How to Make and Sell a Printable – Everything you need to know from start to finish

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As far as side hustles are concerned, selling printables is an easy way to make some passive, extra money. In theory, anyway. Success seems to vary, dramatically. But for the most part, it’s inexpensive to make and sell a printable, something almost anyone can do, and is a product you completely own giving you complete freedom to do things your way.

Even beyond the money, the internet just isn’t a print-friendly place, and making some of your content “printable” gives your readers and customers the ability to take you with them offline.

What is a Printable?

A printable is a digital download of many possible digital downloads. Usually, printables are PDF’s that a person can print up from any printer.

Examples include an ebook, a workbook, cheat sheet, coloring pages, etc.

Quick Industry & Market Analysis

Competition is relatively high due to the ease of creating and selling them.

So supply is over saturated.

But most of that is outdated. Fresh content is harder to come by. The thing about the internet (based on Pinterest’s behaviors), people love fresh content.

This is why it’s so imperative if you do sell a printable or any digital downloads, you want the design to be updated, fresh and modern. You want to stand out from yesteryear’s design trends.

Demand? That’s another story.

For those who haven’t been blogging in the last decade, we bloggers have spent years signing up for a freebie. It really worked for bloggers to build their email list. Too good. So good that many are now teaching this as a gimmick: “Make a printable, give it away for an email,” that it’s an industry standard now.

So many of us expect a totally awesome thing for free now.

In some ways, I feel like the demand for printables is diminishing because the trend is so yesterday, but I personally have grown to be a little dependent on them (and I don’t think I’m the only one).

Maybe that’s why people are still making anywhere from $600 to $10,000 a month selling Printables.

Why you Should Make and Sell a Printable?

From a business owner perspective, I love the idea of selling printables (or any digital download) because there’s no overhead, and once you set it up, you kind of put all that on auto-pilot.

The cool thing about a product you create is that it’s yours. Nobody can tell you what you can and cannot do to advertise and market it.

If you do affiliate sales, you’ll learn quick that each company you work with has a set of rules they expect for you to sell their thing. It can be frustrating when you see an easy way to sell those things, and then you’re not allowed to do that. And that happens a lot, like you don’t see it at first, but as you get to know a product and work the audience, you see things clearer and suddenly get new ideas for selling that product.

You don’t have to do that with an affiliate product that you make 25% from if you’re lucky to get that good a rate. You can do that with your own product that you make 100% from.

How Long will it take to Make Money with this?

I don’t think there’s an instant cash thing for the internet. The internet takes time to build and develop your thing. It’s that way with sales all the way around. In Offline Sales, it takes time to build a clientele. Online sales is going to be the same thing.

But for most people I know who blog, 3 years seems to be the magic number. Most blog the same blog for 3 years before they start to see any real money. When they say I made X dollars my first month, they mean they had been online for years building a following and then made that. Usually. Ever so often you find one lucky a-hole who….

If you need more immediate income, I suggest finding freelance or remote jobs. A pay check is the most immediate money.

Benefits of Printables to Consumers

I think it’s important before you start making printables to understand why people might be interested in them. There’s a lot more to it than “it solves a problem.”

From a buyer perspective, I love printables because it allows me to invoke someone else’s genius by forcing me to use their system with the things I fill out. Your planner makes me plan things the way you do. Your workbook makes me use your logic to come to hopefully better conclusions than using my own logic. Even worksheets for children’s education kind of forces the kid to adopt your system of thought.

Printables kind of guide my brain into thinking straight.

With that in mind, it really helps to have some authority on a subject. We’ll get more into that later.

Plus there are so many that make my life easier, like a coloring sheet to print up and hand a kid to do for 20 minutes of peace.

For the most part, I think people really dig the printables because…

• It makes one aspect of life easier
• It helps them tackle a mental challenge
• It helps them learn better and more effectively
• It saves time

And for product-focused digital downloads like knitting patterns, fonts, graphic design elements…

• It’s a tool that supplements their craft
• Because they really want it
• Ultimately because they want the best result possible

Planning Your Printable

There are many factors you could consider planning what to make.

