So you are looking to sell prints but did you know you can also sell printables? Many people outside of the USA haven’t heard of printables as they aren’t as popular in other parts of the world as they are in America.
What are printables?
Printables are digital versions of your print i.e. the original files. You can sell the JPEG, PNG, PDF (+other file types if you wish) of your work. The benefit to selling printables is that you can upload them to a selling portal such as etsy once and then they will sell over and over again creating a potential passive income stream. Generally printables are priced much lower than physical prints because obviously you’re not using any of your time or physical materials to create the print – the person downloading is doing that.
Why is it good to sell printables?
Many people prefer printables to physical prints because of the following reasons :
- They are quicker – they can get the file pretty much instantaneously and get it printed very quickly – perfect for a last minute gift!
- They are cheaper – I’m a little snobby when it comes to printing my artwork so use very nice paper. But not everyone is and some people are happy with a cheap or mid-range alternative which is fine – printables allow them this flexibility and means they get a slightly cheaper product.
- They can be used more than once – if they buy a printable that doesn’t limit the number of uses then they can give it as a gift to a few different people for the cost of the printable.
- Sometimes printables are easier for people that live in countries with a poor or unreliable postal system because it means they can still buy your art without having to worry about if/when they will actually receive it.
How to sell printables
I sell printables on etsy – though I’m sure there are other places you can sell them. Selling printables on etsy involves setting up a normal listing but changing product type to DIGITAL and then adding the files for your digital product at the bottom – I generally upload the JPEG and the PDF versions of the image. You can also zip your files up in a ZIP file and upload those if you are selling a lot of files or they are quite large.
Selling printables – is it worth it?
Yes – it is a passive income stream so definitely worth it. If you are selling prints then you have the files anyway and I think it is great to be able to make money from this extra income stream. If you find selling prints too much of a headache then selling printables may be your answer as it is much easier and cheaper (and can be less of a headache). I don’t however sell printables of my paintings (with a couple of exceptions!) because these would be too easy to steal and replicate (which does happen!). I sell most of my printables from my printable shop and my prints from a seperate shop. This means that my printable shop remains open when I am taking some time off.
Do you have any questions about selling prints or printables? Why not pop a comment down here or like our Facebook page / join the group and ask in there 🙂
You can find the facebook page here :
How To Sell Prints Online Facebook Page
And here is the facebook group :
How To Sell Prints Online Facebook Group
