Back in March I quietly removed the Amazon.com link in the sidebar, and stopped linking books in individual posts to Amazon. I have also reduced the prices on the AMV t-shirts to a zero commission (or in the case of the Minerva Red and the esoteric LDS — just the commission for the designers).

I am grateful for all of you who supported the blog by buying t-shirts or using the referral links. All told, I received about $160 over the three years that the blog was monetized, which helped support the web hosting needed to keep AMV, LDS Cinema Online and Wilderness Interface Zone up and running. Thank you for that.

Now I’m de-monetizing. In particular, I didn’t like feeling obligated to link to Amazon. And I want to make the shirts as affordable as possible. And I am using the web host to also host my own personal web presence. And I just didn’t like the hassle of dealing with the administrative stuff — it wasn’t any big deal, but it was one more thing to think about.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t still support AMV. Read; comment. Friend us on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter. Drop one or all of us a line every so often. And, heck, buy a t-shirt. The blog won’t get money for it anymore (although, as I mentioned, the designers will get a bit), but every t-shirt sold makes me happy because it means my crazy ideas are out there in the wild.

And this also doesn’t mean that we won’t still tell you when one of us has a book you can buy or a show you can go see. There will be shilling (have I mentioned Monsters & Mormons?). But this blog specifically — it’s on me. And again: many thanks to all of you who clicked on an Amazon link or bought a t-shirt. And thanks, but now, no thanks.

Amazon.com

Click here for Amazon.com deals (they start now and run through Sunday). If you use that link, AMV receives a small percentage of whatever you spend at Amazon.com during that session. Note that it doesn’t matter if you buy any of the Black Friday deals — you can go straight to searching for something you really want and our affiliate code should stick (but it doesn’t go across browser sessions or if you enter Amazon.com in any other way than by clicking on the above link — or the one at the top of the left column).

AMV T-shirts

Spreadshirt deals: Nov. 27-30 you can receive 25% off all orders over $40. Use the following coupon code during checkout. For the U.S. use CYBER29; For Canada use CADCYBER29.

From now until sometime in December you can receive free shipping on all orders over $50. Use the coupon code FREESHIP1. Canadians can receive $6.99 off of shipping with CADFREESHIP1.

Here are direct links to the three AMV t-shirts: A Motley Vision in Deseret Alphabet | Minerva Teichert Red | The Covertly Geeky “LDS” design

Thanks!

Click here to view the Minerva Red T-shirts (in black or white with sizes for men, women and children)

Remember Anneke’s awesome post about Minerva Teichert’s use of a particular shade of red and how she and her friend wished it came as a crayon? Well I suggested that it’d make for a great t-shirt, and Anneke, who is a design goddess, came through with a pop-art Minerva Red crayon design. I really like it. I like how it both celebrates and subverts latter-day pop art cute by paying homage to a preeminent, beloved LDS artist and her love for the Savior.

Here’s the link to the AMV Spreadshirt Store where the Minerva Red t-shirts can be purchased. The design is available on either black or white shirts, including three different styles for women and, for the first time — children’s sizes. Proceeds from the sales of Minerva Red products will be split between supporting the hosting costs for A Motley Vision and helping Anneke pay for grad school.

Many thanks to all who have purchased AMV t-shirts so far. One or two more t-shirt purchases and we’ll reach enough sales to pay for this half of the year’s AMV hosting costs.

A special shout out to Gibby who got one for his dad (click through for photographic proof).

Unfortunately, the esoteric way to nonadvertise the fact that you are LDS, e.g. the LDS Deseret Alphabet With the Characters Represented in Hex Code design, didn’t do much for anybody (in spite of the fact that a lot of people clicked through to view the designs). Perhaps it was too esoteric. But just in case it was the t-shirt styles holding you back, I have created additional female styles (slim fit and a modest v-neck version) to that set of shirts (click on the link above) based on feedback from the wife. You can also now get the original A Motley Vision in Deseret Alphabet design in the v-neck style. The wife loves hers — and looks great in it.