• Do you have a blog or not?
• Do you want to have a blog?
• Where do you want to sell the Printable?
• What is selling well on that platform?
• What are people searching for on that platform?
• What qualifications do you have on the topic?
• Does the item itself sound so cool people shouldn’t be able to resist the click?

A great idea is perfect for its climate.

Factors of a great idea include

• Timing
• Target Market’s Personality, Motivation, Interests
• Who you are and how you plan to reach people
• How easy you are to find by the right people
• Shareability — like do your people hang out with more of your people and want to share your thing?

Printable Ideas

• Planners
• Calendars
• Checklists
• Trackers
• Stickers
• Budget
• Party Supplies
• Invitations
• Cards
• Gift Tags
• Meal Plans
• Meal Planners
• Shopping List / Checklist
• Ebooks
• Workbooks
• Worksheets
• Lesson Plans
• Coloring Books
• Crafting Patterns and Stencils
• Art / Inspirational Sayings

Good Topical Niches

I get more into distribution later, but in the planning mode, it helps to think about where you plan to put these for sale as some topics and products do better on one platform over another, and some of these places are limited to what you can do.

Etsy:

• Wedding
• Knitting /Crocheting
• Cross Stitch
• Other Crafting

Amazon & Teachers Pay Teachers:

• Specific Educational Subjects
• Workbooks and Worksheets
• Elementary and Middle School Age
• Coloring Sheets

Amazon KDP – Ebooks:

Keep in mind that Amazon only shows the top 100 books in each category when people click a category, so the best sales categories might also be more competitive to get your book in the top 100 starting out. Fiction usually does better than nonfiction, and top categories include variations of these…

• Fiction – Romance
• Fiction – Thriller and Suspense
• Fiction – Paranormal
• Fiction – Fantasy
• Nonfiction – Biography
• Nonfiction – Romance
• Fiction & Nonfiction – Christian Romance

You can find a list of the current top selling books here.

Lady Boss Biz Boutique:

• Anything related to Business & Blogging

Upgrade Ideas to be more than just a Printable

Sometimes it helps to provide more than just a printable. Ideas include…

• Video Tutorials
• Spreadsheets
• Templates

Research

You probably want to do some research beforehand.

1. Get an idea of what’s already out there
2. Size up what’s already out there
3. See what’s performing well in social places
4. Get an idea of keywords you want to use
5. Get ideas from other people, even if their thing is nothing like yours

You want to search for things …

In Google

If you are going to have a website to help promote or sell your thing, you definitely want to check out Google for keywords and how you might rank with that.

Regardless, a quick Google search (maybe check images too), lets you see what’s already out there. It also lets you see where they are selling their thing and how they are selling their thing.

In Pinterest

I later recommend Pinterest in marketing, so if you plan to use Pinterest at all, you want to check out the categories and search keywords for your thing. Usually, if it’s popular enough, Pinterest will auto complete some search options from one word, and whatever you search, Pinterest shows popular search terms associated to your word as buttons at the top of their search results (if there are any).

You can also find similar products as well as blog posts related to your topic.

If you plan on using Pinterest for a huge part of your marketing plan, you may consider “creating an ad” and walking through it to get a feel for what they want from you as far as targeting is concerned and see what recommendations and info show up there without actually purchasing an ad yet. They will only let you do this if you have a business account with them.

In Facebook

This one is probably most applicable to anyone wanting to utilize Facebook in their marketing strategy.

You can do a quick search for keywords just to see what people are posting for that word as in the content they are sharing, who is sharing it, and any context.

But it is important if you want to buy FB ads to get a feel for what FB offers with that. It’s pretty extensive. You will have to have a page, as opposed to a profile, to make an ad. But you can create an ad, and play with the options for audience (the people you plan to target your ad to) and see what categories they have. Then of course, don’t purchase just yet.

If this is your first time on FB making an ad, it’s overwhelming. It’s ok. It’s that way for everyone. They do offer free tutorials & insights you can put on your to-do list.

