Postcard publishing

[marctwo]

I have been told that sereral of my photos would make good postcards. It would seem to me that I have 2 options:

1. Sell the rights to a postcard publishing firm and perhaps recieve some royalties on the sales.

2. Print the cards myself and sell direct to retailers.

Does anyone have any experience in this area that could offer me some advice please?

[ssim]

I've had some discussions with a card production company here but haven't come to an agreement yet. It's really not that lucrative as they want a one time price for an image and it really isn't all that much given the number of cards they will produce.

I think that you would be better off with option number one. It is less work for you and these companies have the capability of a wider distribution that you would probably have doing this by yourself.

If you were to do this yourself, you could make more in the end providing that you are willing to do alot of leg work in distributing your cards. There is a significant amount of work in getting this to happen. You could make a test run of getting just a few retailers to sell them. A wider distribution is going to make alot of work for you where the distribution companies already have this in place.

Good luck.

[Wilt]

And either way, it is not terrifically lucrative...

you either have the benefit of wide distribution and more opportunity for units sold but puny royalties per card printed and sold, or

you have fatter profit per unit accompanied by higher distribution costs, on a smaller base of sales because of much more limited distribution.

[marctwo]

Thanks chaps. I realise there's probably not much money in it but something is better than nothing right? I guess option 1 is going to be better for me.

[fivefish]

> 2. Print the cards myself and sell direct to retailers.

If you live in a tourist town with very high traffic, you can try talking with the tourist shops there and asking them to put up your postcards and give them a commission of the sale too... you'll provide the stands, photos, etc.

But how much is a postcard nowadays? $1.00?

Regardless, you'd have to sell thousands to make some good income.