Make That Digital Camera

Publishing Your Own Postcards

When you're on holiday and the time comes for you to go through the ritual of sending postcards back to family and friends, you probably notice that, no matter how far you wander in your search, you seem to see almost the same cards wherever you look.

This is not really surprising as there are a limited number of firms churning out postcards by the hundreds of thousands leaving retailers with a somewhat limited choice. Many retailers would be quite pleased to be able to stock something his competitors don't have.

If you can take reasonably good photographs of holiday attractions it's surprisingly cheap and easy these days to get them printed as postcards which you could then offer as limited editions to a small number of outlets.

Start With Somewhere You Know

No matter where you live there is bound to be somewhere selling postcards. You might not think of your own town as a tourist centre but there will be an outlet for postcards, even if it is only a local museum or tourist information centre. In some respects the smaller the number the better as they will probably have a very limited range to offer.

You probably know your own town better than an out-of-town agency photographer so you should be able to come up with interesting or out of the way places that would make good postcards.

A good idea might be to ask the retailers whether there is anything they get asked for but is not in their current range. You may get some surprising answers, but you've just discovered a gap waiting to be filled.

Is there a tourist route marked around your town or a nearby one? Check to see whether any postcards are available covering this route. A bundle of, say six postcards of views or landmarks on this route could be sold as a set. This relieves the tourist of the sometimes lengthy task of selecting cards for all of his friends. One quick purchase and he has a selection of six.

Keep Them Up to Date

If you look closely at postcards it can be surprising how old some of the photographs are. This is especially the case when they are produced around something like an annual parade or show of some kind.

During the summer there are lots of events going on all around you, such as classic car shows, steam engine rallies, village fetes and so on. If you take some suitable photographs you could have postcards on the shelves within a few days almost, showing up the age of the others. Would retailers welcome this? I think so!

Don't Forget the Wierd and the Wacky!

You don't need to surf the internet for very long before you realise that there is a remarkable number of folks with wacky interests! They are also happy to spend money on these hobbies.

Don't believe me?

How about the subject of Traffic Roundabouts?

A quick Google turns up more than 1,300,000 web sites dedicated to traffic roundabouts!

A Brit called Kevin Beresford has a book on sale at Amazon called 'Roundabouts of Great Britain' and followed it up with ' Parking Mad: Car Parks from Heaven (or Hell)

Amazon are also selling 'Rude Britain: The 100 Rudest Place Names in Britain' by Ed Hurst.

I suspect a set of post cards from the '99th Rudest Place Name in Britain' might sell on Ebay.

Getting Them Printed

Once you have your photographs ready, getting them printed is much easier than it used to be. Most towns have a number of jobbing printers doing work for local businesses or if you have a Staples nearby, they often have in-house print facilities available at reasonable prices.

There are also a number of companies offering their services via their web pages. One of the best appears to be VistaPrint at They are currently running a number of incredible free offers like the one on the right. You can't get a more affordable way into this market, so what are you waiting for??

They offer a wide range of print services that can be ordered from their web sites, of which there are 18 in different countries inclucing U.K., U.S.A., Canada and a number of European countries.

I just checked their prices for post cards, they will print 100 in colour for £14.99 or 250 for £34.99 which is around $30.00 and $70.00 at the moment. They make a small charge of £3.49 (about $7.00) when you upload an image, but once it's uploaded you can re-order at any time without this charge.

VistaPrint offer good service, good products and very good prices. They are definately worth a look and not just for postcards, but almost all of your business print needs.

As a comparison you might want to check out these two sites,

http://www.unitedprint.co.uk/

http://www.colourcards.co.uk/

Colourcards offer good service with good prices but require larger orders.

United Print have a huge range of products and will print from 100 copies. However, their pricing definately encourages larger quantities!

You will probably find VistaPrint more usefull to begin with when you won't be needing 1,000 copies of each card.

In America http://www.psprint.com/ offer a similar service.

Here are two more incredible free offers from the guys that you will find very usefull in your business ventures.

Now What?

This where the money comes in.

You now have to sell your cards, but if you've followed this through so far you will most probably have already met and spoken to a number of possible customers. If you've done this you will probably have a handfull of folks who will be at least curious to see what you come up with. Your postcards should almost sell themselves to these folks.

If you chose your initial prospects well it shouldn't be too long before they need to re-order! Keep in touch with these customers by visiting them to see how things are going.

Are their customers showing an interest or not?
Are people looking but not buying?
Is your price right?
Is the quality right?

Price and quality issues should have been settled very early on because your clients will have been able to guide you as to what sells.

There may be a number of reasons why people are not buying and it may take a bit of thought to work it out, but you need to check with all of your customers. Some cards may be selling more than others. There is nothing unusual in this and you will probably have to live with it. Try exchanging slow movers for other stock until you find the correct mix for each outlet.

Will I Get Rich?

Unless you get really lucky and hit on a lucrative niche everyone else missed, you won't get rich overnight. However, with usual caveats regarding effort put in especially during the early days you will reach a stage where you have a collection of suitable photographs and postcards that will only require keeping up to date and occasional new shots.

You will also have a group of regular customers to keep supplied. Even if you only wish to stick to your own locality you should be able to build up to a worthwhile regular income although it may be obviously seasonal.

More and more folks are taking more holidays and weekend breaks these days so the seasonal issue is not as bad as it once was. You can even get round this by using the same images in another way. See the next article for this one.

Why not grab a no-charge copy of my Manx Norton screen saver yourself so that you can see exactly what we're talking about?

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a copy of the screen saver
complete details of how I built it
the name of the free/lo-cost software I used and where to get it
an occasional e-mail with details of other money-spinning digital photo ideas
along with details about how I am getting on with them

Don't worry, I promise not to give your details to anyone and I won't spam you!

Please remember that free e-mail suppliers like Hotmail, Yahoo etc. have pretty vicious spam catchers. If you use one of these, please check your 'Junk' folder in case we get zapped!

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