This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hey there listeners, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau bringing you episode 1472. This episode is going out on the 11th of January, 2021. It is in fact a new year, a new year filled with hopefulness. Let's just go with that, right?
A year of hopefulness. Now, as I kind of bring you these stories every day, different stories, and now a big feature on question and answers from listeners, what I'm trying to do is highlight different examples, try to provide you with a pathway that you can follow. So that, you know, even if you're not interested in these specific ideas, like any particular idea you hear on any particular day, you can kind of understand that there is a path to follow. If you want to get into manufacturing something, if you want to get into starting a blog, if you want to start a podcast, if you know, whatever it is you want to do, there is a clear path to it. And once you begin to understand those steps, then it becomes much more intuitive.
And perhaps even gives you the courage to get started, because ultimately that's what you need the most, the courage to get started. So I try to look at both of those areas in tandem. Now today, for example, a listener is inspired to create a custom physical journal. What are the steps to getting it designed, printed and out to market? So we're going to talk here through a journal 101.
We'll give this listener an action plan he can use to get the custom journal party started. At least that's the goal, at least give him some good direction. So hopefully I'll do that, you can be the judge. His name is Dylan, we'll hear from him and my answer right after this brief message from our sponsor. Thanks sponsor, and thanks listeners.
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Hi Chris, this is Dylan from Florida. I'm a long time listener, and I actually recently purchased the money tree. So I'm pretty excited to get into that. I have an idea for a custom like physical journal, and I'm wondering where I can start in getting it created, you know, manufactured, or I guess printed, and just those aspects of publishing. In addition, is there a way to legally protect this specialized journal, such as like a copyright or trademark, I don't think trademarks work, but copyright for instance.
Anyways, thank you for all the help and guidance you give. Look forward to hearing from him. [Music]
Hey Dylan, what's up man? Thank you so much for listening. I hope the money tree is helpful.
And this is an interesting idea, interesting and also feasible. We have talked about a lot of journals here on the podcast. I need to impose like a journal cap just because there's so many, but you know, the thing is there are a lot of journals because there's a large journal writing appetite these days. My friend Ana Sabino sent me one recently called The Monk's Mind that I'm looking forward to checking out. But I feel like pretty much every month, someone sends me a new different kind of journal or I hear about a different kind of journal.
So there's probably not an unlimited demand, you know, for these personalized customized journals, but it is a big market, so there is a path. All right, so if Dylan wants to make his own, you know, what needs to happen here? Basically everything that needs to happen falls into three categories, design, printing and marketing. So first of all, design. Now for all of our designers out there, they're not gonna like to hear this, but you know, in this situation at least, it's probably the easiest part of the process.
So if Dylan already has a specific idea for his journal, he knows what's going to make it unique or different. All he needs is a partner who can help him execute that idea. And so if he doesn't have someone in mind, I would look on Upwork. Go to Upwork.com where you can find any number of qualified and reasonably priced candidates. Of course, there's a process to it.
You want to look at people's portfolios and such. Make sure you're clear about what you need, including specs and file types, which connect to the next part of the process. But first of all, you need a design partner and you can find one in Upwork if you don't have one in mind already. So second part of the process, printing. Now, here you have a number of options.
It might be best to categorize them geographically, local, national, or international. So first of all, it doesn't hurt to check with a local printer. Like if their pricing was reasonable, then that could solve a lot of other problems for you. You just have a local relationship. You can go and pick them up, easy.
In terms of national, what I mean here is a company like printingforless.com. I used to be a customer of printing for less long ago. I have no other relationship with them. Technically, they are a local printer based in Montana, but their entire focus is on doing print jobs for customers all across the US. In fact, they claim to be the first ever online printer.
I'm sure there are others now as well. And what these national printers do is they typically promise better pricing and an internet friendly experience that your local printers may or may not have. And if you're printing a lot of journals, then the third option, international, might be the cheapest. However, be aware that this is also going to increase your lead time and add a lot of complexity to the process. So your journals are gonna arrive by containership, which takes weeks or months.
You'll need to work with a foreign company or agency. There might be customs or import duties. Your minimum order quantity is probably gonna be a lot higher. Long story short there, for your first time, I would start with one of the other two options. Okay, now we come to the third category, marketing.
All right, now that's everything that we talk about here on the podcast. I can't just briefly summarize marketing. And by the way, even though this is technically the last stage of the process, like you need to have a design, you need to have the physical product created, manufactured, printed. Marketing is something you should be thinking about from the beginning. That's why a lot of these journals end up being crowdfunded.
The right crowdfunding campaign isn't just about the product, it's about the brand. It's about the message. So this is actually where I would spend the bulk of my time because the marketing, the branding is going to then affect the design. It's not like you start with a design and then say, "How do we market it?" I would kind of go the other way around or at least align them and make sure they're integrated. Now, I think Dylan also asked something about copyright.
We've had a number of other episodes dealing with that in detail. But the short version there is everything that you make on the internet, once you make your first prototype, once you have the design, it's automatically copyrighted. Okay, it doesn't mean it's always going to be protected. It doesn't mean someone won't come along and try to copy it. But that's something to deal with later if it comes up.
Much more important to think about what is this journal going to be? How am I going to make it the most amazing journal so that it can compete and stand out with everything else? That's my take on that. Good luck, Dylan. Let us know how it goes.
Listeners, if you have a question, if you're trying to figure out the path to create your product or service, let me know. Come to www.cytussleschool.com/questions. I would love to talk it out both with you and of course, with our global community. Thank you so much, global community. And by that, I mean you, our listener.
Thank you, you're amazing. Do come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Cytussle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