On Etsy and/or Amazon etc.

If relevant, you might check sites that normally sell your thing. Get a feel for what it takes to sell there, what other people are doing, and again, find some keywords and/or categories you belong in.

Etsy has a lot of printables for sale, and if you can find them, you can get an idea of what other people are doing as a product, as a description, the keywords they are using for what they sell, etc. It doesn’t have to be in your category or topic to get ideas.

Product – How to Make Printables

There are probably many different ways to make a printable and there really are no rules. But this guide is a pretty good way to make an amazing printable with very little tech experience.

Step 1: Plan the Content & Structure

I personally think the most important thing in a printable is its utility.

How useful is it?

Because if you do a planner that changes someone’s life because they were better prepared and more on top of their game with your planner, you’ll get repeat business. You’ll get recommended.

So function —

Your printable needs to be designed to help a human function. Even better if you can put the verb into a few words like “Get More Organized” or “Eat Healthier,” for future marketing reasons.

And you want to think about how your printable is going to guide a person into being better. Exactly what do they need to think about? What do they need to track? What do they need to hang on their wall?

This is where you may come up with other supplemental media to support your product, such as a meal planning idea cards, plus nutrition cheat sheet, plus google spreadsheet to actually plan meals with…

User Experience

You also kind of want to think about the user interface of the product. I know we usually reserve the term “user interface” for software, but the idea is to make sure your printable is easy to navigate, easy to understand, and easy to print up what’s necessary as everyone is different.

For example, I put together a branding workbook. I wanted it to be more active, like questions you answer, and maybe some infographics to help explain some things, so you don’t waste your time reading, but when I put it in a beta mode to test it, some people really couldn’t figure out what I meant when I asked for certain things because I needed some explanatory text to go along with it. They really wanted instructions.

So try to think about the user interface (how the information is displayed, how a human brain navigates your stuff), but also think about the overall user experience.

• You don’t want people feeling analysis paralysis.
• You don’t want people getting bored and not finishing it.
• You don’t want people putting it off until never.
• You don’t want to accidentally trigger unwanted emotions.
• You do want people to walk away from your product feeling better.
• You do want people to associate your product with positive emotions.

Outline

For the most part, here, you want to plan out the content & structure.

• What words are you going to use?
• Are you asking questions? Using a table?

An outline is probably the easiest way to start; an outline you plan on updating as you go.

Step 2: Plan out the Design

If you preplan your design, it makes the work easier to implement. Faster and easier. As in you are not in a constant state of decision making on elements like fonts and color scheme because you already decided it.

So for purposes of here, we want to think up…

• Fonts
• Color Scheme
• Overall Visual Strategy — shapes vs photos vs illustrations etc.
• Vibe / Mood

If you already have a business or blog, you may want to keep up with your brand’s fonts and color scheme and have a real branded product. But you don’t have to. Your product can have it’s own visual aesthetic that better matches its purpose and still feel consistent with an existing brand.

Mood

I think it’s easiest to first think about the vibe or mood you want to invoke with design.

• Happy & Energetic
• Minimalistic and Clean
• Girly Glam
• Neutral and Natural
• Feminine or Masculine?
• Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, Gen Z?

You might decide on a noun to conceptualize with it like pineapples or unicorns.

Color Scheme

And then choose a color scheme to go with that vibe.

Some ideas…

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

You really don’t need that many colors…

Aim for 2 Major Colors, and Varying Shades

The idea is you don’t want it to be too clunky. But you also don’t want it to be too monotonous. So this really depends on how many pages you’re dealing with.

If you’re doing a fiction novel, you really only need to think about cover design. The pages should be black and white.

If you’re doing a planner, you really only need a “frame” concept — a graphical abstract almost pattern to frame a page and maybe several variations of the same thing. You may want to consider the color scheme and look of tables such as black filled headers with white text vs black text on clear background.

The photos you intend to use, if applicable, may play a role in your color choices.

