Fellow t-shirt blogger, Gino Orlandi, has just released an e-book titled Fuel for Design, A Powerful Guide to Starting Your Own Clothing Line. On the books website he mentions that starting a t shirt business has never been so popular. This does seem to be true as online t-shirt stores seem to be popping up everyday and if you include shops on the PODs like Cafepress and Zazzle we might find that new stores are appearing every few minutes.
The title of the book and the claims that are made on the website about it are almost enough (still considering) to make me buy it. I have reservations though because I’m not sure that the author really has the necessary knowledge or experience to write such a book. On the one hand he’s a t-shirt blogger so he will have gained some knowledge of t-shirts and their trends from that but he has only started blogging about t-shirts this year so the aforementioned knowledge and experience is limited. Also he has experience starting his own t-shirt business but, assuming he is talking about his Big Cartel store, he hasn’t actually launched it yet.
I spent countless hours researching and planning my own t shirt line, making sure it was done right and I have decided to share everything I have learned while running my own blog and t shirt line with others.
I think he should have waited a year or more before finishing this book and then he would have some real business experience. Unless this book gets some endorsements from people with experience in the t-shirt business I guess I’ll be holding on to my $37 for a little while longer.
Success with Cafepress.com is a similar guide was written by Daniel Clark about how to be successful at POD service Cafepress. He had years of experience with Cafepress when he released this book and also got a lot of help from other shopkeepers. Combined with the low cost of setting up a Cafepress (or other POD) store, this book may be a much better entry entering the t-shirt business than Fuel for Design. Time will tell though.
Success with Cafepress.com is $27.99 + shipping for a book you can hold in your hands. Some sections may be a bit dated at this stage as it was published over 2 years ago. Fuel for Design is $37 for an ebook.
Without having read it, Daniel Clark’s book is about Cafepress, witch is a complete different market. Gino’s book I think, covers more fields. I’m actually reading it right now for a review in my blog so in a few days you’ll have my “verdict” too.
Depending on how you use Cafepress it could be for the exact same market. I guess while they have different material some of it would overlap. I’m looking forward to hearing your verdict on it though.