How to make money from digital products

Passive income is money being earned regularly that requires little effort to maintain. For artists, this can mean generating regular income from the artwork they have created.

There are various ways digital artists can make money online from creating pdfs for downloading on sites like Etsy, these can be logos, magazines, colouring pages etc. The good thing about this is you can choose the price of your product and are entitled to the full amount, but as Etsy is in the USA you get charged a fee and VAT too, which can put people off. This is my site on Etsy, I sell physical products and digital downloads. I have constant sales on Easy and it is where most of my income comes from.

You can also upload your designs to sites like Zazzle and RedBubble where your designs can be transferred onto homeward, clothing and canvasses, these are called print on demand, these sites are easy to use, your designs are transferable to many different types of products so its not too time consuming to upload them and you can set the % you want in royalties. The upside of these sites is that they create, manufacture and deliver the products, you don't have to do any of this, the downside is you only get a little amount per sale. These are my sites, RedBubble and Zazzle. I get a constant trickle of sales of both sites, which is ok compared to the amount of time spent on uploading my designs.
Other print on demand sites are: Society6, Casetify, Art Crate, Treadless, Drawback, Design by Humans, Fine Art America, Saatchiand more.



You can also have your designs printed on fabric, wallpaper, homewares, invitations, greetings cards etc you be licensed by big companies who can either buy your designs outright or pay you royalties.

It is better to have multiple income streams and there is great resources online to help artists with this. Blogger and artist Lisa Glanz has a wonderful blog post covering

• What should I be selling?
• How do I know if it will sell?
• Can I make a living from it?
• There’s nothing passive about passive income
• How much should I charge?
• Where should I sell?
• Then there’s the ugly stuff
• So why bother?

There are various other sites that I have not explored for selling digital work and art online too:

Designcuts.com

Creativemarket.com

seditionist.com

spoonflower.com

Some great advice from CatCoq 

• Observe what type of artwork sells well for you across the Big Three:

• Art prints (highest royalty rate)

• Phone cases (lower royalty rate, but sell in large quantities)

• Apparel (another low royalty rate made up for with large quantities of purchases)

Know your target market too, this will help with what type of images you make, if you are making to sell specifically. 

Creating Beautifully is also a brilliant site where she shares this brilliant list of over 30 places to see your art online. Check out her website for loads more valuable information.

30+ Places for Artists to Make Passive Income Online.

1. Artist Rising – (Unfortinately they’ve gone out of business.) From the people behind Art.com.
2. Artfully Walls – A beautiful art marketplace that is curated, so you have to apply and hope to be accepted as one of their artists.
3. ArtistBe – You can sell original artwork and/or be a part of their print-on-demand program and earn 14% on all sales.
4. ArtMuse – ArtMuse is also curated, so you have to apply to join.
5. Art Of Where – Art of Where is a print-on-demand site that prints not only on paper or canvas, but also on a variety of clothes and can be integrated with your Shopify shop.
6. ArtPal – You can sell originals as on ArtPal, and/or use their Print-On-Demand services.
7. ArtsAdd – This is a fun print-on-demand site with tons of products you can print on (like shoes, watches, umbrellas, clothes, bags, and tones more!)
8. ArtSpan – ArtSpan offers a full ecommerce site for contemporary artists so you can have a shop on your own website, and still participate in the print-on-demands services, if you want to.
9. ArtWanted – Another site where you can sell originals and use their print-on-demand services.
10. BeSpo – A U.K. site that prints on products ranging from coasters, mugs, tea towels, temporary tattoos, prints, and much more.
11. CafePress – This can be used much like Society6 or RedBubble – as a simple print-on-demand site with over 450 products for your designs to appear on – or you can create your own shop with them, as well.
12. Curioos – If you don’t want your art on a ton of different products, Curioos is a great alternative. They print strictly high quality wall art.
13. DENYdesigns – A cool and modern, curated print-on-demand site.
14. Displate – This POD site prints your art onto metal posters.
15. NEW! Etsy – You can now sell art passively on this popular website by integrating your shop with Printful. (See my full article about this here.) 
16. FotoMoto – This site offers a cool (and easy!) way for you to sell a variety of different types of prints, as well as calendars, cards, digital downloads, and more, right from your own website. They ship all orders for you.
17. Gooten – They print and deliver over 100 products from your Shopify shop automatically, or Etsy shop manually.
18. GotArtwork – You can sell originals or print-on-demand prints here.
19. ImageKind – Offer print-on-demand museum quality prints and framing.
20. Inkster – If you create comic books art, cartoon art, gaming art, and other fan art, Inkster offers a way to sell your designs on t-shirts.
21. NEW! InPrint – This site is actually curated by other artists: they either send you an invite or you can apply and they vote whether or not to let you sell there.
22. InterestPrint – Offers print-on-demand and drop-shipping of a wide variety of products.
23. Kite.ly – With Kite you can sell directly from your Shopify store and they will print and ship for you. 
24. Mobile Prints – Offers a way to sell your Instagram photos.
25. MySoti – Prints on clothes, canvas, home decor and more, and ships items directly to your customers.
26. PrintAura – One of my favorite POD sites that can be linked to Shopify store to automatically print and ship items ordered (posters, apparel, phone cases and more) from your shop. 
27. PRINTFUL – You can integrate Printful with your Shopify store, and they print and ship items (prints, clothes, pillows, etc.) for you with your branding.
28. Prints On Wood – Just what it says: print your art on wood!
29. RedBubble – Well, I’ve already had a lot to say about RedBubble (I like them. I really like them!) But I still thought I’d include them in this list! Here is my shop, and the Libby Dash shop.
30. Skreened – Have your art printed on high-quality t-shirts.
31. Society6 – Another print on demand site I’ve talked a lot about, and really like. Here is my S6 shop.
32. Spoonflower – Prints your art and surface designs on fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap.
33. Spreadshirt – Print-on-demand prints on all kinds of shirts, bags, underwear, baby clothes, buttons, pants and much more.
34. StyleArt – A curated print-on-demand site that offers fresh, modern and even quirky art on clothes, phone cases, home decor, and more.
35. TeeSpring – A print-on-demand t-shirt site.
36. ThreadMeUp – A clothing and phone case print-on-demand where you can sell in their marketplace, and/or with your own website and Shopify store or Woocommerce.
37. Vida – Vida creates high-quality women’s fashion with your art.