Keep in mind that the buyer is planning to print these. If you expect them to pay a professional printer (or Office Depot, I love their printers), full color looks wonderful. But, if you expect them to use their inkjet, full color doesn’t always look wonderful.

Also keep in mind, the colors are slightly different in print than on screen (a lot different).

RGB is Colors on Light — CMYK is Colors on White

The best way to choose colors for print is to find printed swatches of CMYK.

Visual Strategy of Design Elements

You may want to decide on imagery. As applicable for your product and needs…

And really think about that. Try to envision a finished product as you think about these things because you may not need as much.

Examples…

• Hand-Drawn Illustrations
• Watercolor
• Solid Color Vectors
• Icons
• Stock Photography
• Your own photography
• Solid Color and Pattern Shapes

The best imagery you can provide is your own. If you’re good with watercolor, I’d focus on that if it works with your vibe and target market.

But there are places (dark places, I’m kidding) on the internet to obtain graphics. Just beware because everywhere has a license that explains how you can and cannot use their images, and you want to make sure you follow that.

• SwankyStock
• Pexels
• Unsplash
• Creative Fabrica (affiliate link)
• Creative Market (affiliate link) — make sure you choose the right license
• Deposit Photos (affiliate link)

Fonts

It’s amazing how long a human being can sit and look for a font pair they are happy with for the design job at hand, or am I the only one?

When it comes to printables, you’re most apt going to save it as a PDF, and in order to get the font to come out right, you’re going to want to embed fonts. For that reason, your debit card is happy to announce that the best fonts to use are anything from Google Fonts.

If you want a “pretty” font, your best bet is to use that font within images that are saved as a jpg or png. And that’s very do-able.

Pick No More than 2 Fonts

It looks awful if you do more than 2 fonts. You can, however, do multiple weights of the same font, such as regular vs bold, and some fonts have more than 2 weights. So 2 fonts that have 3 weights to them gives you 6 options.

If you are opting to use a font in your images (such as a signature font), you may want to keep your main content down to one font, various weights, or 2 very similar fonts.

Get Design Inspiration

You definitely want to check out the competition. You kind of want to make sure you are up to par if not above it.

I do recommend making a Secret Pinterest Board for design inspiration. Here you can pin websites and images from Google, but also search through Pinterest for mood boards, color schemes, font pairings…

Quick Design Tips

To help assist in your graphic design endeavors, here are some tips to keep in mind to help give your piece a more polished look…

• Less is more
• Allow for a little extra margin space
• Let the page breathe (white space and negative space are good)
• Visual Hierarchy of Text (Title Big, Subtitle Medium, Copy Small – Color on Keywords)
• Visual Hierarchy of Images (One big Flower and 3 Smaller Flowers, foreground crispy and background blurred)

Templates

You can consider purchasing a template to help you with the design aspect.

Like this one from Lady Boss Studio

Step 3: Design the Printable

You have several options for software.

Canva

They have a free and a pro version.

Microsoft Word

This is my favorite for things that require multiples pages and/or tables simply because of its ease of use.

Adobe InDesign

I generally use this if I’m dealing with more complex things than Word can handle, like many images on a page in newsletter form or a full bleed.

Step 4: Test the Printable & Take some Photos

The easiest way to make sure your product is ready, error free, and as amazing as it can be is to print it up. If you play with it, as in use it the way you think people would use it, you can get some good ideas for marketing points (like things to mention in the description) as well as have an opportunity to collect some media for marketing purposes.

Print it Up

Technically, when you Print to PDF, you already printed it. But then you want to print the PDF to see how a person who buys it will get it.

Print up your Printable and see how well it functions, check the colors, and proof for mistakes. Also check to see if your margins make sense, especially if it’s meant to be put in a binder or something like that.

Once you are pretty certain you have a great product, I’d print it up with a place like Office Depot, get some professional binding for books or workbooks, and take some photos of the finished product.

If you’re doing a full on book through KDP, and are opting for print and kindle, I’d get a proof of the print through them.

