Reader Poll: Vote for Swag and Merchandise Options

[Stef]

As our community grows, we want to listen to what you, as readers, want, but we also want to show our appreciation for your contributions and participation. Soon, we’re going to unveil some new reader engagement challenges that give you all a chance to win a variety of exclusive merchandise, but first, we have to find out what kind of merchandise you actually want!

What would you most like to receive as future swag option?

• Stickers
• Magnets
• Apparel: Tshirts, tanks, sweaters, hoodies
• Mugs
• Embossed bookmarks
• Sticky note pads
• Notebooks/journals
• Junk journals
• Tarot cards (using the existing character cards)
• Re-usable fabric totes
• Shadow Familiar figurines
• Funko Pop figurines

This is the first of several engagement challenges we will have, and will be followed up next week with another separate challenge: suggesting quotes, image, and design ideas for us to add to the merch.

Readers who vote in this poll and comment with their design idea(s) in the next discussion will be rewarded with their choice of:

• any one audiobook, including the bonus PGTS content entire bundle (7 in 1)

• two bookmarks or stickers (when they become available)

• or one month of free access to five Patreon-exclusive advance chapters via the website

So, to complete the poll: Do you have any new ideas for items that we haven’t thought of? Please feel free to add your ideas for merchandise in the comments, or to discuss pros and cons or contribute your opinions. Thank you, everyone!

[BlueNinja]

1: What’s the difference between “journal/notebook” and "junk journal:??

2: If you’re selling mugs, why not coasters? Wooden coasters can easily be laser engraved with a Circle, or a Sky Kraken and “Gilbratha University”, etc. Same could be done with keychains.

3: Enamel pins are quite popular from some youtube channels (thinking of Overly Sarcastic Productions in particular). Do pins of different characters in pairs (Siobhan/Sebastian, Oliver/Katerin, Miles/Theo, Lacer/Titus, Damien/Ana, etc).

[Stef]

A junk journal is more of a scrapbook type journal, whereas a notebook or journal will have empty, lined pages. JUNK JOURNAL - Google Search

Coasters: they were on my list, but the company we’re working with wants to sell them for $5 per coaster, or $20 for a set, which I thought was a little outrageous for the quality. I removed them from the list because of it.

Pins: LOVE it! I can’t add them to the poll now, but please comment if you’d like them, everyone.

[Keid]

I am such a nerd and would absolutely lose my mind if we could just get cheap plastic 13-pointed star coasters with LEDs in them.

[Stef]

This might be a possibility. I put it on my list for further R&D.

I would also love a set of these. What a cool idea!

[AriethNinja]

Omg, I have the means to make a handful of these items! I have a (small) engraver, etcher that can also make stickers,

I have legitimate store! Feel free to DM me!

… Though, clothes, mugs and other supplimation is not something I’m interested in >.>

And id be to slow to do sewing cry

I love the idea of y’all doing merch, seriously want make the tokens better!!! I just don’t have the art skills

[JKlarinet]

This may be ambitious, but swag related to books for me has only been cards and board games. So, I’ll throw out there the possibility of a board game.

A game set in the city like this one is set in Ankh-Morpork would be incredible:

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork

[AriethNinja]

… I have a friend who might be willing to do a collaboration his company designs board games and is at least willing to give advice and feed back

[JimA]

I would love a chance for an authentic hand signed (ink) paperback book… SEEDs or PGTS… the special paperbacks given for proofreading are wonderful, but i can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed that it wasn’t Azalea’s actual signature… maybe a high level prize could be a real autographed book or some other item that was inscribed by the hand of the author

[JimA]

Another idea for swag could be copper silver or gold crowns… like challenge coins, or casino chips… all the cyptos have physical coins for fun… if a face and reverse of an official coin could be designed i am sure somebody could get a small chest of them struck… Hey maybe offer a Liza Chest too! (jewelry box)…
I’ll talk to Simonne maybe she can knock a few out

[JimA]

As far as the coaster comment from up above …Is there anything wrong with higher priced, quality items?.. I know i personally have a better chance of buying something thats not injection molded plastic. I understand inventory is expensive, is there a desired price point? What if the inventory is held by a third party?

