Tip of the Day - Tagging

Interesting discovery:

If you edit the tags for an old design and save the new tags, the design will show up among the newest arrivals with the next influx of designs.

Changing tags of an existing design can help or harm a design depending on how well it sells.

1. Design that sells well and already has a good position in the marketplace will lose its rating and start it's marketplace life from scratch. I can't see one single reason to do this. It's too big of a risk and you gain nothing with it.
2. Design that never sold or sold a long time ago and that is stuck somewhere deep in the marketplace, where even you can't find it will, too, start its marketplace life from scratch. Such design will regain the advantage that new designs get and have a good position in the marketplace that new designs initially get. This will give that design a new chance to be noticed and start selling.

Considering all this I give you the Tip of the Day:

• Occasionally, go through your designs and re-tag old designs that never sold before and/or that are buried deep in the marketplace search results. At the same time, don't touch the designs that are already well placed in the marketplace.

This tip will not work wonders and bring you a million sales in an instant, but it will better your chances of making marketplace sales. I am sure it's worth the shopkeeper's time and I will be dedicating a few hours a week to re-tagging my designs from now on.

Font Recommendation

I just discovered a great font and I am happy to share it with you. It gives a distressed look to the letters - a bit scratchy, a bit of a noise... Just the right amount of distress to make the text look very cool.

Don't judge it just by how it looks when it's black text on white. The true beauty of it is in the white text on black background. Perfect for black tees.

Here, see for yourself, download and enjoy designing with it: Viper Nora.

Surprising Discovery... - Bonus Tiers

I just discovered that the second volume bonus is... NOT 14%, it's 15%.

For some reason I always thought it was 14% and that's how I counted it. After a few people mentioned the 15% bonus I had to search help files and indeed it's 15%. That's a good news.

Here is a quote from the help pages:

No bonus for the first $250 in base price sales
Tier 1: 7% bonus for base price sales between $250.01 - $1,000
Tier 2: 15% bonus for base price sales between $1,000.01 - $5,000
Tier 3: 20% bonus for base price sales between $5,000.01 - $10,000
Tier 4: 22% bonus for base price sales above $10,000.01 in monthly base price sales

Shadow from the forums mentioned a few times that there is Tier 5, but he was quite secretive about it. If it does exist it's a super secret thing for the big guys, not the poor little fish like me. From what I could gather (and I could be completely wrong here) the fifth tier starts at $50,000.01 in base sales but I have no idea what the percentage would be... maybe 25% (just guessing). Wouldn't it be easier if it was all in the open and if that info was available to everyone not just a chosen few? That's all assuming that Shadow is not just joking about the whole thing and that I understood him correctly.

License Plate Frames

I usually don't make these. As an exception I made a couple today. They are actually fun to make.

The top image should be 1875x210 pixels and the bottom 3060x270 pixels (that will make them 300dpi when printed).

I color the background black and than use white text. Makes a nice contrast.

Since the template is so wide and short I put several spaces between the individual letters and even more between the words. Like this:


      I      L    O    V    E            <---- Top
M    O    N    K    E    Y    S      <---- Bottom

It makes them easier to read, too. I know I could stretch the letters to fit the template, but I don't like the distortion that is created that way.

There... Why don't you make a license plate frame today, too?