How do you make money selling printables?

There is a question I get all the time “is it really true?” can you really make money selling printables online?

And yes you really can.

Spoiler alert: I started wanting to make just $200 a month and now I make more than my 9 to 5 selling printables. And even I can’t believe it! That you can really make money online working from home.

But you can indeed monetize your knowledge into cute little printables and templates in PDF format and sell them and people will buy them.

So, let’s get into it.

In 2020, I was selling personalized pregnancy announcement baby grows on Etsy and it was the pandemic and I was struggling with supplier issues and couldn't grow my store.

I started looking for a different business model and I considered print on demand or dropshipping but after my failed business I didn't want to have another supplier issue failure.

After scouring the internet, I came across printables and digital products and it intrigued me.So, I decided to create a few printables around organization, to do lists, budgeting and also some educational stuff for my son.

A couple of weeks later, I had created about 20 - 30 different printables and listed them on etsy and before I knew it, I started making money with this Etsy store.

After much research and building my shop, my biggest payday arrived six months later and I couldn't believe that at the end of saturday, I had $600 in sales and at the end of sunday, I had made $650! I was so shocked that I could make this amount of money without any inventory or shipping costs and errands.

This was an amazing achievement because I was living paycheck to paycheck and now I was making extra money that went really far in helping me achieve some financial goals!

Since then my Etsy business has evolved and I no longer work in my 9 to 5, allowing me to become self-sufficient and I can now call myself a small business owner who makes money online working from home.

I cannot believe it because I never expected this to be my career.

And now I am scaling my business and have started teaching women how to create their dream online business.

o, it's true, you can also make money online working from home selling printables and monetizing your knowledge.

You don’t need to have a huge investment or require an expensive course to learn how to sell online, especially on Etsy. You can take your existing knowledge, passion and interests and create information packets or printables that solve a problem and sell them online.

The Resources:

There are plenty of resources for creating materials and especially If you have a flair for creativity, you can create printables or digital products in Canva.

Before Canva, I would have suggested using programmes like microsoft word or powerpoint or spreadsheets and these require a microsoft license.

But like i said, you don't need to have a huge investment at the beginning, you can use free software like Google Docs and sheets and Canva to create really beautiful and valuable digital products that your customers will love.

I absolutely love Canva because it is user-friendly and intuitive. It makes creating easy and it’s free.

How to make printables that sell?

Getting started is easy with a programme like canva. When I create my printables I like to use fonts and graphics that make it aesthetic and enjoyable for your customers.

Canva have some great graphics within their software but if ever you need something else, you can purchase or upload other graphics for your printables.

To get started here are some places to find clip art or graphics for your printables:

Pixabay

Pexels

Etsy.com

Creative Market

StockUnlimited

Openclipart.org

These are just some examples of where you can get good quality graphics for your designs that are either paid or free and come with a commercial use license – just be sure to read the terms of use.

The same process can be used for finding a good font.

I personally like to use different fonts that I find on Canva or if needed I also buy from Etsy or Creative Market.

Canva has some really great fonts and even with the free version, you get access to a large library of fonts but the pro version has so many it can actually be overwhelming.

When I first started my digital products store, I really wanted to be self made and in that I was a complete and utter cheapskate. I refused to invest in anything that would help me grow my business and wanted to do everything for free.

Spoiler alert: I now think that is the harder route to take, as now I spend hundred to thousands a month on tools and skills that will help me grow my business, because I recognise I need to get to my business goals faster and I am willing to pay for the things that will get me my results faster than if I did it on my own.

When I started, I never paid for any training and it took me longer than if I had paid for the knowledge I know now.

Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of good free information online, but it takes time to sort through what works and what doesn’t. However, paying for training allows you to grow without wasting valuable time.

Sure you could find tutorials on using Canva but wouldn’t it be nice if someone also shared how to find profitable product ideas? Or how to understand the etsy algorithm? Or how to do good keyword and competitor research?

And wouldn’t it be nice if that same person also shared how to open a store and sell those digital products made in Canva online?

Well don’t worry, I have you covered! I teach all of that and more in my updated kit on creating income with printables on Etsy.

I am sure you are wondering where you should sell your printables?

When you have your digital product made and ready to sell, there are also plenty of places to offer them and it all depends on whether you would like to sell them in a market place or not.

If you chose to sell in a marketplace, you have a variety of places you can sell like Etsy, creative market, fiverr etc.

You can also sell outside of marketplaces and this can be on your own website. Depending on where you build you website, you could create a store (shopify) or you could create a series of sales pages that look and feel like a website (systeme.io, beacons.ai, pensight etc.) or If you have your own blog you could sell via a plugin platform like Woocommerce.

The point is that there are many ways to sell printables and other digital products like ebooks, workbooks, coloring books and planners.

I have sold digital products on both my own site and on Etsy and to be honest I like both methods and would recommend having both options.

I really like selling on Etsy because they already have a huge customer base. As we speak, I think Etsy has around 600 million active users a month. And that is an insane amount of people who are actively looking to buy.

So if you take time to understand how the Etsy site and algorithm works, then you can make a lot of money selling digital products on Etsy.

I really love and advocate for the digital products business model selling printables and it is probably the easiest and fastest business model to set up and start making money.

This is truly the best way to test your business because there is only your time involved. You don’t have to worry about throwing money away on a business that might not succeed. The bonus with a digital business like this is once you have created your product, it’s a mostly passive income.

If you’re interested in learning more about creating digital products like printables, you can learn how to start your own printables business with this resource: Digital products Kit or Etsy Digital Products Toolkit.

Both of these have everything you need to know about creating printables. It has a step by step guide on how to find your topic and how to sell them and start making money.

They both also include done for you templates that allow you to create beautiful, high value digital products that are bound to sell and also the associated marketing elements that will catch your customers eyes.

Don’t spend months trying to figure it out. Invest in yourself today.