Make Money with Print on Demand in 2023

What is Print on Demand?

Print on demand. The business model where you create designs, upload them to websites that have a marketplace, who will print and sell them for you on various products like t-shirts, sweaters, posters, stickers, face masks, and many, many more.

I could write endless stories and procedures about this, about how every single website works, how to create the designs, how to promote them, etc.. but for this article I will keep it broad and simple.

The article is based on my own experience.

I am going to tell you how I’ve been making $500 extra per month with Print on Demand (POD). And that number is only going up.

I have been creating designs and uploading them to existing Print on Demand websites since 2017.

Since then I have sold nearly 1500 designs and earned more than $15000 in commission/royalties. The start was slow, very slow. I didn’t earn anything in the first year, but I didn’t give up and kept on creating & uploading designs.

At the time of writing this article, I’m selling for around $550 a month. That’s a nice little extra, wouldn’t you agree?

How does it work?

There are 2 ways to do it:

1. Creating designs & uploading them existing sites, that handle everything for you
2. Creating designs & uploading them a production partner. Link this production partner to various websites like your own webshop or big e-commerce platforms like Etsy, eBay and Amazon. This one requires a bit more work, as you’ll have to do marketing & customer support.

In this post, I’m going to discuss the first method: using existing Print on Demand companies / websites.

The ones I use are:

• Displate
• Redbubble
• TeePublic
• Spreadshirt
• Society6
• Zazzle
• DesignByHumans

Creating a Design

Before we can upload something, we need to have a design.

Many people might be thinking now “oh no! I don’t know how to create a design!” or “But I don’t know how to make art! I am not an artist! I am not a designer!”

DON’T WORRY! You don’t need to be an expert designer to create cool stuff!

You have 2 options:

• Option #1: You work with an existing image that you download.
• Option #2: You work without an image & you completely create the design yourself.

If you’re a designer, please go with option #2. If you’re an amateur like me, go with option #1.

Step 1: Finding images

For this, we need royalty free images. A simple google search shows following sites:

• Unsplash
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• You can also download free vectors from Public Domain Vectors

Search & download images that you like.

There are also a few paid tools that are very nice & easy to use (kittl, canva, creative fabrica), but for this article I'll stay with the above 3 websites.

Step 2: Edit the images

Next step: Start editing these images. I mean, you can’t just sell them like this — add a personal touch to them.

Editing can be done with for example following programs:

• Photoshop
• Shutterstock Editor
• Canva / Canva Pro (for around $100/year you can get Canva Pro, and it’s worth it)
• Photopea (free online version of Photoshop)
• BeFunky (my favorite, also around $100/year)
• Or any other editor that you like.

Note: Every POD website has their own preferred dimensions, you can find them by just Googling or searching on their site.

However, for most of my designs I choose the following dimensions, those work on most products/sites: 2900 x 4060.

Editing option: cool filters

There are various sites or programs which can totally change your photo.

I am for example a fan of cartoonizing a photo, or converting it to a drawing or a water painting. A good tool for this is BeFunky, but this is a paid option. A small investment if you compare it to what you can earn.

Step 3: Uploading the design

After you’ve finished the design, upload it the sites mentioned above.

When uploading, pay close attention to the following:

• Choose a relevant title, add keywords (tags) to the title
• Choose relevant keywords. Think: “what would I type in Google if I’d want to find my design?”

Title: Lion Motivational Quote, Small Changes Make a Difference, Blue Eyes Lion

Note: on the website above (Displate), only a very short title is allowed, so you’ll have to be a bit creative. I should have chosen a better title, like “Lion Quote Small Changes”

Tags: lion, lion king, , black & white lion, lion quote, motivation, motivation quote, motivational quote, mindset, inspiration, inspirational quote, quote, quotes, small changes make a big difference, success quote, mindset quote, entrepreneur quote,…

You get the idea.

If you’re not good at finding tags: PODCS.com is a nice website that could help you.

Step 4: Keep repeating

The above design might not sell. Your previous 20 designs might not sell.

In this business model, the goal is quantity over quality. Of course, when creating a design you need to make sure it’s decent, but don’t spend countless hours on it. On every design I spend a maximum of 20 minutes.

Mostly I create 1 design, spend more time on it, and then make around 10 variations based on that “template” I made.

The goal is to occupy as much “virtual real estate” as you can.

Upload your design to as many possible websites as you can. I’ll make different articles for each website in the future, describing how every website works.

Step 5: Don’t give up

It will take a while. You can’t expect uploading a design today and selling it tomorrow. It took me more than a year to start selling my designs, and look where I’m at now.

Good things take time, don’t give up — neither will I. I’m earning a bit extra via this, but I can’t live from $500 / month. So keep going, keep hustling, and we will get there, together.

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