You can do a mock up, but those won’t sell as well, and there’s a learning curve, you almost need to do it in Photoshop, and there’s often another investment into using an image plus license rules.

Taking Photos

You definitely want to think about your target market, what they prefer, plus what you’re planning to do as far as marketing is concerned. Are these going to be used on Facebook? Pinterest? Instagram?

Think about the marketing. If you’re going for a clean, minimalism vibe for something like a planner, your photographs should mimic that vibe with a lot of white in the background, clean and organized background, etc. If you’re going for a playful vibe, then you want a lot of playful colors in the background that complement your product.

But set up your printable in various places.

• By itself on a contrasting background, nothing else, something where you can easily remove background in Canva Pro or Photoshop if you go that route.
• Flat Lay with complimenting accessories
• In Use like halfway filled out or pages open
• In Use like a human or a human hand using it so happy like

You also want an end result to be

• Horizontal
• Vertical
• Square

That can be achieved in the photo taking process, or afterwards with cropping (but you want to think about that kind of framing).

Again, think about your marketing plan and what you’ll be using these for.

A square image will most likely be used on Instagram, so you want that to match your Instagram theme plus that of the product plus that of your brand if applicable. You want it to be Insta-Worthy.

A vertical image will most likely be used on Pinterest, so you want that to be Pinterest-Worthy.

A horizontal image will most likely be on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Linked In, so you want more actionable shots that are more every day and realistic.

You CAN use a cell phone to take pics

Most of these photos are not going into print. They will be used to market your product digitally online, so the smaller the file, the faster the load time.

The idea, anyway, is to take authentic, real life photos of your product in use. You want a polished version of Joe sharing a photo of his new Printable. Because Joe loves his watercolor Rose Planner.

You can also check out Photoshop Express App for applying filters and making adjustments to your Photos to give it an extra polished look, especially for images you plan on using on Instagram and Pinterest.

Photo Tips

Use great lighting / take outdoors if you can / or near a huge window with curtains pulled back

Use different textures like sweaters, blankets, scarves, fur, ceramic, glass, etc.

Use props that invoke feelings like coffee, fresh flowers, candles, water, etc.

Use layers, like lay things on top of each other and give your photo some depth

Make it look natural, like it was put there while someone was living life, and doing something like laying things down in a corner, or a work in progress, etc. For instance, someone coloring a page will probably have crayons or markers near them. Someone filling out a workbook might have a pen, coffee, and glasses nearby. Someone reading a book will probably have glasses, maybe a light, and a cozy blanket. It should also tell a story.

Video

I don’t usually see people using their printables in video, but I figure it worth mentioning because video does so well on the internet. Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram all have video capabilities, plus YouTube & Tik Tok.

So for social media posts, having some video footage could come in handy. Also paid ads.

It’s up to you to try to make some video clips while you’re making photos.

Ideas to aim for

• Flipping through pages or slowly turning them on a nice background (you might need some volunteer hands with press on nails)
• You talking through the process of using your product, maybe like an instructional guide.
• Other people using the product and maybe giving a little blurb about its awesomeness
• A clip of someone writing out or filling out the printable

You can aim for footage on any of the following:

• 5 second clips to make gifs out of on giphy.com
• 15 second clips of quiet imagery for a FB ad, Insta, or Pinterest
• 2-3 minute explanations of anything related to it, especially if you can turn it into a mini webinar or TED talk where people can get a key takeaway to use for their personal pursuit of passion, like a mini vlog.

Pricing

I think it’s important to note that people aren’t paying you for your time or expertise when it comes to products. They are paying you to solve or help solve one thing in life.

This is why it’s really important to define your target market.

For instance, a coloring book for children to amuse themselves for a few minutes mom break is a totally different product than the same coloring book for adults who want coloring-therapy. The target markets for both are similar and have some overlap (moms vs women who want a therapeutic habit), but they are still marketed very differently between the two. And priced differently as far as value is concerned.

10-50 cents per page seems to be industry standard and what most people expect when paying for a printable.

