Call for Artists Custom Mugs - Drop Ship

We know musicians and artists aren’t exactly raking in the big bucks right now with everything in the world just getting rolling because of Covid-19. We get it. We’re in the same boat with canceled events and trying to figure out how to pivot to not only survive but thrive in these weird-ass times. Not to mention, there has to be a better way than importing ok stuff and slapping a logo on it with crazy minimums and all the work that comes with ordering print on demand.

So here’s the thing. We want to help. As an extension of our Feed The Artists project, I had an idea and I think it could be pretty ok for both of us.

Your fans love swag.

You probably don’t have money to drop on all new swag and the ol’ print on demand route isn’t nearly as interesting as you are.

This is where we come in.

Send us your black and white art. Whatever you want to see put on a handmade coffee mug or travel mug. Once a week we are going to do an image firing to make those images a permanent part of the surface of our handmade pottery mugs.

Instead of you ordering a bunch in advance and hoping you can sell them, we want to do a drop ship program that is sort of a hybrid print on demand type of deal. 

Let’s disrupt the status quo with our punk-rock-diy-get-shit-done style.

What this will do:

  1. put money in your pocket
  2. put badass swag in your fans’ hands
  3. keep our team of potters working
  4. provide a completely made in the USA product
    1. Our clay is from Lexington, Kentucky
    2. Our pottery studio is in Indianapolis, Indiana
    3. We mix our own glazes in house and nearly all the ingredients are from the United States with only a couple of exceptions
    4. Our boxes are made in Indiana
    5. Our eco-friendly packing material is made in Ohio
  5. keep money in our local economies

How it works:

  1. Send me your black and white art
  • We can discuss the details of what we actually need for files, what works best etc
  • You have to own the rights to the art - no copyright infringement allowed or accepted. That’s just not cool. You know.
  • We make a sample for you that we’ll ship out to you at wholesale cost + shipping
  • You take a bunch of selfies and product photos with it
  • You set the retail price you want for the mug (typically $30-36)
  • You tell your fans about it and give them an easy way to give you money to buy one for their very own as a presale
  • You tell us how many you sold each week (and the customer’s shipping info) and we’ll get that many made up and ready to roll.
  • We’re working on an easy way to share this info so we can both keep track easily.
  • Each week we’ll ship out the previous week’s orders
  • Your fans will get their mug and lose their shit with excitement 

What does it cost?

  • Wholesale price per mug - $15
  • Wholesale price per travel mug - $18
  • Shipping - actual cost of shipping + $2 for the box and packing material (we’re happy to add your swag if you have stickers or cards or whatever you want to promote your work - you just have to get it to us before we ship your orders)
    • We generally restrict shipping to the United States because if you’ve ever shipped stuff out of the country you know what a cluster it can be and we hate dealing with angry customers whose packages are lost in customs or who just got a $50 tariff. Ack.
  • Shipping costs in the continental US tend to be around $9-12 on average. You can add that to the cost of the mug or just mark up the mug to cover the cost so it’s more palatable since we don’t value shipping as much as we value handmade mugs.

You keep the rest of the money.

Here’s some math for you...

  • A mug sells at $42 - $21 (mug + packing) = $21 in your pocket
  • 100 mugs sell at $42 each - $21 each (mug + packing) = $2100 in your pocket

It’s not unreasonable to sell a handmade mug for $50. I mean, people pay $20 for a relatively boring mug made in China all day long. We want you to set the price where it works best for you.

You decide what you think your fans will pay to get something limited edition and unusual.

Who else is offering their art on handmade mugs? Here’s an opportunity to stand out and be the first thing your fan thinks of in the morning when they grab their new favorite mug out of the cupboard for their morning coffee before shuffling into the spare bedroom for the day’s work-from-home, covid style.

You in?

Let’s do this. Let’s fuck shit up!