How To Make Money As A Digital Artist
As an artist and entrepreneur I wanted find a way I could be making money with digital art and digital products; earning a passive income from my art. I researched ways I could make money from my existing artworks without having to make and sell original works each and every single time.
The problem was there were a lot of guides on earning a passive income with Digital Products but not a single one was geared towards artists or digital artists.
With that in mind, I not only studied how other successful artists were earning a passive income selling digital art products online but compiled a one stop guide to 14 digital products for you, the artist to make and sell online.
This guide now also includes a quick NFT Art run down for those wondering how they can cash in on the NFT Art craze. If you can't wait to read further down, take a look at this article What is NFT Crypto Art and how do I 'fungibly' create it?
Unlike all the other guides out there, I won't be glossing over the contents so remember to take a read of Before You Start as it will detail:
- What tools or apps you will need to create a digital products
- How take an order for a digital product
- How take a payment for a digital product
- How to deliver the digital product after you have received a payment
Making money with digital art online is much easier with these 14 digital products.
Each one is fairly easy to make and for each one I have also documented how to sell, take a payment and ship:
1. Art Printables – color at home prints |
2. Print-at-home Prints of your popular art works |
3. Upload copies of your art via 3rd Party Print On Demand (POD) marketplaces e.g. Redbubble |
4. How-To eBook – especially if you work in a non-typical style or have a unique skill to share |
5. High Resolution Photos of Your Artworks – e.g. Stock photos |
6. Tattoo Designs – downloadable files |
7. YouTube channel – Create Videos detailing your process, provide Tutorials |
8. Kindle Books – publishing a book on Amazon's Kindle platform |
9. Exclusive Access to an 'Insiders Club' – only for paying fans (Patreon etc) |
10. Masterclasses/Courses – usually video access to help other artists or students |
11. Digital Art (Digital Resources) |
12. Fonts |
13. Stickers |
14. Gift Cards |
So what are Digital Products?
Digital products are any product that you can produce electronically and sell a copy of it, over and over without actually having to make a physical version of it.
Think eBooks, online courses, guides, downloadable files etc.
Digital products are the easiest way to making money with digital art online.
Selling digital art online is usually the cornerstone to earning a passive income online, outside of print on demand services and direct marketing which does not usually apply to art based products.
I will also included digital versions of artworks such as digital prints that you have created such as scanned files or even digitally created artworks that can be printed off by a customer after they receive a digital file after making payment.
Can I make digital products?
Digital products are quite popular in the education space and also with marketers selling their knowledge and making a great income from it.
As artists we tend to think that people only want to buy our original works but that simply is not true.
We have a deep body of knowledge that many new artists and art lovers would love to know but don't know who or how to ask.
We can sell in depth guides on how to perform a specific task or art hack. We can also sell digital art and digital copies of our artworks.
Digital Products are great for passive income
When we don't sell digital copies of our artworks in different formats ready to be printed or we don't write guides on how to produce artworks or we don't think beyond selling original artworks then we are leaving a lot of money on the table.
I don't know about you but I don't subscribe to the romantic idea of the starving artist so I am hoping to be making money with digital art and original art plus for as long as I can – that's where digital products can help.
Digital products for artists are quite easy to make, sell and deliver. They just require some up-font work.
When you utilize the services of 3rd party suppliers to create and ship your physical products, all you need to do is ensure you have everything set up and ready to go which satisfies my criteria for the "make money while you sleep" i.e. Passive income.
But I don't know how to make or sell Digital Products!
In this guide, I will walk you through each step providing for each digital product idea, an explanation of:
- What each Digital Product to sell online is
- How to create the digital products to sell online
- How to deliver the digital product to your art buying customers
- How much to charge (rough guide)
- plus more
Don't be afraid to try at least one product idea and then add another as you get more comfortable. Some people do quite well focusing on just a few digital products.
The great thing about making money with digital art products online, is that these are mostly set and forget type products. You will only need to create them once and just manage the sale, not the production.