Some people swear by $7 being a magic number, that if you can’t sell the whole package for $7, then you can’t sell it at all. I’m not sure I believe that.

I’ve also seen people recommend $2-$5 per page, but those are people selling printables, not buying them.

This pricing tier would be a pretty competitive way to price:

• 1 page – $2.99
• 2-9 pages – $1 per page
• 10-30 pages – 50 cents per page
• 30-60 pages – 30 cents per page
• 60 – 100 pages – 20 cents per page
• 100+ pages – 10 cents per page

You can always adjust based on your goals and feelings, but I think that’s a good starting point.

Place – Distribution of Printables

You have many options for distribution or where you want to sell your printables.

Marketplaces

These places have no upfront charges, so they are free to start listing products; however, they do take a percentage of each sale.

• Amazon – Ebooks / Education Resources
• Etsy – Almost anything, especially crafty, wedding, decor, and party
• Teachers Pay Teachers – Education Resources
• Lady Boss Biz Boutique – Business and Blogging Resources

3rd Party Places

I put the basics for pricing on here, but some of these charge an additional transaction fee.

• Gumroad – Free for basics, $10/month for more
• Ecwid – $15/month starting price that offers digital downloads
• Send Owl – Starts at $9/month, popular plan is $24/month
• Shopify – Create your own store, easily connect with your site, starts at $29/month
• Podia – Starts at $39/month

Your WordPress Blog

These are plugins that you can use with an existing wordpress blog, and the best option if you want to have complete ownership of your store. If you are curious about hosting, Lyrical Host starts at $11.99 a month (you can save 10% with my affiliate coupon code: BeHappy)

• Easy Digital Downloads – Free; can purchase additional functionality
• WooCommerce – Open Source Free; additional services and ability varies in price

Platform Strategy

I’ve seen people utilize several platforms for sales, such as they’ll put their printable for sale on etsy, on amazon, and on gumroad.

Some might tell you not to do that.

But I think ideally, you want to have the printable for sale on something you own, a website of your own, if you can. At any time, Amazon or Etsy could change up their game and kick you out, or stop promoting the category, or make new rules you can’t follow. Owning your own platform gives you more freedom, more control and more security.

However, it’s difficult to build a platform from nothing. It can take years if you succeed. IF. And Amazon and Etsy already have a huge market actively searching for things in their search, so the opportunity cost of not using them might not be worth leaving them out.

I think ideally, I’d sell printables that match my blog and work hand in hand with what I’m already selling, and I’d focus most of my marketing efforts on my own platform by sending people to my blog / landing page / website from advertising and social media.

But then, depending on the niche, I’d find the marketplace my topic and thing already performs well on, something that has a category specifically for what I’m selling, and then I’d do that as well focusing heavily on the SEO for their search.

I’d probably pick only one major platform because learning the SEO specifically for their search algorithm takes time and experimentation.

But I wouldn’t pay for a FB ad that took you to my product on that platform, well maybe at first if the platform is more apt to show best selling at the top of their search results. But primarily, I would want most of my marketing efforts to go to my thing that I own so I get to keep the residual energy and not give that to Amazon or Etsy.

But if you’re in a situation where you don’t have time to create a website, or blog, and you don’t want to finagle too much with web design and learning the tech, then in that case, ideally you pick a platform that’s already selling similar things (topic, categories, and downloads), and you jump in with your things for your piece of their pie.

If you already have a blog with a huge following, I’d just focus on selling on your own platform. What do I mean by a huge following? If you can get in on Ad Thrive, you should sell your printables on your own site as long as the printable makes sense to the customers on your site. If you want to sell a Printable that isn’t heavily wanted by your current readership, but some overlap, you might do better to sell that on Amazon and advertise to it from your site.

The main idea here is to put the product in a place where people who really want that product are.

SEO

No matter where you put your product, the SEO is important because it’s the wording and things you do to help get your thing found when people search.

Keywords

The first step is to find your keywords, and hopefully you already did some research earlier on this, but if not, you definitely want to get to the search boxes you expect potential customers to be searching in, and you want to search for yourself. Well search for your printable.

