Did you read my post last week on passive income? If not, check it out to see why you, as a creative (or wanna-be creative!) should plan on passive income as part of your existing business or creating a whole new business. Today, I’m going to be talking about the different passive income streams that you can check out to see if you want to add one or more into your business!
But can’t I make money from just my artwork?
Sure you can! But having a product online, that you can make once and sell over and over, can be a great way to fill in the gaps. Think about all the time that you don’t want to work – weekends, holidays, summer vacation. Having something online that is for sale that you don’t have to create upon sale frees you up to be creative when you are inspired. Not when you are forced.
There are so many ways to make money online and a lot of them require very little money upfront. It’s amazing if you don’t have too much money you want to invest or if you don’t want to carry inventory and deal with shipping and fulfillment. I also really love the thought of making money while I’m enjoying life. Spending time with my kids, family, and just taking care of my overall health. With passive income I can choose what clients and projects I want to work with and not have to worry about taking on any and every project.
Just a reminder: While building a passive income business is rewarding, it’s not necessarily easy. You have to put in work, sometimes a lot of work upfront but being able to sell it over and over again. Not only in creating your product, but also setting up the marketing – email automation and more. It also can take time, time to build the product, and time to make money from them. It’s important to note here that in most cases, a bit of extra effort can go a long way, and the more difficult methods often yield much higher payoffs.
So, enough talk! Let’s find out what and where you can sell!
Physical Products
There are so many Print-On-Demand Services that basically do all the print fulfillment for you without even having to invest in product blanks, figure out the printing, deal with shipping and returns. We are living in an amazing time where we can do all our business digitally. It gives us tons of freedom and little investment.
There are a lot of great sites that make it easy to choose the products you want to sell. All you have to do is create an account, create your art and upload it to those sites. You can either then sell these products on marketplaces like Etsy or on your own website.
While it’s super easy to create a ton of product, you do have to do your own marketing, so there will be some future work involved, but the setup up front is extremely easy.
Print on Demand Sites
*My very favorite out of these are Society 6 and Printful
Surface Designs – want to create patterns to use infabric, wallpaper, soft home decor? Check out these sites!
Sell on:Your own website created with sites like WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace. OR, an online marketplace like Etsy.
Digital Products
Creating digital products to sell and have it available for download is another way that you can create super valuable tools and artwork for people but not have to print and carry products. This can be anything from stationery and planners, all the way to templates and ebooks. I use the Adobe Creative Suite, like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign to create my digital products. But, you could use Canva for a cheap and easy start.
It’s a great way to supplement your income and can definitely be your main source of income.
Sell on:Your own website created with sites like WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace. OR, an online marketplace like Etsy or Creative Marketplace.
Teach what you know!
Creating a course is definitely the most challenging and time-consuming source of passive income. But for those who want to teach it can be extremely rewarding financially and emotionally. The easiest way to get started is to sell through websites like Creative Live and Skillshare (which also pays you to recommend their site!). For users its’ a low monthly membership. But for you – you can get paid for every person that watches your class.
You can also sell your course through platforms like Kajabi and Teachable. All of these platforms require that you video yourself, so this is where the learning curve comes in with creating, editing, and marketing. It can take some time to create your course, but once you do it is so worth it! Helping others while earning a living is so much fun and so rewarding!
What else do I need to know??
- Order samples of everything you want to sell from the print and demand company of your choice. I not only ordered blank samples, once I created products I also placed product orders so I can see how everything is shipped.
- Order items from other vendors on marketplaces like Etsy and Creative Market. Not only does this encourage community over competition it also gives you a peak into the customer experience.
- Sign up for a few months of a learning website like Skillshare. You’ll open yourself to tons of new skills but you can also see the quality of videos and content that others are putting on the marketplace.
I hope this helps you. Let me know in the comments if you have questions or want to find out more about creating passive income! Next week I’ll be back giving you TONS Of ideas on what you can sell!