I am asked often about how to produce a CD of storytelling. I want to share with you my review of a new service we at Storyteller.net found to be excellent: www.cafepress.com.

We have used the traditional method of CD’s and tapes: getting 1000 copies of our CD made and then having boxes of products sit in our office and garage as we sell them. Although this results in a slightly lower wholesale cost to the teller, it also means you have 1000 CD’s waiting in your office as you sell them- and in turn that means you have a significant amount of money sitting in those CD’s sitting in your office. Unless you have a high volume sales, this can be a challenge to the average teller and is not really realistic for someone who needs only a few copies of their CD at a time.

I’d like to tell you about a service that I have found that I believe is one of the best kept secrets on the Internet: www.cafepress.com. CafePress lets you produce your CD’s ON DEMAND instead of producing in bulk lots of 500 or 1000 at a time. We’ve used CafePress for our last two CD projects: “Voices from the Noise” (VFN) and “Calling Out a Rising Sun”(COARS).

Using CafePress to produce your CD’s has a number of advantages.

1. CafePress handles all the production and shipment of your CD, one at a time if needed. From your website, you have a link to your “store” with CafePress and your guests can order your CD there, using a check, money order or credit card. CafePress fulfills the order, offers your guest a 30 day money back guarantee, then sends a check out to you for your sales 45 days or so after the sale.

2. CaféPress *includes* a four-page cover insert and inside-the-case printing as part of the standard price. For me, this was one of the biggest and best surprises. Everyone else wants a lot more money to have a four page cover.

3. They offer a volume discount if you order 15 or more copies of your CD. Frankly, with this discount, I can get small batches of my CD for almost the same "each" price I would have paid if I had 1000 made. This is really where the CafePress has made the most significant impression on our decision to use them.

4. What about quality? The CD’s that I have seen have been just as good as anything I have ever ordered from anywhere else: full color printing, ON DISK printing (not a label!) and shrink wrapped. And, let’s be frank about this, many tellers are producing their CD projects on their home computers and printers- the quality is just not there when you do it at home. Home produced CD’s for the most part simply do not look professional.

5. No matter where you manufacture your CD, you still need good artwork and good content. However with CaféPress, you can change your uploaded artwork as needed. Ever had a typographical error on 1000 of your disks? Now that’s frustrating. With CafePress, as you only produce a few at at time, changing a mistake is easy. The upload process is easy to do and your graphics person can easily produce your materials to the templates that CafePress provides. Your sound files are either uploaded by you as .MP3 or you send a master disk and they make the sound files for you.

6. CafePress does not require a UPC code. However if you are selling on Amazon.com or some other places, you will need one. By the way, why AREN’T you selling your CD at Amazon.com? Who cares about their percentage? Being listed at Amazon.com increases your professional image. I have three CD’s there now. Getting a UPC number is not that hard to do, please let us know if you need more information.

7. Other things we like about CafePress.com: Shipping has always been fast and reasonable for us. Your guests can order one CD and pay as little as $2.50 for shipping....There are no upfront fees to have product at CafePress. You don’t pay anything to them to have a basic store. It comes out of the selling price for your product....Customer service is good. We had a production problem with one CD and they resolved it satisfactorily for us...Your guests can order online or by toll-free phone call....You can also use your same CD artwork for mugs, shirts, calendars, etc....Your product page with them also is a real web page, you can submit it to search engines.

Overall, we have been very happy with CafePress and recommend them to anyone producing a CD.

Learn More and start your store with CafePress by visiting www.cafepress.com. When you join them (for free), please use our ID of “storyteller” (without the quotes) as the store who referred you.