Before you start…
Before you start developing your art digital products, there are a few important things you need to know that will apply to all your digital products
- What tools or app do I need to create a digital products?
- How do I take an order for a digital product?
- How do I take a payment for a digital product I just sold?
- How do I deliver the digital product after I have received a payment?
What tools or app do I need to create art digital products?
When I first started making digital products I was overthinking the process. I had assumed people were selling highly polished products overseen by highly paid marketing and design people.
Then I bought a few successful digital products and my eyes widened. So let's not overthink the tools and look what most of us can use for free online:
- Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides – These are like Google's free version of Office.
- 90% of your content for digital products can be produced using these free tools.
- All you need is a Gmail account and that is 'free' as well. Sure it says its for personal use only but I won't tell if you don't.
- The great thing about these tools is that they store the files in the cloud and save as you go, so your chances of losing work is greatly minimised.
- Canva is the next free tool I recommend. I use it all the time for my own digital products as well as for my post's graphics.
- Most of the templates and designs are free and $1 at the most.
- You can even import your own photos and designs and then pretty them up for distribution.
- Office suite for Windows or Mac – some computers come bundled with Office or you may have a license for it.
- If you don't have it, go for Google's version or Open Office
- GIMP for any photo editing. If you have a license for Photoshop or Illustrator use these.
- I use GIMP to edit and retouch photos. Lately I have been using Procreate more and more.
- Procreate – if you happen to own an iPad with an Apple pencil then this digital drawing app is a MUST HAVE app.
- Perfect for any artist whether you are using it to produce digital products or otherwise.
- It's not even that expensive and you will recoup your investment quite quickly.
- Scanning apps on your phone or a scanner.
- There are plenty of free apps for Apple and Android devices to scan from photos (even directly from a digital photo).
- Personally I use an old Multi Function Center printer (MFC) that I bought for $50 at a garage sale.
- I hardly use it for printing as the ink is too expensive and dries out when not used regularly.
- They also tend to not print when even all ink cartridges are full except one!
- MFC's are simple inkjet printers that also have an A4 sized paper scanner built in (A4 size measures 21.0 x 29.7cm or 8.27 x 11.69inches).
- MFC scanners provide the best quality scanned image.
- These are limited to small images so when you need to scan a large piece of artwork, you may be better off taking a good quality photo or scanning the image in sections and then stitching the images together using software such as Gimp.
Outsource if that helps – and it will!
Many of you may be artists but you should consider outsourcing some of the work required to create a digital product.
This will save you hours upon hours especially when it comes to design work or illustrations, not to mention having your digital products look more professional
While I consider myself a pretty good artist, I do fall short in some areas such as tattoo design and more refined illustration work, especially digital illustration.
An illustration is used to bring ideas, products, and services to life.
That's when you should consider outsourcing some work to freelancers, these can be found on Freelancer or Fiverr but for the more professional service have a look at Toptal.com.
Digital illustration is in high demand nowadays!
So if you are actually a great digital illustrator you can also make money online by offering up your own services on Toptal.com!
That's it! I like to keep it simple. Don't worry if you can't use these tools right away, there are lots of great videos on YouTube or just outsource the development. You can even hire writers on iWriter to write your eBook!
Watch a few videos and learn. It's what I did. Also, you will probably suck the first few times you try to make a digital product, don't give up and please persist.
You would be surprised what people will pay for.
How do I take an order for a digital product?
Like the tools we use we sometimes overthink how we will take an order for a product. We start to think that we need a full-blown eCommerce solution that can handle thousands of transactions daily.
The reality is, I did quite well taking orders from customers using plain old email and DM's (Direct Messages) in Social Media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
- Email and Direct Messages – as stated, this is the simplest way to take an order.
- Set up a business Gmail account, tell customers to send their order via email and you can process their payments using one of the methods below.
- Shopify, Squarespace or SamCart– these are websites dedicated to online sellers. Personally I think they are too expensive:
- Shopify starts at $29/month for a basic store
- SquareSpace is about $25/month for business site
- SamCart starts at around $49/month
- Personally, for what they offer I would skip all three. They do integrate well with Instagram but so do other cheaper options (see WooCommerce below). They have a free trial so give them a go if you wish to try them.
