Decided to take a break from character profiles as people's interest seems to be waning and I have more important things on my mind at the moment. Things like the up coming date with Diceni on the 3rd of May, hence the title as I'm not sure which species has moved into my stomach right now.
It has been nearly sixteen years in the making but my book launch is nearly here and I am becoming so nervous. Not helped by the fact that I have had a whole bundle of jobs come up at home so my time to work on my career has been cut short, which makes any artist/writer witchy-twitchy.
Thankfully the book part of my stock has arrived safe and sold, all present and correct. However, the same cannot be said of my art stock. I order my prints through a company who will remain nameless as I'm not into naming and shaming, I dislike bitchiness, and the prints are of the highest quality, I cannot praise that side of the business enough. This company does other merchandise however and that is where I have run into problems. Having had a look at the item pictures and description I went ahead and order two jigsaws and ten T-shirts.
The jigsaws arrived first and they are brilliantly printed, good quality adhesive and good thick pieces so they will hold together well. One problem - they do not come in a box. At nearly seventeen pounds a pop I was expecting boxes and I'm pretty sure that my customers will be as well. So I either need to source good quality blank boxes and order extra prints to be pasted on the lids, which will increase the prices and therefore decrease my likelihood of selling them or right them off as a loss.
I was hoping that the T-shirts would make up for the mess up but I was disappointed there too. Instead of being a proper print it image has been laid on as a transfer and the care labels have been cut out, which means that the transfers are not up to the care standards of the Fruit of the Loom T-shirts on which they have been places. To say I was not impressed is putting it mildly, especially as they did not take good car in cutting out the labels, which means I am going to have to spend time stitching the hems back down, time which I could have spent on my writing/painting.
All in all I think I'm going to have to sell them at price to shift them and at least make back the expenses.
I have managed to find another company that I can source my T-shirts through but this time I have ordered one as a sample so I can check the quality. They say that you should learn from your mistakes and I guess I have but I do wish that my mistakes where not so darn expensive.
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