John Dilbeck Musings

I love posters and I’ve built an artstore on JohnDilbeck.com that links to items I love, including castles, dragons, wizards, and many other subjects.

Here’s a list of other topics for which I’ve built my own store pages:

Artists

• Leonardo da Vinci Art
• Michelangelo Buonarroti Art

Musicians and Actors

• Johnny Depp Art
• Mel Gibson Art
• Elvis Presley Art

Movies and TV

• Disney Art
• Harry Potter Art
• Lord of the Rings Art
• Monsters, Inc. Art
• Spiderman Art
• Star Trek Art
• Star Wars Art
• Warriors Art
• X-Files Art
• X-Men Art

Places

• Ireland Art

Nature & Outdoors

• Animal Art
• Bears Art
• Birds Art
• Butterflies Art
• Cats Art
• Deer Art
• Dinosaur Art
• Dogs Art
• Dolphins Art
• Doves Art
• Eagles Art
• Floral Art
• Frogs Art
• Horses Art
• Landscape Art
• Manatees Art
• Pelicans Art
• Rainbow Art
• River Sports Art
• Reptiles Art
• Roses Art
• Seagulls Art
• Sunset Art
• Wildlife Art
• Wolf Art

Other

• Angels Art
• Aviation Art
• Believe Art
• Castles Art
• Cowboy Art
• Dragons Art
• Fairies & Pixies Art
• Fantasy Art
• Inspirational Art
• Kings Art
• Lighthouse Art
• Mermaids Art
• Motivational Art
• Princes Art
• Princesses Art
• Queens Art
• Space Art
• Unicorns Art
• Warriors Art
• Waterfalls Art
• Wizards Art

If you aren’t particularly interested in the same topics I am, you can select from over 300,000 items, some of which are sure to be of interest.

Here are some of the topics you may choose to browse directly at the Art.com site:

Art.com offers over 300,000 items from which to choose.

It’s easy to find what you’re looking for at Art.com. You can click on my selections in the menu to your left, go to their site and browse their main categories, or use the handy search box, below.

Top 100

Top 100 at Art.com

What’s New?

What’s New at Art.com

LIFE Picture Collection

The LIFE Picture Collection at Art.com

Other Popular Art

To make it convenient, I’ve put together some samples from a variety of interest areas. Just click one of the following links to see a sample of the art that is available in that category. A new window will open with items that you will, hopefully, find to be of interest.

• Abstract posters and prints
• Animals posters and prints
• Architecture posters and prints
• Astronomy & Space posters and prints
• Book Illustration posters and prints
• Botanical posters and prints
• Comics posters and prints
• Cuisine posters and prints
• Education posters and prints
• Fantasy posters and prints
• Holidays posters and prints
• Home & Hearth posters and prints
• Humor posters and prints
• Inspirational posters and prints
• Maps posters and prints
• Motivational posters and prints

Popular Movies

Movies posters and prints

Popular Music

• Music posters and prints
• People posters and prints
• Places posters and prints
• Religion & Philosophy posters and prints
• Scenic posters and prints
• Sports posters and prints
• Still Life posters and prints
• Television posters and prints
• Transportation posters and prints
• Vintage posters and prints
• World Culture posters and prints
• Youth posters and prints

In addition to art prints, photos, and posters, Art.com offers a framing service so you can do all your gift buying and framing at the same time.

The selection is huge and the prices are right. Order today to avoid the holiday rush and to be sure to get the items you want.

I am a member of a great affiliate program that I’d like to tell you more about. The Art.com Affiliate Program is a fantastic way to make money with your web site.

Art.com has over 100,000 prints, posters and photographs from many categories including fine art, sports, movies, music, celebrities and more. All you have to do is link to Art.com images on your website and you’ll earn 25-30% commission on all sales through the website.

Art.com also offers state of the art custom framing giving you the opportunity to earn greater commissions on framed prints.

They offer a range of linking tools that automatically generate html for products chosen and comprehensive reports to help you track your performance.

Just visit their affiliate program page and sign up for the program. It only takes a few minutes.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy being an Art.com Affiliate.

Want to see some ways to market these items? Come visit my artstore on JohnDilbeck.com.

You’ll see samples of search boxes, text links, and whole pages devoted to specific topics such as castles, dragons, wizards, and many other subjects.

Go to one of these links and see the list of subjects I’ve developed in the left column menu.

You can create your own artstore featuring the subjects you love and you can link directly to the subjects of your choice at art.com without building your own store. The choice is yours.

This is a two-level affiliate program, so you can also earn 5% of the commissions earned by affiliates you refer to the program.

I’ve earned some great commissions from this company. You can, too.

A Little About CafePress

I’m sure you know by now that you can get a free account at CafePress where you can upload your custom designs onto about 80 products - free.

You can open your own free or premium shop at CafePress.com and sell your own designs. Whether you want to sell t-shirts with slogans, your own original books or CDs, or clothing, mousepads, calendars, and other products with your own original art, you’ll find CafePress an easy way to set up your online store and let them take care of the printing, processing, shipping, and customer service — and send your royalty checks for the sales you make.

