Comments on Strikethru: Can you create income with a typewriter?

I'm super late to this party, but am intrigued...

2012-01-31T21:40:05.800-08:00

I'm super late to this party, but am intrigued by this idea. I'm about to buy a 1940s Royal typewriter because I want it for my scrapbooking and papercrafts. Sure, I could run paper through my printer to make titles, etc. but it's actually *easier* for me to type out a quick date or title if I have a typewriter ready to go. Nothing to boot up, no futzing with exactly where the text will print.

Not sure this will ever be a moneymaking scheme, but I suppose you could make little embellishments, ephemera, etc etc for people to use in their own projects.

Running a coffee shop is, as I hear it, a really t...

2012-01-20T20:37:55.507-08:00

Running a coffee shop is, as I hear it, a really tough business in which to turn a profit. I also wonder whether typewriters would ultimately contribute to or detract from paying customers as you mention. Personally I am way to risk-averse to ever try to run a coffee shop, but keep hoping someone in the typosphere will try it.

I have seen job posts on Fiverr.com for someone of...

2012-01-20T09:56:46.062-08:00

I have seen job posts on Fiverr.com for someone offering to type a note from a manual typewriter on the buyer's choice of stationary paper and send it to the chosen recipient for $5. Of course I don't think anyone is going to make a real income $5 at a time, but it's an example of something beyond sales and repair of typewriters. However, it relies on the use of the internet to get customers, engage in the transaction, and make payment.

I love the idea of a coffee shop centered around typewriters. It reminds me of those pottery stores where you can go in with your kids and create/paint your own pottery right there in the store. In the right location a coffee shop of this nature might do well. How do current locations of type-ins perceive the revenue, or lack there of, when they host a type in. Are they losing money because all the tables are occupied for long periods of time by typists ordering only a cup of coffee, giving up the chance to serve more profitable customers. Or does it bring increased visibility to their business, and increased revenue?

Do you know about this zine: link ? It's been published since the 80s, primarily done on a typewriter. Now I'm not saying they make their living with this, but I find it interesting. And it certainly makes sense for folks with alternative living conditions to be using typewriters.

I usually browse blogs and never comment but felt ...

2011-12-16T13:57:34.797-08:00

I usually browse blogs and never comment but felt this was the one time to do so.

I think the best way to make $$$ from manual typewriters is to make crafts. I've made crafts over the years and sold them at bazaars, stationary stores, festival booths, through community newsletters, neighborhood block parties, holiday event shows, various school events, craft home parties, gift shops, and by word of mouth. Granted these sales won't make anyone "rich" but if you keep busy and and put yourself out there then you can make a modest profit.

I consider myself a little old fashioned. I personally refuse to use e-books....I luv my real books. I still write and type letters to friends and family as my way of correspondance. I craft my own gifts for birthdays, holidays, and special occassions. The cell phone I use is a pay as you go phone for emergency purposes only....I never use it and forget it at home most of the time.....if I want to talk to anyone I prefer face to face or over my land line phone while sitting and relaxing on my couch and not being annoying to anyone while standing in line at the store letting the whole world know my business :) I don't blog....although I do read them for amusement. I don't email because it seems so impersonal and don't even get me started on texting.....could never!! Of course I do have a computer but that's only because my husband uses it for work so it's there and like I said I use it for reading amusement. I still pay my bills by check and can u imagine....I use a regular ol' envelope and stamp to mail them :)

Okay, I suppose this comment was more about myself than anything but I just feel that we have become too technology dependent and just setting outselves up for all the horrors of identity stealing, technology mistakes and failures. Nothing is perfect of course but I like the safeness of everything old fashioned which is as Martha Stewart would say "is a good thing". This lifestyle is definitely a choice but in this world of fast everything, I like coming home to my retro typewriter, hearing the clickety clack of my time well spent in the company of my retro creativity and imagination. Hey, have to stay sane somehow :)
By the way.....GREAT BLOG!

Retro Paige 40 from PDX

I only ran across this site and item today, long a...

2011-10-18T10:44:17.368-07:00

I only ran across this site and item today, long after its posting, but here's a thought on how to make an income from typing.

