Make Money from Printables Series -- What's a Printable?

Savvy designers and crafters have found a new way to earn money from home – are you ready to cash in on the rapidly growing printables market? From designs for tshirts and commercial use to downloadable papers and scrapbooks, the printables industry has exploded in the last year.

Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. Note anything I recommend I have tried, like and use in my own business.

Make Money with Printables and Digikits Series

This is part of a series of pieces created to answer some of the most commonly asked questions about printables and earning an income from them. You can find the first in the series here, if you want to read in order!

What are Printables and How can you Make Money With Them?

Home sticker shops, graphic design brands, tshirt designers and stationery brands are thriving, thanks to the easy availability and instant gratification offered by printable items. For designers, printables mean less work shipping and more time to design and grow. My favorite printables are those that generate passive income, meaning that you design them once, and then sell them over and over again. My favorite Etsy design is this simple SVG for Christmas.

It has sold almost a thousand times – people download to use on a cricut or other cutter, then sell the items that they make. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how quickly this came together and it has generated over $2,000 in income since November of 2020.

Not every design will be a hit, but most will provide steady income, particularly once you establish a style and build a loyal customer base.

Why Printables – and Why Now?

The passive income and the ability to work selling items that I do not have to pack or ship sold me on the printables deal. The other factor that makes printables more appealing now than ever before is the availability of printing and cutting equipment – something that was once out of reach for home businesses.

Tools like the Cricut Maker (I have this one in pink!) make it fast and easy to make things to sell, whether you ship physical items or not.

Costs for home printers and cutters that were once strictly reserved for large businesses are now more available than ever before. My business uses several pieces pretty much daily – the Cricut Maker, an HP printer and a Canon printer. Depending on what you actually want to make, you may need more specialized equipment (a tshirt shop would benefit greatly from a heat press, for example) or less (if you strictly sell graphics, you just need (free) design software and a spot to work.

What Kind of Printables Can you Sell?

While printables can be sold for a variety of purposes they are generally two different ways to use them to generate income:

• You can print out items to sell

• You can sell files for others to print at home or for a business (this includes POD or Print on Demand)

Making Physical Items to Sell

Typical items to print and sell include planners, stickers, vinyl decals, sublimation printed items and more. Pretty much anything you can personalize and print, cut or make from your own designs and then sell to a customer falls into this category.

If you enjoy selling in person, want to sell on your local Facebook pages or on a site like Etsy, then offering items that you create then ship provides you with a way to do so. Creators who make stickers, planners and even clothing can find rapid growth and an open marketplace -- take a look at just a few of the stickers for sale on Etsy today:

There are over 100,000 results to the query "Handmade Stickers"!

Etsy makes an ideal starting point if you are not sure of what you actually want to make -- look at stickers, planners, tshirts and vinyl designs to see what is listed and what is selling. This kind of market research is essential if you want to find the right niche for your own brand,

Selling physical printables does have a drawback, though -- it is not as easy as selling digital downloads! I love waking up to the distinctive ca-ching of overnight sales (wix, Etsy and other sites have this feature). THese sales are completed without any extra work on my part. If I sell an item that has to be shipped, I have to make it, pack it and ship it; something I may not have time for that day at all.

Creating physical items to sell also has a higher investment to begin, which could be a barrier to entry. You'll need a computer or iPad to create your graphics either way, but if you're selling physical things, you'll need a place to store supplies, too. From blank bags and tshirts to the vinyl use to decorate them, selling physical prints takes up space and costs money up front.

If you end up making items from printables instead of selling the designs themselves. you'll need room for supplies and time to ship!

I opted out of shipping physical items after about 3 months -- and my income actually went up. I know designers with hugely successful shops that absolutely do ship every day, but I am just not able to dedicate the time to that model. I absolutely urge you to consider it as an option, just because it did not suit my needs doesn't mean it won't suit yours!

Option 2: Sell Digital Downloads

This is where my business lives -- the passive selling allows me to focus on my strengths (design and marketing) and not on shipping. When I list a printable kit for a project or junk journal for sale, my involvement with it is pretty much done. Aside from promoting it and helping buyers who need something extra or need assistance downloading, I just watch the sale come in and get fulfilled automatically.

Creating digital printable products for the customer to download means they can come to my site, make a purchase and get that purchase in seconds. A craft that they see and like can be underway in the time it takes to print a few pages or to send a file to the cutter.

For me, selling digital downloads was an easy and profitable choice - once I add an item to the store, I'm free to move onto the next thing I want to create. Whether you sell on Etsy or have your own dedicated shop, you can load the file and then the shop will fulfill orders for you immediately, so customers can literally buy while you sleep.

So you Want to Sell Digital Downloads -- What Can you Sell?

A few ideas to get you started include:

• Scrapbook paper and elements

• Junk journal kits and ephemera

• SVG designs for commercial or personal use

• Graphics and art for other business owners

• Planners, planner pages and themed planner sets

• Home organization sets and bundles

• Labels, name tags, birthday printables

• Invitations, memorial items, greeting cards

• Education items, crafts for kids and adults

• Tshirt designs, mug designs, sublimation designs

• Social media packs with graphics

• Canva templates

The list is pretty much endless!

Homework for today -- poke around Etsy a bit to see what types of printables are offered, both physical products delivered to your door and digital downloads you can access instantly.

You should also think about what preference if any you have for physical items vs passive selling of digital items so you know where to focus your efforts.

Next up, we'll talk about designing printables -- even if you are not an artist!