Earning a crust

Some time ago I stumbled across CafePress and loved what they do. It’s a great business. They print stuff on all sorts of products from T-shirts to mugs, mousepads to CDs. They sign up shopkeepers who earn money by selling their own designs on CafePress’s products using an e-commerce system provided by CafePress. You can get started for free with a basic store or pay $6.95 per month for a fully customizable store. CafePress handle everything from ordering, printing, stock control, customer service, returns - the lot! So all you have to worry about is the creativity of your designs…and the marketing of your store.

So I signed up, uploaded a few designs and now I get a regular (3 figure) income every month. It’s not going to pay the mortgage, but it’s something. It’s a start. They also have an affiliate programme that is managed by Commission Junction, so you can earn 15% on sales that you refer - this also brings in a small amount every month for me.

If you’re a budding artist…or even if you can string something funny together to go on a T-shirt or two, I’d urge you to sign up. And it’s fun to know people out there are wearing your designs!

About me

Hi, my name is Matt Hardy (aka mcrilf) and I'm the guy behind this Its an Online World blog.

I'm 39, married with 4 daughters (yep, you read that right!), I live in the UK and work full time as technology director for a successful marketing agency. I've been involved in the internet marketing business for over 10 years now, so this blog is a culmination of years of experience - learning from successes as well as mistakes.

I have a special interest in SEO and blogging so this blog is aimed at those topics. I will, however, post on general industry news from time to time...it all helps to keep me (and hopefully you readers) up to date on what's happening in this online world of ours.

When I'm not entertaining the kids, working or blogging, I run a couple of other sites: one selling cool baby t-shirts, one selling adult t-shirts and a search engine enabling people to find unique gifts designed by thousands of independent designers. It is the learnings I've picked up from optimising these sites that has fuelled my interest in SEO and added to the experiences recorded on this blog.

I hope you'll get involved in the discussions raised here - subscribe to my feed and please let me know your thoughts by leaving comments where appropriate.