Thursday, November 24, 2011

About Selling Digital Files and a New Product Coming Tonight

I am so excited. I'll be placing my Baby Jesus poem, a Christmas verse, in my shop tonight. I finally figured out how to put the watermark, Do Not Copy, onto the image that goes into my shop.

Obviously, I want them to purchase the downloadable .pdf file. I will then send the file by email upon payment received. However, I need to be sure folks cannot just click on the image and print it from the shop listing.

I truly love this verse and the price will be very low. I'm torn between $.50 and $1. Once they receive the verse, it can be printed onto cardstock and even framed. A framed version would become part of their annual Christmas decor. It can be placed on a mantle or other display area. They will also make wonderful gifts.

Etsy shopowners sell digital product aplenty. I've seen patterns, e-books, posters, and templates galore. These are now very common. They are legitimate handcrafted products because they are personally created by the designer-seller. However, you must ask buyers to pay for the item and then provide a "valid" email address to which you will send the file. You should specify a time frame for delivery. A reasonable delivery time would be within 24 hours or within 48 hours.

For Etsy shopowners, selling anything digitally delivered is tricky. You cannot just have them download it from Etsy. Most of us .pdf those files to preserve crisp quality in the visuals. Etsy only allows certain formats for images, plus they do not have a download option for delivery.

Perhaps that is good. However, if you managed to create a wildly wonderful product, you could find yourself with dozens of emails a day requesting the download. Hmmm. That's not so terrible. You could always do the "delivery emails" just once each day, at the end of the day. You could make one master email, and insert the email addresses by BCC (blind copy) and then attach the file.

I cannot wait to present these. I have been selling them locally at craft fairs and by word of mouth for a few years. I have also given away many of these, free of charge, for that long.

I will be offering several backgrounds. Talk about a quick and easy gift at a low initial outlay of funds! Ooooh, yep, I am really excited.

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