You as in your name may not exist yet (maybe it does but doubtfully for this product), but you want to see what words get results that are most similar to what you’re doing.

Say you wrote an ebook about intimacy & relationships, and search term A yielded a lot of porn results. That may not be the most ideal search term for you to focus on overusing.

Then check the social media channels you plan on marketing. Same thing as before. Search term B may end up being porn results as a hashtag on Instagram. It’s amazing how many “normal” hashtags get turned into boobs on there.

But it’s more than just finding negative results and avoiding those words. A lot of times, you get similar results, and you want to focus on the best matched. Sometimes, you see one that has room for better matched results, and that’s an opportunity to stake claim on that keyword.

You can have more than one keyword, but it’s difficult to make a title include both “math worksheets” and “math printables.”

If you know of any places or tools to give you more insights into your searching, go for it.

Also, if you know someone is selling their printables well, maybe they blogged their income report and it seems legit, then go find the printables they are selling and pay careful attention to how they do things, especially design strategy, but most importantly, try to find what keywords the search engines are picking up from crawling their data. And how well that plays into their product. You don’t want to steal their keywords, especially if your product is nothing like theirs, but you can see how the gears move a bit on this to get some clarity on which way to go with things.

So to find some keywords:

1. Search for yourself in the search boxes for sales – platforms
2. Search for yourself in the search boxes for marketing – social media
3. Look for things that have results of exactly what your printable is.
4. Look for things that SHOULD have results of exactly what your printable is but instead has results for a broader category. This one is Gold if you find it.

The end result you’re looking for is

• Primary Keyword – such as Math Worksheets
• Supplemental Keywords – such as Grades 3-5, 3rd Grade, XYZ Curricula…
• Noted Keywords – such as Education, Homeschool, Montessori…

Places to put your keywords

The whole point of keywords is to let robots know what you have and who you are. The more a robot can believe what you’re about, the more they will show you to people.

For instance, if you sell math worksheets, but you refer to them as “Math Worksheets” only once, and then use words like these pages, they, this product, the math problems, etc., the robot doesn’t believe your thing is actually math worksheets.

But you don’t want to overkill by starting EVERY sentence with “These Math Worksheets…” because humans are also reading it.

So ideally…

Put keywords everywhere you can without being annoying

This means Product Name, Description, Social Media posts, links to the product, part of the description of your store name, etc.

Anywhere you have to enter text for your product, you want to use keywords.

Setting up the Product and Description

For the most part, anywhere you try to sell your printable, there will be a product page with room for a photo, a title, and a description, and an add to cart or buy it button.

The Product Photo

The photo you use should be a simple photo of JUST THE PRODUCT, nothing else. Most places use a white background or transparent. I personally think transparent is best in case the website it’s on (even your own) changes background colors.

This can be achieved one of two ways…

One, you can use a photo of your product on a contrasting solid color background. And if you want to give it a transparent background, there’s a chance that the Remove Background feature in Canva (it may be only for Canva Pro users) will remove that background without hurting the product.

Two, this is what most people do with printables, they create their own.

In Canva, you can save the page you want to showcase as a JPG or PNG. In Word, you can zoom out to a full page, print screen / PrtScr Button, paste into a place like Canva, and crop to a page.

Then in Canva, you upload the page and apply a drop shadow for a one page cover. If you have multiple pages, duplicate it on top of itself, offset the top a couple pixels (nudge it one or two arrows) to the left and up. Duplicate and nudge. Repeat as many pages as appears thickness of the book.

Most of the time, you can provide more than one photo. If that’s the case, then you want to show the pages, so you make page jpgs of each page you plan to showcase, upload into canva, and decide on a layout depending on your dimensions.

If they let you do more than one photo, I would do white or colorful backgrounds. Some might be two color backgrounds like half gray and half white (or a diagonal half). These are more advertising banners plus product images. I see them a lot on Font sites and Creative Market.

