Earn Passive Income and Start a Printables Business ⋆ Publish Low Content Books

Now is a great time to start a printables business! You’d be surprised at how lucrative it is – not to mention it being a fantastic creative outlet and one of the best ways to earn passive income online.

And if you happen to already have a blog, email list, social media following, or online business, printables can be a fun side hustle or a way for you to start producing your own products to put up for sale.

So let’s talk about it!

What Are Printables, Anyway?

Printables are digital documents that people need to print off in order to use.

They’re not just planners, either. They’re all KINDS of planners and paper goods.

Printables can be anything that you print out and use like daily, weekly, and yearly personal planners, resume templates, stickers, coloring pages, activity pages for kids and adults, worksheets, puzzles and games, checklists, calendars, invitations, wall art, and more.

Even Ebooks are printables!

Printable products are typically packaged up and delivered in three formats:

Other Names Printables Go By

Printables are also called “instant downloads,” “downloadables,” and “digital downloads.”

They all mean the same thing and describe a product that can be downloaded and printed.

AND products like these are nice because they give buyers INSTANT gratification!

How to Make Printables

Printables are incredibly easy to make with the right tools.

The first and most important thing you’ll need is a design program. This is how you’ll create a new blank document to work with.

As you probably know, I love making low content books in PowerPoint so it’s a no-brainer to make printables in PowerPoint!

While this is the EASIEST and FASTEST way to do it, it’s not the only way.

You can create a printable product in any document editing program like Word or Excel. These are definitely clunkier, in my opinion, and the results aren’t as good, but it’s an option.

Of course, you can also use PicMonkey {one of my FAVORITE design tools!} or Canva, but I personally don’t.

And there’s always PhotoShop, InDesign, and the affordable favorite for many…Affinity Publisher.

But I’m telling you…PowerPoint is the easiest one to use for printables.

Once you know what program you want to use, you’ll simply create a new document and design your printable using text, lines, shapes, forms, fonts, and clipart!

If you need some inspiration, I create interiors for my KDP books – you can follow along and learn how to make printables.

In this post, there’s a video where I show how you can use digital scrapbook papers as backgrounds for interiors and printables.

Where to Sell Printables Online

If you’re going to be selling printables online, you’ll need to decide where you want to sell them.

If you don’t have a blog, that’s ok!

You can sell printables on Etsy. It’s free to get started. You’ll just need an email address to use to open up your shop.

If you want more control over your shop, you can start a Shopify printables store but keep in mind you’ll need to pay for Shopify every month.

You could also sell printables online with your own blog, which might be best if you’re already blogging. But this could be challenging if you need to learn how to blog first.

So You’ve Decided to Sell Printables on Etsy

Can you make money selling printables on Etsy? You bet!

My personal experience has been pretty good. I’ve chosen to sell printables online as a supplement to my publishing business, so I don’t focus on this full-time.

However, I see a nice PASSIVE side income – one I intend to grow into full-time income eventually because I’m a firm believer in having multiple streams of income.

And you can make printables to sell on Etsy and see quick results.

I’ve had new listings sell in less than 24 hours.

It’s not typical, but it has happened for me more than once.

How to Create Printables to Sell on Etsy {or Shopify…or Your Blog…}

A good way to start is by taking a look at the best-selling printables Etsy delivers in their search results.

When I do a search for “printable wall art” on Etsy, you can see which items are “Bestsellers” right in those search results.

This is a really simple method of niche research.

What’s a niche? In short, it’s the type of printable you create or a printable focused on a specific topic or theme.

You’ll want to choose a niche with lots of profit potential.

Are products in the niche selling? We can find out by taking a look at the best-selling printables on Etsy.

Are they in people’s carts? {Etsy tells us this, too!}

Then that’s a good place to start.

But just because you’re doing your niche research on Etsy doesn’t mean you HAVE to start selling there.

You can just as easily set up a shop with Shopify or Gumroad or an ecommerce plugin.

There are pros and cons for each platform.

With an Etsy shop, it’s free to start a printables business, you can take advantage of the marketing they do and the traffic their platform gets, similar to how we do this with Amazon.

But you’re limited because it’s harder to build a list of your buyers and you’re relying on 3rd party that has a say in your business.

With other platforms, like Shopify or your own blog, you have more control but you’re also more responsible for getting traffic and marketing your products and you will STILL have fees to pay to keep your biz up and running.

Which path you take is ultimately up to you. You can always course correct as you go.

Start Your Printable Side Hustle

Good side hustles make money. Otherwise, they’re just expensive hobbies.

So here’s what you need to do to start a printables business step-by-step:

Decide where you’ll sell your printables and what kind of printables you want to make
Create a printable
Set up your shop {again, Etsy is probably the easiest but Shopify is GREAT if you want more control}
List your printable for sale
Spread the word and get traffic to your product – Facebook, Pinterest, ads, email list

Get a jump start on your printable side hustle when you use commercial use planners, journals, and templates like these!

Just download, customize, package up, and list for sale!