- eBay – did you know eBay actually lets you sell digital products?
- You can sell them as long as you are the copyright owner and declare that you are when you list the products for sale.
- eBay can also manage the payment and order delivery for you (its digital afterall!) – Be sure to read eBay's Digital Downloads Policy first
- Etsy – Etsy is the online marketplace for artists, artisans and crafty people but it also allows sellers to sell digital products, as long as they are art related.
- So you can sell designs, prints, tattoo designs, photos, digital art (when you get awesome at Procreate)
- Etsy calls them Digital Downloads and if you want to go down this path there is an awesome post by The Work At Home Wife.
- WooCommerce – if you run a WordPress website then you can add the eCommerce extension to your website.
- It will take your normal website and turn it into a power commerce solution that can take orders, process payments and deliver your digital products.
- It also integrates well with your social media accounts and you can sell directly from Instagram.
How do I take a payment for a digital product?
The main thing you need to be able to do when making money with digital art is to actually be able to take the money you just made.
To do this you can use a variety of methods to process a payment and it depends on how you made the sale in the first place.
When you sell your digital products using Redbubble, eBay or Etsy you will see that these platforms already have a payment processing gateway built in and they will process all credit card payments for you.
They tend to either use a third party payment company such as Paypal to take the payment and store your funds for you or they do it directly.
Either way, you will need to have a bank account to allow them to transfer money to you.
Never leave your actual money inside these platforms. While they are safe they tend to have rules that could lock you out of your money if you fall foul of their policies.
Therefore, once you make $100 or more, transfer it to your account where it is safe.
Keep in mind that they may take a percentage of your earnings as a fee. Each one is different so you will need to do your research when deciding who to go with.
If you are using Shopify, Squarespace or Woocommerce then each will also allow you to link a payment gateway to allow you to take secure transactions using credit cards.
Here is a list of the payment gateways for the most common eCommerce platforms, you will find all of them take the usual types of payments from companies such as Stripe, Square, Paypal etc
- WooCommerce Payment Gateways (via a WordPress plugin)
- Squarespace Payment Gateways
- Shopify Payment Gateways
- Etsy credit card payments
- eBay payments with credit or debit cards
- SamCart multiple payment options
Additionally, eBay will also allow bank transfers.
None usually take a check so if you want to accept checks then you will need to provide an address for your customers to send you a check and then only send your goods sold once the check clears.
99% of buyers who buy digital art or digital downloads already use a credit card and are aware of how to make a payment online.
How do I deliver/ship the digital product after I have received a payment?
When you sell a physical product you need to ship the actual item you sold.
The great thing about digital art and digital download products is that with the right software you can take money and ship the item electronically the moment the sale is made.
Whenever you sell an art digital download product that actually becomes a physical product, such as when items sold on a print on demand service like Redbubble.
These are usually shipped to the customer directly by the company and all you need to worry about is collecting the cash from them.
Here are how digital downloads are handled by each of the platforms I have mentioned for you. I suggest you start with one and then try one more before expanding further:
- WooCommerce Digital/Downloadable Product Handling Information
- Shopify Digital Downloads Information
- SquareSpace – Digital Products Information
- Additionally here's a great article by SarahMoon.net covering all the nuance of Digital Products on SquareSpace
- How to Sell Digital Downloads on Etsy
- How to Sell Digital Downloads on eBay
- Make sure you read eBay's policy on Electronically Delivered Products first
- SamCart Instant Digital Delivery
Hopefully you should have an idea how to:
- take an order for a digital product
- take a payment for a digital product
- then deliver the digital product automatically
Now for the fun stuff!
You are nearly ready to start making money with digital art. All you need now is to learn how to actually make the digital products you wish to sell online.
Digital Product 1. Art Printables – color at home prints
What Is Digital Product 1. Art Printables – color at home prints?
