Awhile back, I asked Tim if there was a way we could sell digital products that people could download directly from latter-dayvillage.com - and he poked around in our shopping cart and verified that YES - we could sell any digital product right from our store so people could instantly download it.Well, I went nuts thinking of different kinds of products we could sell that way. One of the limitations of publishing companies and manufacturers is that there is a huge investment, UP FRONT, to publish any book, album, software, art print etc - and so many many great products never make it to the retail store shelf because of cost constraints. With digital download products, there is very little up front investment of funds - yes, there is labor, and sometimes you have to increase your server capacity for all the bandwidth and storage space - but all in all, that is piddly twit compared to printing costs, binding costs, storage, shipping, and ALL the costs involved in maintaining a brick and mortar store where people come to shop. Eliminating all those things, we are free to publish and sell anything that we want! We want to provide great music, art, literature, teaching aids, software, videos anything digital - for the latter-day saints who come to our site - and to have such great stuff that more and more people will hear about it and have access to it.
Now, I am an artist who has dabbled in most art forms. I put to rest my share of trees with all my coloring and drawing and painting since I could hold a crayon. I have been mimicking my mothers beautiful singing voice since probably a few days after birth. I started imitating people and animals soon there after and have been on stage since the age of 14. I started writing books in 1997. I’ve written songs and poetry and plays since high school. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE working with all the wonderful people involved in all aspects of art. I love being part of a creative team. And, well, I’ve been asking God all my life “What am I supposed to do with these talents you gave me?” - Me, and so many of my talented friends love what we do and do it well, but rarely make much money at it. We have to resort to other means to pay the bills, and it simply has always seemed wrong to me. I’ve tried to find ways to allow myself and other artists to work and BE PAID to do ART rather than be a real estate agent or stock broker or nurse. Nothing wrong with those professions, but when you have the gift and training to produce art - it is a travesty to be selling Tupperware!
Now, FINALLY, I can make some inroads, thanks to the Village Download Depot! We are all set up to sell digital music, art, books, software, games and videos. We’ve actually started selling several art collections!!! I hunted hither and yon for the artists. I did a little bit of everything I could think of to find artists eager to participate. And I have found such wonderful people! Each time they send me some new project, I am awed and thrilled.
In my searching, I found websites that have CLUBS for art! Members get new art collections every month. It looked so fun, I asked Tim, “Can WE do that?” And he said, “Sure!” So I decided to start a CLUB for LDS art! Members get two way cool art collections a month, one seasonal and one LDS - AND two way cool FONTS!!! I ADORE FONTS!!!! I am a font-a-holic, thank heavens for the new computer processors and memory cards and drivers etc that allow me to have all the fonts I can stand on my computer and still have room left to write a letter now and then!!!! Little did I know that I could create my OWN fonts! Well, it isn’t easy. But Tim bought me the software so I could learn how, and be legal and all that. The software is expensive and it is quite time consuming. I’d say I spent three days on one font. Some don’t take nearly so long, depends on how you do it, but I see that average Joe citizen is not going to be cranking out personal fonts, which is all the more reason to get my artists to design alphabet sets and I can turn them into fonts!
It has taken MONTHS to prepare. I have 14 artists I am working with. They are fabulous! Some have been professional artists for years, and others are still in high school - and the young ones are like unbelievably talented so you don’t even notice that they still have acne and squeaky voices.
So the idea of the club is that once you join you automatically get these art collections and fonts and special projects each month, and save a lot of money compared to buying them separately. And they are all unique, not just ONE look by one artists - MANY looks by MANY artists - some are oil paintings, some are watercolor, some are pencil drawings, colored pastels, some are created on the computer, others by hand, some are objects created and photographed or scanned. I just get more and more tickled by what my artists are coming up with, and I know you will too. There are only a handful of commercial artists doing lds art. The market is small and artists don’t know how to get their art out there, and the established ones sort of get in with the publishing companies and get the work. So you will be surprised and delighted to get such neat new designs month after month. Collections have 24 or more images that coordinate with each other in style and color, so you can put several together for a scrapbook page or a handout or bulletin board design. You can print out enough invitations to enrichment night for your whole relief society, or enough posters for all your YW - design a newsletter for your whole family or wedding invitations, baby shower games, thank you cards, calendar pages, etc etc etc - let your creativity go nutty! The collections come with a table of contents page that opens in your internet browser. Each image has a little thumbnail you click on to open up the full-size image. You just click down, and drag that image into your newsletter document where you want it and let go of the mouse button and it is inserted in the document! You can move it around and size it as needed in your document. So it is really easy to use. And there are ready to print projects if you’d rather do it that way. You can add your own photos or text too. It is lots of fun.
I am just a little afraid that people will enjoy it so much they will wake up in the middle of the night (like me) to work on a new project!
There will be questions and things we didn’t think about before, and revisions will have to be made most likely, improvements and extras etc - and as we get a good membership built up, we can do new things we can’t afford yet. So stay tuned - it will just get better and better.
I’m hatching another idea - so I better go . . . Debra