I’ve been a shopkeeper at CafePress since 2002 and I heartily recommend the company. I love getting emails telling me that I just made a sale and then, a few weeks later, getting my commission checks in the mail.

If you are serious about selling your products on CafePress, I seriously recommend that you get a premium store. You can create multiple sections and offer your designs on more products. It is much easier to manage a single premium store than multiple free ones. I know. I also know that I am making more sales from my premium store than I ever did from my free stores.

I invite you to visit my CafePress shop at Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com. You will find an eclectic collection of products with a variety of designs.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have opened several themed premium shops and I am thinking about doing that next year. It is much easier to market a themed collection because you can target your market much easier and it is easier to describe what you are selling. Each premium shop costs only $7 per month (less if you pay annually), and I’m earning enough that my shop is basically free, since it is paid for out of my commissions earned.

A Little About Squidoo

You may not have heard about Squidoo, but you will.

Squidoo is becoming very popular. In the few months since it was introduced, nearly 41,000 lenses have been built.

You can open a free account at Squidoo and create as many lenses as you want for free.

In fact, you may even earn money from your lenses. I’m getting small commission payments each month, and they are growing. You can, too.

CafePress and Squidoo Co-Branded Lenses

Now, for the news I just learned about a few hours ago.

CafePress shop owners can now create a new CafePress co-branded lens by going to the CafePress headquarters on Squidoo and following the directions. It looks to me as if you must create a new lens to participate in the joint venture, so, in addition to my Custom T-Shirts lens, I just created a cobranded lens at John Dilbeck’s Shirts, Mugs, and Hats Store at CafePress.

Why go to the extra effort?

I believe in promoting my efforts as widely and as often as possible, so a new lens that links to my CafePress shop can’t hurt - and neither can linking to it from other lenses, websites, blogs, and so forth.

Additionally, I don’t know how CafePress and Squidoo are promoting lenses created through the CafePress Squidoo headquarters, but I did see a link to my new lens and to my list of lenses on the CafePress headquarters. So, I’m getting some additional promotion, at least.

What I don’t like about it

There are many positives to selling your products on CafePress and creating lenses on Squidoo. I’ve mentioned some in this post, and I’ve talked about others previously in different locations.

I’ll stipulate it as a given that you should do this if you are selling any designs through CafePress.

But, all is not perfect with this solution.

For example, on my new lens, I just wasted over an hour trying to use the automated tools provided for picking products from a particular CafePress store, in this instance, mine.

I know I have a white tshirt that says “Because I’m the Mommy, That’s Why!” and I can find it in about a minute on my site.

But, when I tried searching for it using the promote a store part of the CafePress module, I could not find it. I know it is tagged with both “johndilbeck” and “mommy”, but it never showed up in the search.

I know I have many products with “USA” on them and I tried to find them using the search. I found many of my other USA flag wear products, but never did find the USA tshirt or sweatshirt.

So, I manually linked to them in the introduction of the lens and deleted the promote a store module. I’ll replace it later, when I have more time.

The CafePress affiliate program

Recently, CafePress introduced an affiliate program and it’s starting to pay off for me. In fact, I’m earning enough from the affiliate program that my premium shop is paid for through those commissions and I get to keep the commissions from all my product sales. I like that, and I’m eager to increase both income streams.

So, I’ll be doing some extra promotion over the next few months leading up to Christmas and the holiday shopping season.

I know I don’t produce the best products on CafePress. I do mostly styled text designs and lots of people don’t care for them. But, now, as an affiliate, I can recommend more topical designs, cute designs, artistic designs, and others that I like.

You can, too.

Unless you can drive a ton of targeted visitors to the site, you will not get rich, but you could make several hundred dollars through this affiliate program.

Here are some categories of products you can purchase at CafePress. Do your gift buying early and avoid the crowds!

• Politics
• Pets
• Dogs
• Humor
• Junior’s Gear
• Bumper Stickers
• Art and Photography
• Fantasy Art
• Military
• Geek
• Pop Culture

Something for everyone

CafePress offers millions of products from hundreds of thousands of designers, so there is probably something there for everyone.

Not only that, but creative and artistic people can sell their own designs, and everyone who is willing to exert the effort can recommend their favorite designs through the affiliate program.

We all prosper by helping each other promote and sell our products.

It’s great to see Squidoo and CafePress working together to help us in our efforts.

Art.com is changing their affiliate program, again.

When I first joined, a couple of years ago, they had a very good in-house affiliate program with excellent tools. Then, they discontinued it in favor of going with LinkShare, and the tools that were available for marketing their art products were not as good, at least in my opinion.

I recently learned that they were transitioning back to an in-house program. So, I joined the new program and I’ve spent the last week or so reorganizing and updating my Art Store at JohnDilbeck.com.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding posters and photos to the appropriate pages in my bookstore, too.

If you are interested in affiliate program marketing, I encourage you to learn more about Art.com’s affiliate program and join it if it fits your needs and interests.

Oh, yeah, check out my Art Store and purchase posters, photos, and fine art prints. Over 100,000 products are available in thousands of categories. If you don’t find what you want on my site, every page in the art store has a search box. Enter the name of a movie, musician, topic or keyword and you’ll be presented with great artwork for your consideration.