There was an article in Time magazine a few months ago about "old skills" coming back into vogue, and people being willing to pay for them. It included skills such as handmade shoes, farming and tailoring, but more topically, hand drawn calligraphy. People are paying for it because it's not generic, not just another font that you can see elsewhere.

One-time documents with permanency would be a good place to start soliciting clients for typed documents. Title deeds from city hall or diplomas from small community colleges come first to mind. They might want something "older", more established and more human, and not mass produced.

Or if you can speak French fluently, go there. All formal business transactions in the country are still handwritten and typed, not produced on printers.

With the kids grown and gone, I have been given th...

2011-10-12T16:10:57.817-07:00

With the kids grown and gone, I have been given the green light to take the front room of our house and convert it into a micro-museum for the history of light, optics, holograms, and general 3D (I have a 20,000 piece collection). I am also going to go back to a typewritten newsletter, similar to one that I began in 1983, which ran through 1994 (when I went online). I already have a very nice base of subscribers around the world waiting for the first issue in 2012. While it will not generate income directly, it will allow me, in a very unique way, to remain on the radar. This is becoming increasingly hard to do with all the background noise online today.

It's simple, I think. David McCullough writes...

2011-10-02T07:29:53.633-07:00

It's simple, I think. David McCullough writes everything on a typewriter...and I think he makes some money with it.

I am currently working on a novel whose content re...

2011-09-28T09:46:37.583-07:00

I am currently working on a novel whose content relies on the fact that it is typewritten, and when presented to the reader must also reproduce a typed page (again, it's part of the content... the book is, in small part, about typing on manual typewriters). I am considering mass duplication (color copies, I use black and red, one of the appeals) of the typewritten pages once I'm done, with hardcover binding of the 8.5x11 pages.

I have no thoughts on a distribution model yet, but I was halfway through writing it when I realized that typewriters, typing, and the typed page were integral to the plot.

This is a one-off concept. I don't currently envision another writing project that relies upon the machinery of its creation as an essential part of the content.

Excellent question, Strikethru.

...just when you thought this thread was done and ...

2011-09-25T17:14:37.031-07:00

...just when you thought this thread was done and dusted. I remembered the typing transcription service I was beginning to think I'd just dreamed about. Richard mentioned it over on Writing Ball. It is called Universal Babel Service. Woefully poor SEO on that site, but they seem to use typewriters as a go-between card and letter writing service. Whether there's an money to be made, who knows?

Bob, I think print projects are completely great a...

2011-09-24T09:27:37.907-07:00

Bob, I think print projects are completely great ancillary outlets for some percentage of everyone's writing. Silent Type taught me that the format has currency.

Great discussion. I'm about to find out if I...

2011-09-16T13:02:01.922-07:00

Great discussion.

I'm about to find out if I can do something with my typewriter: I'm starting a monthly print newsletter/thing, sort of an addition to the stuff I do on my site. It's going to be nice to actually reach people in a different way than updating my blog (though the web has been very, very good to me).

Jae, ha! We are all set after the apocalypse. Nano...

2011-09-14T19:29:06.142-07:00

Jae, ha! We are all set after the apocalypse. Nanowrimo writers, there's a subject for you: a cabal of typists after the apocalypse.

RN, I had not considered chapbooks at all. That is pretty much precisely what I had in mind, although also I was thinking of a book merely typwritten instead of digitally formatted, but then copied en masse.

Is that how you spell en masse?

Great discussion! My mom worked her way through ...

2011-09-14T18:05:38.035-07:00

Great discussion!

My mom worked her way through grad school typing manuscripts on an Olympia portable.

Just wait for the electricity to go off.

Fascinating thread. 1. I'm a writer who uses ...

2011-09-12T14:34:21.110-07:00

Fascinating thread.

1. I'm a writer who uses typewriters. I don't need to use typewriters, but I do, and they work for me. I could, I suppose, publish my various works as typescripts. But, as much as I love writing with a typewriter, I prefer reading a book or a magazine. The lesson here is that, at least for me, the important creative experience involves using the machines (though the typescripts are interesting, because if you save them, you see how far your writing travels over time).