[JKlarinet]

I got a couple of “challenge” coins recently at work; I am surprised at how fond I am of them.

[AriethNinja]

I dunno about the money tokens, but I absolutely have put up the fact we need someone to design stuff for the students tokens, and such,

The school mascot needs art!!! My stupid quick image is NOT good enough! It was just concept

The school should have a font, the country should have a font, so when making merch for it it’s recognized.

Then people’s quotes can have fun fonts and stuff.

[AriethNinja]

My tokens that I make are engraved wood with a laser engraver and the details can come out pretty nice, I am actually working on an order of 50+ where the con art is on one side and I have detailed work on the other

And at least for the student tokens I think this would be great.

Making high quality color stickers is something that I’m looking at attempting to learn next month, right now, I can make nice vinyl stickers with my circuit…

And to me, those things are make to order, save the files and just cut/print when needed so they don’t sit on a merch shelf, I just need 24 hours to do it, unless it a huge order like the 50 coin thing, which is about 40 minutes per coin, clearly I need a bit for those.

There’s also the option of the admin getting their own circuit cutters and engravers (mine is pretty cheap) and then they can do print to order as well.

But the graphics elements, that is still a bit of a nightmare, getting the art or whatever designed in a way that fits what you are making.

Even if it’s a quote on a vinyl sticker, how do you want the font to be, the like which font family, what size, do you want the quote to curve? How important is placement.

It is SOO much work, but the high quality is possible, and I am not the only person who is willing to make when ordered, it means you might have to wait an extra day or two, but for good quality stuff, isn’t that worth it?

… More and more, as I learn about making stuff, I start to hate “fast fashion” having some stock already made is nice, however, space is limited, and if I’m not sure it will sell…

[btilly]

Those wooden disks remind me of ones I saw that just said “tuit”.

It’s a great gag gift. “Remember that ypu said you’d do it when you got around to it? Here!” “What’s this?” “It’s a round tuit, of course. You’ve got it. And now you have no excuse!”

[AriethNinja]

That is so cute!

I might have to make a few of those for gags

[James_Barclay]

Generally I prefer diegetic merch, things that the characters themselves could conceivably own in the story. Books, cups, magical trinkets, that sort of thing.

I see those edge-lit acrylic “hologram sculptures” being sold on alibay and such, they always looked disappointing since they tend to misrepresent the 2D acrylic as having some 3D holographic depth. But something 2D like a magic circle like Siobhan glued to her hand could look really neat with this technique. Especially if the light pulsates. Pic related:

I’m not sure what laser cut (acrylic?) coasters would be like, maybe they’d be fine with some little adhesive feet, but I think they’d need to be at least 6mm thick for the strength, and the laser cut edges look a bit funny at thicker depths. If wood, they’d need to be sealed with something like polyurethane. Laser engraved anodised aluminium is also a material option, it can be thin enough to be used for sturdy bookmarks (if you deburr them properly), the same technique is used to make aluminium business cards, though you only get two colours (and cutouts). You can get a surprising palette of colour from fibre lasers microscopically heating the surface of non-anodised metal like stainless or titanium.

Even ordering printed circuit boards to be coasters is an option, so long as you pick a lead-free finish, the edges are usually free of burrs but may need a bit of sanding to feel really smooth. You can get five different colours on a PCB (silver/gold plating, coloured solder-mask over copper, the same coloured solder-mask over the substrate, white/black silkscreen, and raw substrate) if you want to make (posterised) artwork on a circuit board. Pic related:

Not sure how feasible it is, but DnD dice, dice bags, dice jars, or even dice rolling structures might have enough of a market.

[MossyJo]

I love to collect enamel pins. If one was on offer, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.
Design-wise, there could be a lot of cool possibilities. The shadow-familiar, the personal symbol she designed, something that one of the cultists might wear, there’s lots of options!

[Keid]

tbh it sounds pretty fun to design a PCB with functional electronics where the traces are made to look like a spell array.