My mom's trying to convince me to sell prints of my cards on Etsy. I realize that prints aren't allowed on Etsy, but I'd be happy to sell custom originals. However, that failed pretty hard on Furbid so I'm not really comfortable with the idea of having to pay to put the same offer on Etsy.

So basically, what I'd like to know is whether or not it's even a practical idea. I love Etsy to death as a buyer, but I'd like to hear others experience with it as sellers. Maybe cards would do better over there, or maybe I can make prints to sell elsewhere. Either way I'll have to make a fairly generic pile of cards as examples and to have something to sell at all. The only one I still have sitting around here is the Thylacine card, and I like it too much to even send it.

I'd like to be able to make money from these things so that come next February I'll be able to include more fun handmade stickers and maybe fancier shiny paper when I make another giant pile of them for the hospital. I'm not using cheap construction paper you know. This stuff's already medium to heavy cardstock, but it would be a lot of fun to get some of those patterned and handmade scrapbooking papers to use. If I manage to do better than just enough to buy better supplies, maybe some percent can go to charity? The rest to tuition?

If I did decide to go with prints, would it be better to get matte prints and then reline the shiny parts by hand, or should I be lazy and go for plain glossy prints? Would people want them individually signed, or would that detract from their usability as cards? How much of a profit would be considered not thieflike? Where do I find a trustworthy printer? Would it be worthwhile to save up for my own fancy printer? What sort of resolution should I scan in to make professionally printworthy files? 300dpi? 500? Would people want batches of all one card pattern, or would they prefer sets of related images?

How do I set up a minuscule small business to pay tax on income if this works? Do I have to? Is just me selling a few cards enough that the government would really care? I've gotten so very little from commissions in the past that I never really thought about it, but if I'm going through the trouble of setting up an Etsy store or dealing with a printer would I need to go ahead and call it a business instead of just assuming that it's small potatoes and not enough to worry about?

Would it even be worth the stress?

I'll be posting a few low res copies on my office bulletin board when I'm at work Monday to see if anyone over there bites. If I can get enough of them interested I may just do a run of printed cards of the Thylacine love card. Since I still have that one I can still make a higher resolution scan of it. Probably not many will be interested - especially since it's unlikely to be all ready in time for Mother's Day. If anyone here would be interested, just hit me with a number and if/when it ever hits whatever whichever printer I find says in a minimum order I'll let you know a price.