This is probably the simplest digital product you can sell. If you have a social media account such as Instagram or Facebook you will see which one of your artworks is more popular than the others.
What you can then do is sell digital downloads of your art that can then be downloaded and colored in at home.
This is great for artists selling fan art (but be careful not to fall foul of the law, read here if you wish to learn more).
Artists working in the fan art domain can do quite well selling black and white outlines of their works that can then be purchased by fans and colored in at home.
Coloring in for adults is now a very popular past time, have a look at this site to get an idea of what you can do.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
You can either scan existing artworks and then convert them to grayscale using Gimp or you can create a fresh outlined drawing and then scan them. Alternatively, if you are now a master at Procreate on the iPad then you can create your digital art electronically.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Depending on which eCommerce solution you have selected, ensure that the file size you are making available to download does not exceed 1mb as it can make it too slow to download.
Not everyone has super fast broadband so think of those customers. Ensure you label your digital file with your website name and name of artwork eg. wastedtalentinccom.pontiacgoat.jpg so that you and your buyers know where the image came from.
Also add a copyright declaration to your listing if you own the copyright to the image.
How Much Should I Charge for This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Digital downloads of images are usually aimed at customers who do not have much to spend. If they had money to spend they would be buying your original works.
That said, listing a print at home color at home work as a pack of 10 for $10 or $1 per image is not uncommon.
You may be wondering if it is worth selling a digital copy for $1, all you need to think is that if you sold 1000 copies, thats $1000 for uploading an image once. And these will go on to sell forever.
At $1 a copy, you will sell more downloads.
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Digital Product 2. Print-at-home. Selling Digital Prints of your popular art works
What Is Digital Product 2. Print-at-home. Selling Digital Prints of your popular art works?
Have a look at the comments fans have left you in your social media accounts and for the top 5 items, see if any ask you "do you sell prints of these?"
I bet they are asking and you have not been replying.
I did this and sold a lot of car prints when I was selling digital copies of my Muscle Cars series of drawings.
For each one I added a small watermark and I did not bother too much with trying to restrict copying as the time and effort exceeded the money saved.
If you do not wish to physically print copies of your works, you can create a nice watermarked scan in high resolution (though not too big to make downloading it too slow) and you can sell a digital copy of it for your customers to take to Staples to print or print at home.
I would list the image in a mocked up picture frame and add the disclaimer that they item being sold is a digital image to be printed at home and the framing is to show what it can look like framed.
Set all the ground rules in your listing!
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
These are produced the same was as the print and color at home prints.
You can either scan existing artworks and then convert them to grayscale using Gimp or you can create a fresh outlined drawing and then scan them. Alternatively, if you are now a master at Procreate on the iPad then you can create your digital art electronically.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Depending on which eCommerce solution you have selected, ensure that the file size you are making available to download does not exceed 1mb as it can make it too slow to download.
Not everyone has super fast broadband so think of those customers. Ensure you label your digital file with your website name and name of artwork eg. wastedtalentinccom.pontiacgoat.jpg so that you and your buyers know where the image came from.
Also add a copyright declaration to your listing if you own the copyright to the image.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product ? (Estimated range)
These tend to have a more dedicated buyer and someone who views the print at home print more like an artwork they are willing to get framed and hang on the wall.
They will be willing to spend and extra $10 and up to get it framed or printed professionally.
For these prints I used to sell for $5 a copy of each digital download. Depending on your following you can charge more.
List the items for a few months, gauge what the market is doing. If they are not selling then try lowering the price or marketing the product more.
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Digital Product 3. Upload copies of your art via 3rd Party Print On Demand marketplaces e.g. Redbubble
What Is Digital Product 3. Upload copies of your art via 3rd Party Print On Demand marketplaces?
You may want to read an existing article where I cover some of the Online Print-On-Demand Services Who Make Art Prints (its about half way down the page).
I have also linked to my own Redbubble page so you can see that I have my art available to be sold on a variety of products. Each image is available to be sold as prints, cards, t-shirts, mugs, framed art etc
My biggest seller is a Maradona Napoli iPhone case which took me 15 min to make using Gimp. Those 15 minutes have made me hundreds of dollars in passive income.
