You've probably been pitched before

Most merch offers to small creators are extraction dressed as opportunity. Someone takes your designs, your audience, and most of the margin, and you find out later that you signed away the right to use your own character. We know. It's why most of the people we talk to say no at first, and they're right to.

So here are the terms in public, where you can read them without a call.

What you keep

What we take

An equal share. Print-on-demand economics are thin and we'd rather show you the shape of it than quote something that sounds generous and isn't.

The printer takes most of the retail price as base cost. What's left is the profit, and that profit splits evenly between you and us. Artists are paid up front out of our side — we buy the merch rights with the commission, so the artist gets guaranteed money instead of waiting on sales, and that cost doesn't come out of your half.

Payment lands by the 15th of the month after the sale — that gap is us doing the reporting, not us holding your money. We'll send it however you want to receive it.

We won't pretend this is life-changing money at small volumes. It isn't. It's a way for the people who already want to support you to get something real, without you fronting cash for a bulk order that might not sell.

Art, and who owns what

Either of us can commission art. If you bring your own, we assume you have the commercial rights and we use it how you direct. If we commission it, we buy the merch rights with the commission and pay the artist up front — and you can buy those rights out from us whenever you want.

None of that touches your IP. The character is yours, the brand is yours, and without your license the art is just fanart no matter what we spent on it. We can't sell it, use it, or license it onward without you.

If we spot someone stealing your art or infringing your IP, we'll tell you. If you decide to act on it, we'll join as support — and anything a court awards goes entirely to you. We won't ever push you to sue, and you're never obligated to.

How it actually goes

1. You talk to us. What you'd want to make, what you'd never want made. If we're not a fit, we'll say so rather than talk you into it.
2. We commission the art. Our cost. You tell us which artist, or we suggest one — we work with people we know and can name.
3. You approve or reject. Each design, individually. Rejections are free and don't count against anything.
4. It goes up. Your own section on the site, presented how you want it presented.
5. You get paid. By the 15th of the month after the sale, in whatever way you want to receive it. An even split of the profit with us.

Who this is for

Small creators. If you have a modest but real community, the big merch companies won't take your call, and their minimums assume an audience you don't have yet. That's the whole reason this exists.

We work with streamers, artists, writers, musicians, and people whose thing doesn't have a category yet. What matters more than your platform is whether your audience is the kind of people who'd wear this stuff.

One that's already running

Kaname's Korner is a full creative partnership, not a licensing deal. It's her point of view — anti-corporate, anti-authoritarian, pro-art, pro-peace — and we don't edit it. Go look at what that turned into, which will tell you more about how we work than anything we could say here.

The boring parts, said out loud

The agreement runs under Virginia law, because that's where the business is registered. If we ever disagree and can't sort it between us, we go to mediation first and arbitration second — no forced arbitration as the opening move, and no clause anywhere that stops you going to court over IP theft.

Neither of us can change the agreement without the other signing off. If one of us lets a technical breach slide once, that doesn't mean it can't be enforced next time.

Fair warnings

We're small. You'll be dealing with a person, not an account manager, and sometimes that person is slow to reply.

We print on demand, which means no inventory risk and no minimums, but also longer shipping than a warehouse operation and no control over the printer's occasional bad day.

Some of our own early house-brand artwork has provenance we can't verify, and we've said so publicly rather than quietly swapping it out. We've since changed how we contract every piece of art. We'd rather you hear that from us now than find it later.