If you’re a creative soul like I am, the first thing you do when you create something is wonder what you’ll do with it. Or you might wonder, how can I make money from that?
I created hundreds of fractal art images in the 1990s that I wanted to put on products, so I spent a good amount of time trying to get posters printed, cards done and the occasional mousepad. It was the 90s! I bought the HP Photo printer of the 1990s and did my own card line, and I cobbled together foam and t-shirt iron on transfers to create my mousepads.
I fiddled with decals and stickers, and I really wanted to make mugs. In the end, I didn’t have the budget for a sublimation printing set up that would accommodate all the products I wanted to make, and my local print shop was limited to sizes of posters that didn’t suit my needs. The colors on my fractal art were brilliant, and I couldn’t find anyone who could reproduce those colors other than me printing on silk or cloth.
I stuck to small things like cards, keyrings and magnets, but I was never quite happy with that.
The internet aged, and I kept creating more art like pencil sketches and colored pencil drawings that I would print into greeting cards or little things to sell.
When I discovered CafePress, I was so excited! That quickly dissipated when I had to jump through hoops to set up my fractal art work. I had to open a store for every image. I had over 80 images. I suppose that I never gave being a power user a thought. In the end, I had 85 stores and products that were strangely colored when I got the product. They were heavy on the reds.
Enter Zazzle and Spoonflower. I used Zazzle to create my mugs and cards, and Spoonflower does fabric. Spoonflower makes you buy fabric from them before they will print your design for sale. I have some cute fabric with my colored pencil horses on them that I occasionally get a few dollars for, but I never put any more designs up.
Zazzle was a good source of income for a while for my classic car photography. When I go to car shows and swap meets with my guy, I use the time to take photos of the classic cars. We’re talking 40s and 50s cars with an occasional 60s car like the Mustang or Chevelle.
At some point, the car manufacturers decided they didn’t want anyone but themselves to sell car art, so they purged everyone selling car art. I still sell on Zazzle, but it’s my National Park and Western Art that sells now.
I’ve made the mistakes, so here’s how to make the money you want from your art. This is what I do, and this is what I found to be successful.
- Open a Shopify storefront
- Open a Printfy, Printiful and/or Art of Where account
- Integrate those print on demand companies with your Shopify account
- Open and Etsy or Indiemade account – or set up an Amazon account
- Integrate your print on demand on your Etsy store – manually add them to Indiemade or Amazon
- Create your products and populate your site if it is integrated – I use Shopify and Printfy, as well as Etsy and Printify. I also have Printiful and Art of Where integrated in my Shopify and Etsy sites, but don’t use them as much. Other print on demand options include Redbubble.
- Push your products to the sales channel and then work on your SEO and advertising.
While I have all of these set ups, I prefer my Shopify/Printify account lineup. There are products on Art of Where that I can’t find other places, and there are products on Printiful that I can’t find anywhere else. Depending upon what you want to sell, you may have to search the available products to find the POD company you want to use.
The nice part about integrating your Printify account with your Shopify storefront is that you can create your product and push the publish button. It goes to your shop and is ready for sale.
Both Printify and Shopify have FREE TRIALS, so click ABOVE to start yours today! Get your products online in time for the holiday shopping season!
You can make unlimited amount of money by creating your own products. Some companies have been known to try to suppress the markup percentage, but I have not found that to be true with any of the companies that I use. Of course, it still comes down to what the market will bear and how unique your design is. I do find that my car art does well, so I stick with that for the most part, and throw in occasional home décor.
Some of my home decor items like the coffee mug above come from art that I have purchased through Creative Market. They have a lot of freebies, as well as paid goodies. Sign up and get their daily email or find some art you like and create your first product through Printify.
Pros
- Passive income
- Set it and leave it
- No overhead
- No upfront expense
- No shipping issues
- No stock to keep
- Updated shipping templates
- Order updates
Cons
- Discontinued blanks
- Shipping costs rise
- Print quality (I have not had that issue with my work on these companies)
- Broken shipments (there are easy returns with these companies)
- Profit margin can be low
- Limited product lines
If you’ve got a lot of art sitting around, or you want to use artwork from places like Creative Market images (click above to get there), there is a whole market of potential customers looking for unique or clever gift ideas. Create to your heart’s content and then load up social media with your promotional posts!
Check it out – there’s even a book on Kindle Unlimited on how to sell on Etsy with print on demand!
Sign up for Kindle Unlimited and read for free today.
