Easy ways to earn some pocket money with your artwork

I discovered Redbubble during my pursuit to find Brooklyn Nine-Nine merch, and that's when I realized it's actually an easy way to earn some extra cash.  After trying it out by selling "#EndTheStigma" stickers and making quite some sales with that, boy oh boy, I am slightly obsessed with selling my designs online and have actually made a decent amount of money.  You can even sell your projects from this class if you want to! (We're all college students who are in great need of cash, I know.)

Besides Redbubble, there are also a few other platforms where you can sell your art and designs without ever having to create any physical material.  I've included the ones I personally use below, along with helpful links on how to sell them and the pricing policies.
*None of these platforms collect money when you upload your artwork; they only make money when we make money (they take a portion of the profit).  The links below will thoroughly explain this if you have any concerns.
*None of the platforms I included below have an exclusive policy, which basically means that you are allowed to sell the artwork on other platforms.  Still, I encourage everyone to read through the agreements of each site so that you know what you are agreeing to when you upload an artwork.


Pros:
  • Has a wide variety of products that you can put your artwork/design on, including stickers, art prints, mugs, clothes, phone cases, notebooks, laptop skins, bags, and so much more!
  • Good for fan art, typography, funny/sarcastic things, and illustration
  • Redbubble handles all the printing and producing of the products, so all you need to do is upload your art/design, adjust the prices, title your work, and add some tags to help people find your artwork. Voila, that's all you need to do.
Cons:
  • Redbubble does sales and discounts almost every week, so what you make on your art might not be as high as you think. But still--you're making money nontheless.
  • You have no control of the marketing techniques besides sharing the link of your product



Society6 is basically the higher-priced version of Redbubble, and they offer a wider range of products.  A bunch of artists, myself included, sell the same artwork and designs on both platforms.  It seems like their target audiences are slightly older than Redbubble's, and they also offer more home products.  Because of this, there are a lot of illustrations, patterns, and photography work sold on Society6, which contrasts with Redbubble's fan art and typography-based works.  Another key difference between Society6 and Redbubble is that Society6 rarely does sales, which is something you might take into consideration.




Teespring, as its name indicates, started as a company that prints designs onto tees for people.  But in recent years, they've increased their services to printing on mugs, phone cases, posters, tote bags, pillows, and more!  You can opt-in to some of Teespring's sales-driving tools, but it may cost some money to use those services.  They have less variety of products that can be printed on, compared to Redbubble and Society6, and the quality of their clothing prints also aren't as good as the ones from Redbubble or Society6.  But Teespring has a lower base price, which lowers the pricing of the product over all, so Teespring does attract a certain population of customers.  (Also, if you already have the design/artwork, what's the harm in selling them on yet another platform?)





How to sell digital downloads on Etsy

Etsy is slightly trickier than all the platfroms I've mentioned above because...if you want to sell a physical item, you gotta produce them yourself!  BUT, do not fret, my friends.  Etsy is well-known for the one-of-a-kind handcrafted goods, but a lesser known product that can be sold on Etsy is "digital downloads"!  

You can actually upload your file and sell your file; the customer will receive a special link that allows them to download the artwork, and they can print out the art, use it as their laptop background, or whatever way they'd like to use the art.  The thing to keep in mind is that, with this kind of transaction where the customer receives a file of your work, there is always a risk that you can't control where the file will be used or how it will be used.

With Etsy, you also have the freedom to carry out discounts and sales events, which is something you can't do with many of the other platforms mentioned above.

Things you can sell in the digital download section:
  • Posters & typography work
  • Photography
  • Patterns
  • Templates (planners, notebooks, financial trackers, mood trackers, etc.)
  • And everything that's a digital file!

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If you want to know more about other platforms that you can also sell your artwork on, you can check out this article: 10 Best Print on Demand Sites Like Redbubble.

With love,
Emily

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