As always, stay tuned: we’re on track to roll out a few more quirky, esoteric, totally-Mormon designs over the next six months or so.

And while I’m doing administrative announcements: AMV’s webhost recently raised monthly hosting fees. It’s still the cheapest of the reliable webhosts, but that means an extra $10 per year. If you plan on doing any back to school shopping, please consider using our Amazon affiliate link (we get a small percentage of any sales that are made during the shopping session a consumer has after clicking through to Amazon with that link). My last t-shirt design generated a lot of traffic (more than 500 visitors in two days to the AMV Spreadshirt store), but no sales. It was perhaps a bit too geeky and esoteric. I’m going to roll out another design in August so if you want to support AMV, but don’t like the two designs we have so far, don’t buy a pity shirt — wait and see.

View the LDS in Geek speak t-shirts in four different color combos (sizes/styles for men and women)

Direct links: white on blue |  red on gray |  green on black |  black on white

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At long last, here is the second in the series of esoteric yet awesome Mormon-themed T-shirt designs that we’re creating to help support the hosting costs for AMV. I’m proud to announce:

LDS (lowercase) in Deseret Alphabet hexadecimal code

Bear with me here as I explain the utter coolness of this concept.

1. Take the letters LDS.

2. Transliterate them in to their Deseret Alphabet characters.

3. Represent those characters as their hexadecimal character in unicode and stack them top to bottom.

4. Choose the lowercase versions of the letters because those particular hex strings look cooler than the uppercase ones.

5. Use the awesome font Singularity by LDS designer, mobile UI guru and font enthusiast Jared Benson.

6. Create four killer color combos for the AMV Spreadshirt store: white on navy, black on white, AMV red* on grey and (my personal favorite) terminal green** on black. And offer both men’s and women’s versions, of course.

THE RESULT = the coolest, geekiest, most esoteric way to sort-of show off your LDS-ness ever (and support AMV at the same time). Convinced or just want to take a look? Click through to the AMV Spreadshirt Store. A few more details after the jump.

Things to Know/Notice:

1. These shirts are priced at $13.40. Because this is a low-design (e.g. typeface but no illustration/photography), non-branded (e.g. not the AMV premium shirts) shirt, I’ve created them using the standard weight t-shirts for men and women. If there is a product you desperately want this design on, e-mail me at: myfirstname AT motleyvision DOT org — no promises, but I’ll see what I can do.

2. I’ve set the commission on these at $3 because, again, this is a low-design, non-branded shirt. AMV receives $2 to help pay for hosting costs (we have a biannual payment of around $30 due in June). The other $1 goes to Jared Benson up to the point that we have enough to buy and ship him a t-shirt. The shirts don’t work without the font*** so it’s the least we can do. HOWEVER, if we can sell three shirts by June 1, then we’ll get a coupon code for one free t-shirt which we can then use to say thanks to Jared and all commission money will go to supporting AMV.

3. If neither this nor the AMV in Deseret Alphabet concept appeals to you, don’t worry because we hope to roll out a couple more very cool concepts/designs over the next year, and I promise that this is the last one that’s Deseret Alphabet themed.

4. Many thanks to whoever recently bought one of the AMV-themed t-shirts. I hope you enjoy it. I love wearing mine. We’ve sold 7 to date.

5. This t-shirt may have more widespread appeal than the AMV-themed one. Please feel free to forward a link to this post or to our Spreadshirt store to anyone who you think might appreciate this particular way of expressing ones ties to Mormonism.

And that’s it for now. More uniquely Mormon t-shirts will be rolled out this summer.

* That is, the same deep red used in the color scheme here at A Motley Vision.

** I’m not kidding here. My brother and I went through all the various terminal programs he had in his various flavors of Linux, and I chose the vivid green that seemed most old school. This one is for all the former Apple IIe users out there.

*** It’s true. I tried the same concept with several other fonts and none of them stacked well or looked quite right. When Jared released Singularity, I took one look at it and knew it would be perfect for this project. Speaking of Jared… Not only does he create great fonts (and sits on FontShop’s type selection board), but he is also my former home teaching companion and Elder’s Quorum President and a great husband and father. Thanks, Jared.