I tend to use these services more these days as I am time poor and with POD (Print on demand) services I can set and forget.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
These are produced the same was as the print and color at home prints and digital print at home prints.
You can either scan existing artworks and then convert them to grayscale using Gimp or you can create a fresh outlined drawing and then scan them. Alternatively, if you are now a master at Procreate on the iPad then you can create your digital art electronically.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
The great thing about a POD (Print on Demand) service is that you do not need to do anything except list the item on their site.
They will produce the artwork the buyer has selected and they will process the payment and ship the item to your customers directly.
You will not even need to do any customer support. Any issues with quality is managed by the company and not you.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
These services usually have a fixed price or a general price range for the products they sell. What varies is the percentage of commission you will earn for each item sold.
With redbubble you can select to earn 20% or more commission for the final price the item is sold.
So lets say they sell a T-Shirt with your artwork printed. They will charge let's say $25 for the t-shirt.
You selected to make 20% commission for each shirt so now the final price for sale when listed is $30. So for every $30 t-shirt sold, you make $5 in pure profit.
They usually pay you at the end of the month or until you have earned a minimum of $20.
Redbubble even offers to manage taxes for you!
Now you may want to get greedy and charge 50% commission, but be wary that you have competition for the same T-shirts but with a different design. So customers may shop around for the cheaper shirt unless you have a cult following.
I have had items listed on Redbubble for years and yes I am a huge fan as it has been a good source of passive income since 2008.
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Digital Product 4. How-To eBook
What Is Digital Product 4. How-To eBook ?
eBooks are probably the original digital download product ever sold on the internet. I used to think these did not sell well but after 10 years of seeing various online marketers and artists selling guides and detailed instructions I have to say I have been proven wrong.
An eBook is basically a detailed guide on how to do anything specific. The more specific and hard to find the information the more likely you will sell copies of the eBook.
eBooks tend to be well written and planned and focus on a specific topic or on how to solve a specific pain point or problem.
As an example, if I wanted to I could have written an eBook on each one of these topics and made some good money.
But I decided to make this one giant post instead.
How long does an eBook need to be?
One common question I hear is how long does the eBook need to be? The answer is as long as it takes to adequately address the solution. That said, most eBooks are between 30,000 to 50,000 words long.
They can be in point form, they can be step by step instructions and they can be detailed information.
Many eBooks range from 20 pages to 100 pages. Give your customers value, answer their questions in advance.
If you are producing fiction as your art then you are most likely also a reader of books. Plan your eBook to read like one you would like to read.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
eBooks are popular to produce because all your really need is a word processor and a reasonable graphics app like Canva.
Plan your eBook by summarizing the problem you are addressing and then explain your approach.
Then note all the sub-headings you will be writing about followed by a conclusion.
Try to add as many images and photos showing how you are doing each step, think what questions would be asked if your customer was sitting with you and watching you do the work your eBook is trying to teach.
Use Canva to create a professional looking front cover, back cover and and images you wish to package.
Ensure you proof read and grammer check your writing and then get someone else to read your eBook to see if they have any questions.
Some things you think are easy to understand may not be so for someone who is not skilled in that topic.
eBooks work when they are well produced and not rushed so please take your time.
Lastly, save your eBook as a .pdf file as this will prevent editing and repackaging.
Ensure the headers and footers contain links back to your website and your name and that you add any copyright information.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
eBooks can be emailed to a paying customer or if you are using one of the eCommerce sites I have described they will have an option to allow for eBooks to be downloaded once a payment is processed.
For a slightly more manual process, this is what I did when I sold my first eBook.
I created a folder on my Dropbox account as it was free. I also created an auto-responder email that was configured in Paypal to be sent to every customer who made a payment using Paypal.
That auto-responder email contained a link to the dropbox folder so customers could click on it and download the file.
