefront systems even more so, and I didn’t even know they had forums (much less how to get to them) until after I left.
Of the two, RedBubble was far superior, though there are still some things lacking that made me leave today.
First, while their storefronts (or profiles, however you want to view it) are nice, they’re not customizable. At least you can sort your works into collections like T-shirts or Fanart, which helps. It just isn’t what I’m looking for.
Second, the people looking at my work on RedBubble were…other people on RedBubble. The website is large, but it’s pretty insular. Everyone knows everyone and if you DO make sales, it’s likely the buyer is another Bubbler. That was the case with my friend Melanie.
Third, though it was relatively easy to share your work on things like Facebook and Twitter, it’s not that much of an improvement. Again, RedBubble is pretty insular, and people outside of the site don’t know what it is.
Fourth, I wasn’t selling ANYTHING. For over a year.
I admit I didn’t market it very well. Even most of my readers will be like, “Woah, you were on RedBubble?”
Honestly, though, I’ve had WAY more success on Storenvy. At least there, I average one sale a month and I would love to boost my sales even more. I can customize the store AND decide what I sell. Win-win!
So, thanks RedBubble, but you were not for me.
Unfortunately this means you won’t be able to get the T-Rex Sissy Fight as a T-shirt…FOR NOW.
(I’ll look elsewhere and if I find a good printer, pre-orders will be coming. Watch out here on the blog, because that’s where I’ll be posting the news!)
If you want to visit my Storenvy store, you can click here or click on the “Shop” link along the top of the page.
Thanks for reading. I hope you found this helpful!
Redbubble is a scam. They are deleting some peoples account for absolutely no reason and then ignore all emails from the artists. I had my account suddenly deleted after 2 years. I had no copyrighted/trademarked arts or tags, had ever been in trouble with them and didn’t break any rules. I got no email about it either. I just got a message, when I tried signing in, saying that the account was no longer active and to contact customer support. I did contact them, twice in the past month, but they didn’t reply. Their website said they would reply within 4 days (which is a slow response time to begin with). It’s been a month and I’m sure they will never reply. This has happened to more people than me. My advice for people considering joining them is this: Don’t.
Yikes! I’m so sorry that happened to you. Hopefully you still have the images you designed so you can take them to a new place (or places) to print. I wish you the best of luck.