My first impressions:

1. The white on black looks really cool. And the size of the lettering is perfect.

2. The weight of the t-shirt is quite good and I wouldn’t go with a lighter weight t-shirt (at least not for white on black).

3. The printing job is also quality. It’s a bit hard to tell from the photo, but the lines are crisp. I don’t know that the plot printing technique is amazingly better out of the gate, but

Photo after the jump as well as an update on Support AMV.

Here’s a shot of my t-shirt (photo credit goes to my lovely wife). You can’t really tell much from it , but I figured I’d share it anyway. Click on it to see it in a larger size:

I can also report that after one washing, the shirt held up fine. My siblings also received t-shirts and they reported that they could see a faint line across the top of the design (mine either didn’t have it or I just couldn’t see it). My guess is that that is from the plastic backing used in the process and that it will go away after one washing.

In all, I’m very pleased with Spreadshirt and will continue to use them. I’m also pleased to report that thanks to the generosity of my parents and one other person (gibby claimed to be that person in a previous post — thanks and let us know if you like the shirt if you read this), AMV will be receiving a $25 commission later this month (you have to hit $20 or 25 to receive a payout from Spreadshirt) — which will cover most of what I paid in the semi-annual hosting invoice which came due in Dec. This means that anything AMV makes in the next 5 months can go towards the June payment. I’ll be using the commission to pay for my AML membership.

In addition, a few of you (or maybe just one of you — I have no idea) have used the Amazon Associates link. Thanks so much. We’re currently sitting at $9.14 in commission. Once we hit $10, Amazon will send me a gift certificate in that amount (they only pay cash on larger commissions), which I will use personally and will cover the domain registration for the year. After that, anything that comes in will go to my co-bloggers (in order of seniority).

I hope to have some more t-shirt designs soon and work is progressing on the PayPal donation incentive. I’ll roll that out as soon as the incentive is ready to go.

Finally, I have yet to wear the t-shirt out in public where it could be seen (it’s winter here in Minnesota dontcha know) so I can’t yet report on reactions.

First up: Killer t-shirts

We’re launching a Spreadshirt store. The first offering is the traditional “advertise our blog t-shirt” — but with a twist. I’m not too keen on turning you all into walking billboards. In fact, I generally refuse to wear any item of clothing that prominently displays a logo. So here’s what I have come up with: the phrase A Motley Vision (which as you will recall is from an Orson F. Whitney poem) transliterated into the Deseret Alphabet. The t-shirts come in either white lettering on black t-shirts or black lettering on white t-shirts. The transliteration has been verified by AMV’s own Deseret Alphabet expert Katherine Morris and uses a true-type font created by Joshua Erickson. I don’t want you to advertise AMV: I want you to non-advertise it. And in so doing connect with the funky Mormon history we know and love. I personally love this concept. I have no idea how others are going to react. But for me, the idea of this alien set of characters on your chest that’s a phrase from the overwrought epic poem written by the godfather of Mormon literature and the name of the premiere Mormon arts blog totally cracks me up. And is also very, very cool.

Here’s what it looks like (click to view a larger size):

There are both men’s and women’s t-shirts, but I’m limiting it to just one style for each gender for now (for reasons why, read the FAQ below). And as a caveat: I have yet to order from Spreadshirt, but after an exhaustive Internet search of all the major t-shirt on demand sites, it seems like the best one to use.

PROMOTION: If you order $30 worth of shirts (that means two or more) between Dec. 9-11, you get 15% off the total (not including shipping). If you order $30 worth between Dec. 12-15, you get 10% off. Use the coupon code NOW1 or if you are using Canadian dollars, it’s CADNOW1.

This just the first t-shirt design. We’ll roll out more every few months or so. There are a couple more Deseret Alphabet-themed t-shirts on tap, and we also have some other very cool, eccentric, esoteric Mormon-themed concepts in development.

