How to Monetize Your Blog or Podcast with Merch, Even If You Have No Design Skills

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If you are a blogger or a podcaster with a decent amount of readers or listeners and you are looking for a way to monetize it, I will explain a simple way you can do that with print-on-demand merchandise.

For my own blog, I use several free, print-on-demand (POD) services that allow me to sell related designs on t-shirts and other merch. Being a graphic designer, I'm able to create my own designs to sell. If however, you don't have any design skills, don't let that technicality stop you from selling merch.

The reason you don't need to be a designer, is because one of the POD services I use offers something that the others do not, and that is the ability to curate and sell other artists' designs in your own online store. How does this work, you wonder? Let's have a look, shall we?

When you open a free TeePublic store, you are able to upload your own designs and feature them on products in your store. If you join TeePublic's affiliate program, you're also able to add other artists' designs to your store. If someone visits your store and actually purchases a third party design, you earn an 11% royalty and the designer will earn the standard 20%. Naturally, you'd want to select designs that are relevant to your blog or podcast, to stock your store, for best sales conversions. Once your store is stocked, place a referral link to your store on your blog, or mention to your podcast listeners where they can buy merchandise, to support it. Your entire store can be filled with curated designs, without any of your own. All you need to do is brand your store by uploading a profile pic and a store banner and you are ready to start selling t-shirts, mugs, stickers, totes and more!

Here is a step by step process on how to open your own TeePublic store.

Weird Paul: Lit AF Music Review

Weird Paul's head, composed of plastic, illuminated Lite-Brite pegs. (album cover by Niffer Desmond)

Track List for Lit AF by 'Weird Paul' Petroskey

1. Tell Me What You Think (3:28)
2. Dome Light (2:18)
3. Poptarded (0:07)
4. Stupid Coupon (3:12)
5. Hello Kitty Necklace (2:27)
6. Hippie In The Woods With an iPhone (2:23)
7. Uber On Over (3:09)
8. Alive In the Body Bag (2:53)
9. Let's Leave Together (2:14)
10. Cookies Under Lock & Key (2:37)
11. Dopamine Drop (3:11)
12. She Wants To Eat Out (3:15)
13. I'm Getting Old (2:38)
14. A Guy In Romania Makes Them (3:22)
15. Chevy Chase (1:10)
16. You Don't Need That Knob (1:58)

The Crows Have Eyes 3 -- VHS Mockup

If you've watched Schitt's Creek up to season 5 and beyond, then you know that Rose family matriarch, Moira Rose, stars in a low-budget horror movie called The Crows Have Eyes 3: The Crowening. There was even an episode of the show in which a trailer was shown for the fictional movie.

Retro Rose Video and VHS Tapes

VHS Collection

I created this short video, partly to show off a few of my favourite VHS tapes from my modest collection. I don't have many but of what I have, a couple of them are obscure.

"You miss 100% of the tapes you don't play" - Johnny Rose

• Ghostbusters is the most popular title I own on VHS and if you'll notice, my copy is still in pristine condition. 
• Memoirs of an Invisible Man is an underrated John Carpenter movie with Chevy Chase in the title role. 
• I love it when the colour of VHS tapes matched their titles, as in the case of The Hunt for Red October.
• The box art for Night of the Zombies has suffered some serious sun fade
• I still think Ghostbusters 2 is better than it's given credit.
• I bought The Pit for $5 when my local video store was clearing out a bunch of used VHS tapes. I reviewed The Pit in this blog.
• Melanie is an obscure Canadian movie that featured Burton Cummings in his first and last acting role.

Stuck On VHS -- A Visual History of Video Rental Stickers

 

 

The Illustrated History of Video Rental Store stickers!

 

STUCK ON VHS book

Before streaming services allowed viewers to watch movies from the comfort of their living rooms, or any room for that matter, video stores were where you went to rent your entertainment. DVDs were the format of choice before video stores started going out of business, but before that, it was VHS videotapes that lined the shelves during the 80s and 90s.

Unlike DVDs, VHS tapes needed to be rewound before being returned to the store. Because of this, stickers were stuck directly onto the videocassette, reminding customers to "be kind, please rewind" or some other variation of the phrase. Sometimes another sticker would warn you that a small charge would be applied to you if you did not comply with this rule.

The Crows Have Eyes 3 Movie Trailer is Absolutely Cawful!

The Crows Have Eyes 3 poster

A little while ago, I wrote about what movies one might have expected to find at Rose Video, the fictional video store from the TV comedy series, Schitt's Creek. One such movie was the equally fictional The Crows Have Eyes 3: The Crowening.

In the previous season, Schitt's Creek had shown us glimpses of The Crowening as we witnessed Moira Rose (Catherine O'Hara) behind the scenes, shooting her part for the make-believe movie, in her role as Dr. Clara Mandrake.

This season, after the movie had been shelved, a new streaming service called Interflix acquires the rights and starts showing it on its platform. Of course, Interflix is yet another fictional creation by the Schitt's Creek team which has even gone so far as to create a social media account for it on Tweeters. The account has already gained several disciples. But the best part about it all is that they went the extra mile (as the crow flies) and created a full movie trailer for The Crows Have Eyes 3.

New Video Game Featuring B-Movie Characters

Super Inconvenience Mart

There's only three days left in this Kickstarter campaign that is raising funds to create a video game featuring many B-movie characters, including Torgo and The Master from Manos: The Hands of Fate.

A point and click adventure game for the PC, inspired by the likes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Lucasfilm Games, and Sierra. - Hard as Cheese (game creator)

This is not the first time a video game features Manos characters.  Also visible in the campaign's page are Trumpy from The Pod People and the cast of Eegah!

If you want to receive any of the campaign's rewards, be sure to donate to the campaign before it ends.

20 Movies You Probably Could Have Rented at Rose Video (if it really existed)

Schitt's Creek is one of my favourite TV shows so I was sad to learn that its 6th season would be the final one, in 2020. It isn't because it was cancelled. It's only because the show's creators decided to end it on their own terms, the way they saw fit. As much as I'd like to see a couple more seasons, I respect the decision they've made.

In case you don't know, Schitt's Creek is a comedy series that depicts the riches-to-rags story of the Rose family, whose amassed fortune has been embezzled by a crooked business manager, who also neglected to pay their taxes. As a result, the government seizes all but one of their assets and they are evicted from their mansion. The lone, worthless asset that the Roses are allowed to keep is a town called Schitt's Creek, which the family's patriarch (Johnny, played by Eugene Levy) bought for his son David (Dan Levy) years earlier, as a joke.