2. Opening a typing bar strikes me like creating a pop-up old-timey newsroom, a la Miss Lonelyhearts or The Front Page inside a tavern or coffee shop. It's likely that the typewriters would be an add-on: you'd make your money on the coffee and booze, and the typewriters would be a schtick to bring people in the door. I've been thinking of grabbing a sturdy school table and setting some of my machines out on the streets of Brooklyn on the weekends, billing them as "Free Speech Machines." I wasn't thinking of it as a money-making enterprise, but .... who knows.

3. As for selling typewritten texts:

--if it's mass production you're interested in, the typewriter probably isn't the right tool--though you could pack as many copies of carbon paper as could fit between your platen and feed rollers, pound away, and see what your machine can do.(This is reminiscent of what composer Alvin Lucier did in his 1969 piece I am Sitting in a Room, in which he taped himself and then taped the tape as he played it back in the same space and again and again and again until, in theory, what he wound up with was not a tape of a spoken text but a recording of the reverberation of the room as he spoke and the distortion caused by the tape recorder.)

--if limited production is what you're proposing, the practice already exists: the production of poetry and fiction chapbooks. These home-made booklets were often written on typewriters, on paper the writers made themselves, and bound with strings and awls wielded by the writers (though that dread electronic compiler of knowledge, Wikipedia, notes that "the genre has been revitalized in the past 40 years by the widespread availability of first mimeograph technology, then low-cost copy centers and digital printing.")

Oh, well: technology worms its way into everything.

rn

Paul, I do think there's room for the typewrit...

2011-09-11T09:02:49.046-07:00

Paul, I do think there's room for the typewriter in the production of print products somewhere. Another impractical but compelling format is mimeograph (I posted a very lame mimeograph video on youtube and it got a bazillion hits, people seem fascinated by the things).

Martin, I haven't seen Retrogram. Isn't our own typospherian, Matt Cidoni, offering a service kind of like this? I think a nice touch to this sort of idea would be to incorporate mail art details into the letters (decorated envelopes, etc.)

Deek, I would not say the content is independent of the format, in the scenario I am describing. That the content is good is a requirement (or should be), but part of the appeal of the product is that it is typed, or has other hand-created features. I had a conversation with Justin Hocking of the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland some time ago where we talked about this, the future value of hand-created books, which will become, when contrasted against mostly digital offerings, their own kind of market.

I do think a typewriter bar would be a brilliant concept for a coffee house, I'd love to see people do more creative things with the coffee shop idea, although I know all anyone wants to do at a coffee shop is stare at their iPad/laptop/smartphone.

Doesn't Retro-gram do something like what we a...

2011-09-10T20:11:06.085-07:00

Doesn't Retro-gram do something like what we are talking about here? You give them the message, then they send out a, well, letter in the format of a telegram. Could be done by type writer, too.

This is a very interesting thought experiment. Jus...

2011-09-10T08:40:02.359-07:00

This is a very interesting thought experiment. Just a thought: even when typewriters weren't obsolete, they were usually part of a larger ecosystem. Journalists banged out their articles on typewriters, but then they turned them over to a compositor to typeset that into a newspaper format, and that's the item that was sold, not the original typescript.

Our digital scanners and blogs have replaced Linotype machines and newspapers, but there's still an ecosystem. Put a typewriter into the right ecosystem, and the whole package might be monetized somehow.

[Word verification: "namishe," which is what the drunk yoga instructor said...]

I think one business model is what's being des...

2011-09-10T08:09:55.749-07:00

I think one business model is what's being described here, using the typewriter to create content and the content is generating income.

But another model, which I think Richard starting to touch on, is a business model around an experience. Something like a "typing bar", basically a coffee shop (obviously, there is profit in those) that offer the use of many typewriters, paper and stamps. People come in and write letters, poetry, whatever, generating traffic and income.

Now, its not exactly the typewriter generating the income, but its the atmosphere and the typewriter could be the center of it all.

One person with one typewriter, is a much harder concept to monetize, because then it just comes down to quality of content. If the content is that good, unless the creator is limiting it (which kind of goes against the idea of monetizing it, as you really do need volume in our marketplace), then the content is just as good regardless of source.