I would recommend using one of the eCommerce platforms these days as they incorporate more security.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
eBooks sell from anything from $5 to $50 a copy. The average price range is $10-$15 for a good comprehensive eBook which describes everything in detail such as step by step instructions plus incorporates good original color photos or screen shots.
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Digital Product 5. High Resolution Photos of Your Artworks
What Is Digital Product 5. High Resolution Photos of Your Artworks?
If you're a photographer or produce high quality detailed art there is a market for great quality digital photos that can be downloaded and printed off at home.
Some customers like to also use these as screen savers.
The majority of customers will most likely use your high resolution photos as stock images to be used in marketing documents or blogs.
Examples of digital photos for sale are Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and free sites such as Unsplash.
Here's a great guide for photographers who want to sell their digital photos.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
Like everything else, find your best work and upload to a site such as Shutterstock, Adobe Stock or even sell digital photos on Etsy
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Just like POD (Print on Demand) services, you do not need to do anything except list the item on these sites and market the links to them.
Ensure you add lots of detail in your image description so they will appear in searches on the sites.
Each site will either send the digital image to the buyer or produce the artwork the buyer has selected and they will process the payment and ship the item to your customers directly.
You will not even need to do any customer support. Any issues with quality is managed by the company and not you.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Prices vary for digital photos. The less competition a photo has the more it will be worth. Prices will start at $1 and go up. Search for similar digital photos for sale and see what the competition is selling theirs for.
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Digital Product 6. Tattoo Designs
What Is Digital Product 6. Tattoo Designs?
When I first saw tattoo designs for sale my jaw dropped. I was not aware this market even existed. While I have created tattoo designs for some friends and family I didn't even think others would pay for a design.
This is a highly specialized area so look at what the competition is out there before you devote your time and energy making designs.
If you are an artist with a dedicated fan base you can have your artworks converted to tattoos.
I have seen the artworks of Lewis Rossignol, Najimir and Christopher Lovell converted into tattoos with proud owners uploading photos of the finished products to Instagram.
While these artists don't charge to have their drawings turned into tattoos, there is a market there.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
Like everything else, it starts with a design that needs to be converted into a digital file.
The design should be clear and preferably a vectorized image that won't lose quality when it is enlarged.
The reason being that people will want to enlarge or shrink the design depending on the body part they want to the tattoo to appear.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
As with all the other digital products, if you select one of the eCommerce platforms it should be taken care for you.
The easiest would be to post on Etsy or eBay and have buyers download from there.
Your image should be easily printable without any watermarks.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Tattoo designs should be treated as any original art and prices would vary from $5 to $50 for a design. The more original and hard to find, with more detail would cost more.
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Digital Product 7. YouTube channel
What Is Digital Product 7. YouTube channel?
YouTube channels seem pretty straight forward but actually can take longest to make money from.
You will be making money from creating videos detailing your process, providing tutorials etc.
The problem with YouTube is that to monetize your videos you now need to have about 4000 hours of videos viewed (this is called Watch Time and can be 1 video with a 1 hour duration watched 4000 times or a 10 min video watched 24000 times) in 12 months.
You will also need 1000 subscribers.
The more views you get the more money you can make. This is a long term play and would benefit any artist who already has a good following on social or on their blog.
I have tried it and gave up as there were other ways to monetize my time using passive income.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
There are countless guides and videos on YouTube on how to create YouTube videos. Try starting with their Creator Studio and learn how.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Content will be delivered via the YouTube channel itself. Once you publish your videos it will appear on your channel and can be searchable.
Ensure you use good descriptions in each video and use the 3 hashtags allowed for each video.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Once your channel is monetized, you can start earning money. YouTube does not disclose how much you can earn per video but there are plenty of YouTubers now disclosing their earnings figures. Have a look.
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Digital Product 8. Kindle Books
What Is Digital Product 8. Kindle books?
There are plenty of companies offering Book Online ordering & fulfilment. While publishing a physical book sounds great, the easiest avenue is Kindle Publishing. It will allow you to turn that eBook into a Kindle book that can then be sold on Amazon as a kindle book.
How cool is that!
