Digital Products You Could Be Selling On Etsy!
Etsy is a massive marketplace where artists can sell what they love to create. Most of the items sold on Etsy are handmade arts and crafts, but print outs and digital downloads are also available.
Quick Points:
- Etsy sellers fear selling artwork or photography digitally
- Digital or not your work can still be copied
- Let's brainstorm some cool ways to sell digitally!
Today we're going to be discussing different ways to sell digital items (goods) on Etsy for digital download!
A lot of Artists are discouraged when it comes to selling digital downloads on Etsy.
Some fear their artwork could be copied, pasted, and then resold.
Some fear their photography will be hosted all over the web without their consent, and think that if they wanted to do that they might as well just sell it at a stock photography site like istockphoto or shutterstock.
Believe it or not you can take the most precautions in the world, and your artwork can still be copied or imitated.
The fact of the matter is that there is always a way, and that is the struggle of an artist's life (writers included).
In fact many Handmade sellers on Etsy go through this problem every other day, and even their work isn't available for digital download (see it doesn't have to be digital in order to be copied). There are dozens of Etsy horror stories on the matter.
So What Do You Have In Mind?
To decrease the fear of selling your items digitally we'll brainstorm some ideas on the types of digital downloads you could be selling on Etsy.
Instead of selling your pure artwork, and photography digitally you could consider selling other digital goods on Etsy.
Below are a few ideas to inspire, and nurture your thoughts:
Try Photoshop Templates
If you have Photoshop (or gimp), and know how to use it well you can create nice reusable Photoshop templates.
Quick Points:
- You can consider making Photoshop templates
- These can involve websites, flyers, posters and more
- You can provide these in an original .psd file or. JPEG file.
Time Saving Guide
- If you are a bit iffy about your work being copied go straight to the tips section below.
Types of Photoshop Templates you can sell:
Custom Website Template Design
You can pre-make a series of website template designs, and sell them at a limited quantity (maybe one pre-made design per buyer?) to prevent redistribution.
Product Mock ups
You can sell product mock up templates of how something would look like in real life such as:
- Business cards
- Tablets
- Book Mock Ups
- Ebook Tablet Mock ups Etc...
Newsletter Templates
You can design Newsletter templates that websites can use for their newsletters.
Flyer/Poster Template
You can alternatively sell Flyer/Poster templates with beautiful free to use fonts.
To Heighten Sales
To heighten sales of flyer/poster templates you can use an image to display how the flyer or poster would look, but make sure to tell the buyer that the images are not included in the downloadable .psd file so they would have to use their own image (that way you won't be worrying about your photography being posted all over the web or being resold). If you want to provide the buyer with an image you can do so if you want.
Tips if you're Iffy
If you choose to provide a picture:
- Keep the control of edits in your hands
- Make sure to ask the buyer what text they would like it to be changed to since only you can edit it
- Only provide JPEG or PNG files so they cannot easily separate your image from the text
The above is only necessary if you are a bit paranoid about your image being copied. If you are not so on edge about customers reusing your work then you don't have to do this.
Offering Ebook/Book Design Services:
You can offer a custom book cover design service for $200.00, and up. You can choose to use your own photography (at an extra cost) or a mixture of stock photography in your book cover design service.
Alternatively you can require that they provide the image that you would need to edit.
You can also sell pre-made ebook/full jacket covers at around $25.00 and up (I recommend $50.00 though). For full jackets you should charge a little extra.
I recommend only selling one copy of each pre-made book cover as selling multiple copies can ruin your reputation, and credibility as an artist (you wouldn't like to see two authors with the same book cover now would you?).
Tips:
When designing book covers it is best to send the images in a JPEG or PDF file.
Speaking of PDF Files...
- Writing is also art
- You can write PDF tutorials on what you do
You Can Write PDF tutorials!
You can offer step by step tutorials on how to create items that you've made or are good at making or just regular tutorials on stuff. Save it as a PDF file and sell.
Other Cool Mentionables:
PowerPoint Templates
If you know how to design awesome powerpoints then why not sell it at Etsy? Most powerpoint templates that sell the most consist of 5 - 10 slides.
Social Media Icons for blogs, and websites
A lot of people who design websites like to buy custom social media icons to give their websites a more unique look. You can make a profit from this by offering JPEG social media icons at Etsy.
LOGO Designs