Which is kind of tangent to the discussion of publishing, oddly enough. I know people that are self-published and fit right in with the "published" crowd. Some turn their nose up to self-published or micro press, but when you read about someone being published with a large house and selling less than 100 books, it makes you think, that it doesn't really matter. Is it any different if I get 100 readers of my work on my own or through a publishing house?

Again, I think this all comes does to content, especially from an art perspective. I think its a lot more likely to generate income with a typewriter as part of an overall experience vs. it being the producer of content.

Ohhhhh...now I see where you're going with thi...

2011-09-09T20:28:07.587-07:00

Ohhhhh...now I see where you're going with this.

Fo' real, if you figure out how to make money of typin', lemme know.

I disagree that the only income potential is relat...

2011-09-09T12:00:03.078-07:00

I disagree that the only income potential is related to hardware/repairs, but I do agree that practical applications of the typewriter (forms, etc.) are too limited for income potential.

I am thinking entirely creatively, as in, using a typewriter to create content (books, art, correspondence) in concert with other supplies (bookbinding, paints, collage, etc.) and selling that as a product, its form factor and physical quality part of its appeal (the content would also, of course, have to be of high quality). Now, I think it would take a person with significant skills in writing, document design, art, and self-promotion to make this work, so most people could not. But there is a market in the mainstream world of design, literature, and crafts for hand-bound things, ephemera as a design element, and playing with the form factor of books, especially since books are becoming increasingly formless and free of aesthetic value as e-books. That alternative market is there, the evidence is ample. If I had 72 hours in each day, I would give this a try myself, despite the fact that I don't have the full list of skills I just named as a prerequisite. Perhaps I would crash and burn, but I suspect that there's potential there.

@Adwoa: But some people, such as Tom Furrier of Ca...

2011-09-09T08:42:36.345-07:00

@Adwoa: But some people, such as Tom Furrier of Cambridge Typewriter, make a good living repairing common machines. One thing about a typewriter is that people tend to get attached to this particular machine. If my Remington Noiseless no. 7 broke down and I couldn't fix it, I wouldn't buy another for $30 on eBay; I would rather pay $100 to a professional to have it fixed.

[Word verification: careness. Typewriters invite careness.]

I would have to agree with Richard here. Typewrite...

2011-09-08T22:48:47.147-07:00

I would have to agree with Richard here. Typewriters, by dint of their relative abundance, inexpensiveness, and ease of use, are quite accessible to anyone who wants to create texts with them.

The value in repairing and restoring would come from very rare/ obscure models; I know I have raised many an eyebrow at vendors selling "refurbished" typewriters at $500 or more, when those same models may be found in working condition elsewhere for much cheaper (Olympia SMs, Olivetti Letteras, Hermes 3000s, etc).

Actually Strike, I think that we may come down on ...

2011-09-08T16:28:12.397-07:00

Actually Strike, I think that we may come down on the same side of the line philosophically. I'm just playing devil's advocate and trying to make it look like I was paying attention in school.

Also, I do find myself appalled by the proprietary direction technology is heading in, but I also really really really want to get published one day. Sad and tawdry, but true.

There's a small but valid use for typewriting ...

2011-09-08T15:19:57.225-07:00

There's a small but valid use for typewriting in business, for one-off envelop addressing in places like banks, and for legal documents in law offices, documents whose paper copy is the actual document and can't (easily) be handled electronically. Of course, both of these uses are typically filled by electric typewriters like IBM Selectrics. I know of at least one repair shop in my town that stays in business mainly through Selectric repairs and service.

I am intrigued by the idea of (especially a manual) typewriter being used within the context of secure document origination, where nothing electronic can be trusted. A secure room, a typewriting person who's been vetted, and a manual typewriter with perhaps one carbon paper copy underneath. The client dictates (in person or remotely?) and the copy is handled manually. Hypothetically useful when (or if) the day comes when computer viruses and spyware are so prevalent that reverting to gen (x-1) of writing technology would prove to be more secure. Also useful during and after the Zombie Apocalypse, presuming no electricity is available.

I'm also thinking that in order for manual typewriters to have a niche market of usefulness, they have to fill a need that can't be handled by, say, computer-connected printers, or even electric typewriters. Mechanical printing on paper, by hand, without electricity, is their specialty. Find a market that caters to that specific set of capabilities and you'd have a business model.

~Joe