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Kindle books are fulfilled by Amazon as per any of the other Kindle format books for sale.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
The price of most entry level Kindle books is $2 per book. While this may not seem like much money it adds up.
I remember when the self help author and podcaster sold his "Choose Yourself" book for $2 a copy I thought he was crazy until I saw he sold over a million copies.
Amazon took their cut but he still make quite a bit from it.
If you are not a well known writer this could be a good starting point.
There are lots of online resources and groups that assist new Kindle authors.
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Digital Product 9. Exclusive Access to an 'Insiders Club'
What Is Digital Product 9. Exclusive Access to an 'Insiders Club' ?
I used to call this online begging but the only one begging now is me. There are lots of online personalities, Instagrammers, Youtubers who have been demonetized on those platforms and need to make money selling access to themselves or exclusive content.
Most tend to use platforms such as Patreon to offer extra content online.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
You sign up to the platform, accept their terms and conditions and then produce content as you would for Facebook, Instagram or YouTube but you offer a bit more access than you normally would.
If you are an artist, musician, author etc you could offer face to face live chats, discussions, face to face tutorials or access to videos made exclusively for the platform.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Content is delivered by the platform itself, you do not need to do anything further.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
You set how much you want to charge for access. It can be a recurring subscription of $25 per month or less. Some allow for tiered access, meaning you can pay $1 for the minimum product you wish to over and then charge more for more access.
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Digital Product 10. Masterclasses/Courses
What Is Digital Product 10. Masterclasses/Courses?
These are usually videos with access to help other artists or students.
You could easily leverage that eBook you created earlier and video yourself actually doing all the activities and supplement the videos with documents, PDF workbooks etc
Think of a course that takes all your expert knowledge and turns it into a course a buyer would pay good money for.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
This would involve using all the skills you have in producing eBooks, YouTube video editing skills, Canva, Gimp, Photoshop and merging them into one awesome course.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
While you can deliver this content on your own website, you should go where the customers are and that is Udemy and become an instructor.
What becoming an instructor means is that you can start selling courses.
If you have no idea how to structure a course then Udemy is a great place to see what others have done and follow their lead.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Course are usually around $10 but can be inflated to be more expensive (as most sellers will post their course to be $150 and then have a discount of 90% that seems to run forever).
There are well documented cases of every day teachers making hundreds of thousands of dollars selling courses they would have taught at a school for $30,000 a year.
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Digital Product 11. Digital Art
What Is Digital Product 11. Digital Art?
Like digital photography, people also buy digital art.
The market can be for screen savers but some are also sold to game developers or website owners.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
Digital art involves converting your most popular artworks into downloadable image files.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Depending on which eCommerce solution you have selected, ensure that the file size you are making available to download does not exceed 1mb as it can make it too slow to download.
Not everyone has super fast broadband so think of those customers. Ensure you label your digital file with your website name and name of artwork eg. wastedtalentinccom.myartname.jpg so that you and your buyers know where the image came from.
Also add a copyright declaration to your listing if you own the copyright to the image.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product ? (Estimated range)
As per digital downloads for prints, these tend to have a more dedicated buyer and someone who views the print at home print more like an artwork they are willing to get framed and hang on the wall.
They will be willing to spend and extra $10 and up to get it framed or printed professionally.
For these prints I used to sell for $5 a copy of each digital download. Depending on your following you can charge more.
List the items for a few months, gauge what the market is doing. If they are not selling then try lowering the price or marketing the product more.
Digital Art now also encompasses the blockchain technology that drives our favourite e-currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum via the NFT.
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token and it allows artists to digitally sign their artworks and digital artworks to ensure they contain great control over its copyright. They are now selling NFT art as standalone artworks and many are cashing in.
If you want to learn more about NFT Crypto art, then take a look at this article What is NFT Crypto Art and how do I 'fungibly' create it?
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Digital Product 12. Fonts
What Is Digital Product 12. Fonts?
First time I saw fonts for sale was when I was looking at the 1924 website (cool designers by the way, you should check out their Instagram page).
