Hi, this is Anne for Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to talk about one of my
favorite topics, which is how to make passive income with graphic
design.
First, I want to talk a little bit about the difference between passive and active income.
So passive, from my experience, you have a ton of work
at the beginning with little or no income to show for it.
You have really slow sales starting out, but as you keep adding to those passive streams,
the income starts picking up and then, as you go, you have a steady stream of income
and you might not be working quite as much as you did at the beginning.
And it feels a lot easier because you're used to it.
A problem you might notice is you might never actually make passive income.
It's sort of risky.
So you think, 'Oh, I'll write an ebook' and nobody ever buys it.
That's a possibility.
You have to make sure your stuff is marketable.
That's one of the drawbacks and a risk you will be taking if you decide to try passive
income.
But the great thing about passive income, it compounds over time.
So that means, let's say you start out with one ebook, and you make $5 a month on it.
Then next month, you put on another ebook.
So now you have a $5 income that you're making already in a month, plus the added income
from that next ebook.
So that means you got their five plus whatever you make on the next one.
So let's say it's another five.
So now you've got 10.
If you add another ebook, you have the 10 you're making per month on those two ebooks
plus whatever you are going to be making.
And over time, it just compounds and compounds.
The more you market it, and the better you get at creating the passive products, the
more money you'll make, of course.
So my main advice is don't give up.
Passive income means you're making money while you sleep.
Although you put in a ton of work at first, you will continue to see sales from that over
the years.
I will say that passive income does require maintenance.
You have to keep adding, and you have to keep working on it.
You can't just let it sit because things change, and people change their habits.
Competition may get stronger.
All these things contribute to possibly less income as time goes on.
So you have to always keep upping your game, but it's still worth it.
Ok, now let's talk about active income.
Active income is when you go to your job, you work for 40 hours a week, and then you
get paid.
You don't ever make more money on that time that you work, it's one and done.
The nice thing about active income is you get paid right away.
You don't have to wait for years to get pay on something you did.
This type of income is more stable and solid.
There's not a lot of risk involved.
So you have an agreement with your employer that, ok, I did this much work, pay me for
this much work, and that's it.
Compared to the passive side of things where it's like, well, I hope this will make me
money someday.
You're basically guaranteed to get the money that you just worked for two weeks ago.
Ok, now I want to tell you the five ways that you can make money passively as a graphic
designer.
Number one, and this is my favorite one because I'm having relative success with this right
now, is selling stock photos and stock vectors.
There are tons of stock sites out there and if you can create vectors with Illustrator
or take a ton of awesome pictures with your camera, you can sell those to Shutterstock,
Fotolia, Istock, Bigstock, 123RF, Dreamstime, Deposit Photos, Canstock, Alamy, and the list
goes on.
Those are the big ones.
Now here's the hard part.
You don't get paid very much when someone buys your stock photo for the most part.
You can, but usually you'll get about 25 cents to 35 cents per stock photo download.
And at first that was a little hard for me to swallow, but after time you sell so many
of a certain photo that it ends up being worth your time.
So that's what I'm talking about when I say it starts really slow, but over time, you
can make pretty good money.
Number two: Create full designs and sell your art on products.
The sites I'm thinking of for this are Pixeden, Zazzle, Redbubble.
I'm a member of Redbubble, and while I haven't made a ton of money, it's a nice little amount
of pocket change.
The images that I have out there will continue to sell over time.
Again on those, your cut is not going to be very high.
So if someone buys a $25 t-shirt, you'll probably get about $3.
And the reason for that is, you don't have to deal with printing a t-shirt, shipping
it, dealing with a customer.
It's all done for you.
So all you have to do is create the artwork and then sell it and resell it several times.
There's no limit to how many times you can sell your artwork.
Number three: Get an Etsy shop.
I'm having pretty good success with my Etsy right now.
I do digital downloads, so it actually is passive.
You can go the active route with Etsy where you create a physical product and ship it
to someone, but I'd rather do passive, so I do only digital downloads through Etsy.
One thing about Etsy if you do physical products, you have to worry about restrictions.
They will only allow handmade items and vintage items.
So if you're getting something mass produced, Etsy is not for you.
Number four: Sell stuff on your own website.
I haven't started this one personally, but I plan to start up my own website, maybe have
some products for sale on there eventually.
Some ideas for you... you could do hand-lettered quotes.
Those also sell great on Etsy.
You could do web templates, email templates, and graphic packs and bundles.
And this is just to name a few.
So if you have other ideas, maybe I'm not thinking of, go ahead and stick them on your
own website, and then promote the heck out of it on social media.
Okay, number five: Ebooks.
If you really know some part of graphic design so well, maybe you know how to use Illustrator
better than anyone else, you can create an ebook about how to use Illustrator and teach
other people what you know that they probably don't.
I actually don't know of a place to sell ebooks online unless it's Amazon.
But you could always stick that up on your own website and sell it on there.
Just remember to promote it.
So those are my five tips for passive income for graphic designers.
And I hope you got something out of this, and will make a move towards your own passive
design business.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave this in the comment section below.
And if you liked this video, click 'Like'.
If you want to see more videos like this, I plan on doing a little more leaning towards
stock photography and passive income in the future.
So please subscribe if that's the case.
All right.
Thanks, guys!!!