Did you know you can make money creating printables and selling them online? This is such a great way to make some extra income from home!
Guest post from Bridget of SunshineAndRainyDays.com
When my kids were young, I remember putting them to bed and just sobbing. I absolutely LOVED being a stay-at-home mom and didn’t want that to change, but I felt empty. I needed something more — something that would allow me to have my own identity.
As the kids got a little older, I poured myself into volunteer work. A friend and I started a MOPS group at our church, and I volunteered in my kids’ classrooms, with the PTA, and at church. At one point, I realized my volunteer hours had become a full time job. Counting Box Tops is no joke!
When the kids hit high school, the volunteer opportunities started drying up. I stepped away from my roles at church and decided it was time to pursue something just for me!
I followed a few bloggers, took one of Crystal’s blogging courses, and eventually started creating printables. That’s when everything started to click, and I realized I had found what I really, truly enjoy!
Printables made excellent opt-ins for my blog, but then I discovered you can also make money selling printables. Yay!
What Is A Printable?
A printable is a digital file suitable or fit to be printed or published. That’s a stuffy dictionary definition.
Are you ready for MY definition of printables?
Printables are digital files you can download to your own computer and print at home to make life easier, add fun to your life, keep you organized, or help save you money!
Examples Of Printables
The best printables to sell are the ones with everyday, practical uses. Think about what printables might make life easier or more fun, help someone stay organized or save money — the possibilities are endless!
Here are some examples below of printables I’ve created in the past…
Birthday Party In A Box — This one makes your life easier when you want to send a Birthday Surprise to someone you can’t celebrate with in person. You don’t have to come up with your own box decorations because we’ve done it for you!
Leprechaun’s Loot — Surprise your co-workers, friends, and family with Leprechaun’s Loot to make St. Patrick’s Day a bit more FUN!
Medical Binder — This one is a great example of one way to stay organized with printables.
Christmas Trivia Printables — These make Christmas party planning easier, the party more fun, you’ll impress your guests with your organized game, and you’ll save money because it’s a super inexpensive way to entertain!
How To Create Printables
In the beginning, I created printables using a combination of free programs like Canva, PicMonkey, Numbers, and Pages.
Then, I discovered Affinity Designer. I now create all of my printables in Affinity Designer and can make them look just the way I want with this one app. It’s so easy!
Here’s how to create a printable:
- Come up with a printable idea.
- Make a quick sketch of your design.
- Set up your page in your design software.
- Design your printable.
- Include your URL and copyright symbol.
- Print your design to try it out.
- Save as a PDF to share.
For more in depth instructions on creating printables, be sure to check out my guest post over at Your Blogging Mentor.
Where To Sell Printables
Are you excited to create printables, but you aren’t quite sure where to sell them? You actually have quite a few options!
Here are just a few ideas:
1. Gumroad — This is a marketplace for creators to sell their products. I like Gumroad because you can start selling printables without a monthly fee — which makes it a great way to test out your new products. At the time I wrote this article, they take $0.30 + 3.5% one-time fee per sale. You only pay the fee if your product sells, so there’s very little risk. And Gumroad collects the money for you and deposits it (minus fees) into your account. You can go here to see an example of a product I have listed on Gumroad.
2. Shopify — While I still have a few sales trickling in from Gumroad, I pretty much have exclusively switched over to a Shopify store. I love Shopify, because it allows me to create an entire store with different printable collections and they offer a great user experience for your customers. There is a monthly fee, so this is only a good option if you’re at a place where you’re selling printables on a regular basis.
3. Etsy — I have not personally ever sold anything on Etsy, but I know plenty of people who do and are very successful with it! The advantage of Etsy is the massive number of people who frequent the site looking for specific item. Buyers may stumble upon your printables in Etsy through a search on the platform.
4. Teachers Pay Teachers — If you plan to create a lot of educational printables, Teachers Pay Teachers is an excellent platform for you to sell on. Your very first product that you list has to be free, and then you can start charging after that.
5. Sell as a virtual assistant — If you aren’t interested in starting a blog or having your own online store, you have other options — one of which is to sell to bloggers! Most bloggers don’t have time to do everything, so they hire virtual assistants to create printables for them. A great way to find work with bloggers is by searching for Facebook groups where you can advertise your printables to bloggers. One example is this VA for Hire Facebook group. Once you make a sale, you can use a PayPal business account to invoice and collect payment.
6. Create printables for people you know — Another option is to create printables for people you know! Showcase your work on social media and get the word out that you are creating printables for others. As you do more and more work, the word will spread! It can be fun to create printables for customers, because you get to experiment with bringing their vision to life! Just be sure to correctly estimate how long the work will take you and decide on a fair hourly rate that’s worth your time.
Tip: When you create printables for others, be sure to look at it as a business transaction. They will likely have changes they would like you to make and that’s okay! That’s a part of the process and it’s important to not take it personally. Over time, you will learn the likes and dislikes of your customers. This will make future projects go quicker!
It’s nearly impossible to be on every platform, so I recommend that you just pick one to start with and dive in! Learn everything you can about the platform and try it out.
How To Advertise Printables
Once you’ve created a few printables, you need a way to point buyers to your product — which is where advertising comes into play!
If you’re looking for some easy ways to advertise, try one of these:
1. Advertise Through A Blog — The first printables I sold were through blog posts on Sunshine And Rainy Days. I used Gumroad to sell those printables and it worked quite well! (You can see one of my early months of sale from back in 2017 above.) And blog posts continue to be the primary way I advertise printables!
2. Create Pinterest Pins — Pinterest is considered a search engine and many people go to Pinterest to find ideas and solve problems. Create your Pinterest pin, highlight your printable, link it to the product, and pin away! Don’t forget to add keywords and hashtags in the description to help Pinterest users more easily stumble upon your pin in search!
3. Share On Social Media — You can also share your printables on social media with a link to your product. Share on your own page or in Facebook groups. (Just be sure to read group rules to make sure you’re allowed to share in the group.)
Printables Have Huge Potential!
Last year, the kids wanted to throw a Christmas Party for their friends. I created three different printable Christmas games to play at the party and sold each of them in my Shopify store. Even though I didn’t create the games until toward the end of November, the sales were still decent.
One of those games was the Toilet Paper Snowman Game. In one month, I sold 31 digital copies of that game at $2 each. That’s $62 (minus fees) for a game that I made for my kids’ Christmas party and added to the shop.
Imagine if you had multiple products like the Toilet Paper Snowman Game!
Before I started a blog, I didn’t know this whole printables world even existed. Now, creating printables is one of my favorite things to do! The kicker is, I actually make money creating printables — the same printables that I create and use in my own home to make life easier, create more fun, stay more organized, and save more money!
In the near future, I hope to create printable bundles to sell at a higher price point and increase our income potential.
If you’re interested in creating printables, just start with one printable product and try it out. It takes time to create quality products and build up your store, but there’s no better time to start than right now!
It takes time to create your products and build your store. Start with one printable product. There’s no better time than right now!
Jayleen is the wife of a super awesome principal and mom to two incredible teens! She spends her days cheerleading her songwriting son, plotting the next box to send the college student, and creating printables to share with YOU! DIY and Printables are her jam and it is her desire to inspire domestic engineers to make every day full of Sunshine and Happiness!