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
Fonts take a little more skill to develop as you are producing a product that needs to match a specific set of digital rules, typography rules and will suit the graphic designers among us.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
You can sell these on your own site the same way our friends at 1924 have or you can sell them on Etsy or eBay. Alternatively you can sell these on your site and provide instructions on how to install them on Macs and Windows computers.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
You can sell Font individually (why would you) or as a font pack. These will include all the letters and numbers in the range. They can start from $5 to $10 a pack and can go up if the market demands.
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Digital Product 13. Stickers
What Is Digital Product 13. Stickers?
Stickers are another niche type product that artists and designers can produce and sell.
I used to order my own stickers in batches and sell on my old website, ordering them from StickerMule and then retailing them.
That is one option for you but that means any income earned will be less passive income and more actual work.
When Redbubble (yes here I go on about Redbubble again) started selling stickers, all I did was go through my catalogue of images and select the option to sell them as stickers.
All I needed to do was adjust the image so that it would look great as a sticker and that was it!
I now regularly sell stickers as well.
Though 20% on $2 is not much of a profit.
If you do produce your own stickers from StickerMule then you can sell them for about $1 or $2 each and absorb the cost of production into shipping. That will give you more money in your pocket for a little extra work.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
You will produce your art work as per normal and then convert them to a digital file (in a jpg or png format).
You will then need to upload the image to Redbubble or StickerMule and ensure it fits their criteria for stickers such as image resolution and file size.
Click save and then market this product on your website or social media pages to generate sales.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
If you take the Redbubble option then it will be all done for you.
If you choose to order and ship these yourself then you will need to pack and send a physical products. As these usually fit in an envelope, shipping costs are usually low even for world wide shipping.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
If selling via Redbubble, you can make your margin between 25% to 40%. Stickers are low cost items so your profit margin will be small.
If you sell these directly then $2 to $5 a sticker with free shipping is reasonable. Just expect to sell lots to make any serious money.
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Digital Product 14. Gift Cards
What Is Digital Product 14. Gift Cards?
Finally we get down to Gift cards. Gift cards you say?
Yes while these are technically not a product they can be a source of income as only a small percentage of gift cards purchased are ever redeemed.
I learned this when I used to offer gift cards on my old omniartist.com website.
People would ask to buy gift cards (electronic gift cards I would email) and they would print them off and give to family and friends.
How Do I Produce This Digital Product?
Many eCommerce platforms allow you to create a gift card with tracking and expiration dates.
Google gift cards for wordpress and you will see all the options available to you as a plugin.
There are some legalities to selling and honoring gift cards, they vary state by state and by country as well. Some require no expiration dates and some require they are stored safely.
Gift cards have the same liability as money owed. So once you sell a gift card be prepared to honor it.
When I sold gift cards I would actually only need to honor about 50% of the gift cards sold. Most would be forgotten or lost and the recipient would not even bother asking about it.
Their loss. When this happens, it can be money for nothing.
How Do I Deliver This Digital Product To My Customers?
Most are sold as a Digital Product and are usually emailed to the purchaser, emailed to the recipient or can be downloaded upon payment.
How Much Should I Charge For This Digital Product? (Estimated range)
Prices vary depending on what you sell but I used to sell $20, $50 and $100 gift cards.
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Conclusion
Hopefully you found this guide useful and easy enough to follow and to start producing at least one art digital product and start earning a good passive income from your art.
Once you become accustomed to making money with digital art online, you will find that you will start looking at other ways to make money.
Do you have other great ideas or examples of digital products for artists to sell?
Feel free to get in touch and we can update this post and link back to you with full credit.
Before You Go…
Don't forget to market the heck out of your site and art. Without proper marketing you won't be selling many digital art downloads let alone any art. Please read the other articles linked below and learn how to market and sell online like a pro.
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How To Make Money As A Digital Artist
Source: https://wastedtalentinc.com/making-money-digital-art/#:~:text=Digital%20products%20are%20the%20easiest,apply%20to%20art%20based%20products.
Posted by: townsdecommand.blogspot.com
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