Second: Shop at Amazon and AMV gets a cut

If you haven’t done your Christmas shopping yet, and plan to do any of it on Amazon, consider doing it by clicking on this link. Most readers probably know how this works — if people get to Amazon via links from this blog and buy something, we get a very small percentage of the sale. I don’t have high expectations for this one, but every little bit counts. Plus, if you are going to shop Amazon, you might as well do it in a way that benefits your favorite Mormon arts and culture blog.

We’ll also be using Amazon links occasionally in posts — in fact, we already link to Amazon fairly often so it seems only fair that we get something out of it. But as befits our vibe, we’ll be low-key about it. By the way: we’re doing this Amazon Associates thing, but that’s as far it goes. We’re not going to do Google AdWords, banner ads or any other advertising that would clutter up the site.

Third: Coming in the new year — direction donation + incentives

Sometime in early 2009, I’m going to open up PayPal donations. But we don’t expect anyone to donate without receiving a little something in return. So I’m working on an incentive that we’ll e-mail to anyone who donates a dollar to AMV. First up will be a PDF file featuring a translation I’ve done — but others may include special MP3 readings, photography, etc. So if the two options above don’t appeal to you, save your hard-earned dollar(s) for next year.

I also may come up with some premium incentives for those who wish to give at generous level.

How the funds will be managed and used

Currently, I have everything set up to go into an AMV PayPal account. All money received will go towards hosting costs for AMV. If we meet our hosting costs for the year, donations will then be used to buy specific Mormon cultural products for each of the AMV bloggers (in order of seniority) to thank them for what they do and have done to build this excellent blog (with the expectation that they’ll post about whatever novel, film, subscription, etc. they end up receiving). If we do reach that point, I will announce it here. The idea is to reward my co-bloggers, support Mormon artists and generate more well-written content.

In terms of keeping it all legal: Spreadshirt already takes out taxes and unless we experience a surge in Amazon Associates earnings and PayPal donations, we’ll consider any taxes owed to be my donation to AMV. So yes, I’ll include all earnings on my personal income tax form. However, if this takes off, we may look at a more formal means of organizing the financials. I plan on being upfront with my co-bloggers about all income generated, and I will provide some indications of how things are going to AMV’s readership. This is meant to be a cooperative effort.

Does this all make sense? If you have an suggestions or concerns, feel free to e-mail me at my-first-name AT motleyvision DOT org.

FAQ

Why Spreadshirt?

Because they seem to have the best rep online and because they offer plot printing. Here’s the thing: I was a screen printer for a summer. If I could make them myself, I would love to do so. But I don’t have the space, time or start-up money to set up my own shop.

Why not more t-shirt styles (slim fits, long sleeves, etc.)?

In part because of the plot printing thing. AMV is only allowed so many vector graphic designs and some t-shirt styles require a different size graphic. If the t-shirts sell well enough, Spreadshirt will give us more vector graphics slots, which we will then use to offer more styles (and more designs). However, if there is something you desperately want, e-mail admin AT motleyvision DOT org, and we’ll see about setting up a standard digital print design (which can still provide excellent results).

Why do the t-shirts cost so much?

Because they are high quality t-shirts with cool concepts. But here’s the breakdown: I have put a $5 design fee on each t-shirt. That’s the only mark up (e.g. I haven’t added a mark up on top of the design fee — which is possible to do). Of that $5, $1.90 goes towards taxes and the rest goes into AMV’s PayPal account. I plan there being a $5 design fee on future designs, but for those that aren’t designed by me, I will be giving half of the $3.10 profit to the designer as payment for his or her services.

In addition, I apologize for the shipping costs. I don’t think that they are extraordinarily high, but shipping is certainly an annoying part of e-commerce. I’ve had the experience of finding an amazing deal on a product online only to realize that shipping costs were going to make it no cheaper than picking it up at a bricks and mortar store — although this is one area where the cost would probably be even higher if I made the shirts myself.

* Actually the first seven months or so of AMV’s non-blogspot existence were covered by the check we received from the Association for Mormon Letters for receiving an award for criticism. Many thanks to any AML members who paid their dues in 2005.