One of these days, I should probably try to put into words my philosophy about making money off our Postcard Valet web site. In a nutshell, we want everything we have to offer – photos, videos, writing – to be free for you to enjoy… but more money means more traveling, and that’s important to us, too!
It would be easy enough to put up some Google ads or to explore other set-it-and-forget-it revenue streams on the site, but I hate how banner ads destroy the aesthetic. Besides, when I visit other sites, I tend to completely ignore all the ads, anyway. Don’t you?
The best solution, in my mind, is to create something special that you’d want to spend your hard-earned money on. For example, we haven’t really pushed it, but we already have a link to our Smugmug gallery where you can purchase a print of any one of the photographs posted under the “photography” category on Postcard Valet. And today we’d like to present you with our first published product: A 2011 Galapagos Wildlife Calendar! (Actually, there are two of them!)
Visit our Lulu storefront to purchase one of these calendars!
The premium version of our calendar is printed on glossy white paper, is 13.5″ wide by 19″ tall, and has a coil binding. It’ll run you $29.79, which puts exactly $5 in our pockets.
The standard version is a little bit smaller at 8.5” by 11”, but costs only $18.79. Buying it, too, will give us five more dollars to travel on.
If we to sell 20 of these, we’ll be able to add another day of travel to our trip!
I’ve dealt with Lulu, the self-publishing site, before and the quality of their products is superb. You can order directly from them and have one of these calendars for your own in just a few days.
I put a lot of effort into making this a product that I would want to own. Hopefully, after you see them on our Lulu storefront, you’ll want to own one, too!
If I had a wall to put a calendar on, I’d buy one of yours! The pictures are fabulous! Great job!
For those of us that don’t need a calendar but enjoy the value you offer in your blog/photos/etc, you might want to put a quick & easy “donate” button somewhere near these posts. At this point I’m more interested in tossing $5 into the proverbial hat than dropping 20-30 for a calendar. 🙂
Thanks, Cody. Something to consider. It would be very easy to put up a PayPal button and leave it at that, but I would still rather offer something for the money. I have some ideas for a Kickstarter campaign that I hope to put together in the future. Hang on to your money until then. 🙂
Will do! Or, maybe you’ll come up with an item (other than calendars/prints) that I can’t live without?
I’ll stay tuned until then!