For the most part, you can tile it with or without a drop shadow, with or without a thin gray outline, and then pick a color, put a square or rectangle over a place between rows overlapping a little the page pics, possibly set the opacity to 85%, pick a good color for it, and add text like, “features X pages,” or “Bonus: This and That.”

You really can look at Creative Market for ideas on how to package a product that way, but Amazon usually has a different vibe with their images, and so does Etsy. You want to match the vibe of the site.

Title

This should basically be the Name of the Product.

I would name your product based on your best keyword research. So say you found “math worksheets” seem to do better than “math printable,” then you definitely want to have those words in the Name.

So Main Keyword – Math Worksheets

Now say that search in Amazon and Pinterest showed Grades 3-5 worked better than 3rd grader, and they seemed to be important, then add those as well. You may not have additional helpful keywords to add, or you might find too many depending on what you’re doing.

So One Supplemental Keyword phrase – Grades 3-5

You want what Rank Math calls a “Power Word.” Preferably one that creates an emotion.

For math, it might be Comprehensive, Helpful, Ignite, Instructive, Intense, Painless, Powerful, Resourceful, Simplified, Fun… Now if we were doing Middle School, then I’d opt Powerful, but Grades 3-5, Fun works.

So one power word – Fun

Then put it together to make sense…

Fun Math Worksheets – Grades 3-5

Product Description

This is the part where you get to describe the product. It helps SEO match you to the right person, and it helps people understand what exactly they are going to get. It also can help answer questions, and to a sales person kind of person, it’s the perfect opportunity to help “land the sale.”

So this is more important than it feels.

The purpose of the description is to

• Inform
• Persuade
• Describe

Sample Template you are allowed to use:

The primary benefit should induce a feeling. This is almost your headline despite that the title is the name of your product.

For math worksheets, with the target market being moms, I could go many ways…

• Fear – Don’t let your kid fall behind!
• Aspiration – Get your Child Ahead of the Class!
• Humor – Use Math to babysit your kid for 20 minutes!
• Trust – Educational Worksheets from a Certified Teacher

I decided to go with a cheerleader here…

Some Writing Tips

Writing sales copy is not as easy as it sounds. One anthology I was in, we spent about 2 months writing our description.

• Use amazing nouns and verbs (less adjectives and adverbs)
• Show & Tell (Tell the benefits, but also show people how)
• Try to portray your customer’s story when possible
• Aim for invoking emotions + Logical Reasons
• Include keywords people might search for as often as possible without overkill
• Build trust with credentials, qualifications, testimonies & endorsements

Promotions – Sales

Printables that have a super awesome title that are a super awesome thing often sell themselves, and this is probably the category you’ll see most people find the most success with printables. Examples might be trendy cross stitch patterns you won’t find at your local craft store, or the first time something is introduced like the first 10 blogging blueprint workbooks…

Printables that sell themselves are generally

• New Solution to an Existing Problem that has a Need for Resolve
• Something you can’t find anywhere else
• Something that’s at the beginning of a trend’s bell curve

But there are printables that don’t sell themselves. You have sell them. Like a sales person.

Sales Tactic 1 – Be an Authority

One way to do that really is be an authority on a subject, sell yourself on the net like build a website and/or blog, get “credentials” by guest writing and guest speaking, possibly show off credentials or pick up certifications or training that you can claim, and pick at least one social media to heavily post to frequently. Then people aren’t buying your thing, they are buying you.

There’s just a lot of people who would rather learn from Susan because they like Susan better than the other teachers. So when Susan makes a printable for her course, people want it because it’s Susan’s printable on that subject. Because they trust Susan. They believe Susan is the go-to girl for her expertise. They like Susan’s work and her results. If you Google this hypothetical Susan, you’re going to see on the right that Susan is an expert in that expertise, and even Google likes Susan.

Sales Tactic 2 – Marketing & Advertising

Another way to sell printables is basic Marketing and Advertising. Here you want to focus on amazing pictures and amazing copy, possibly have a landing page, and then pay to advertise. Focus on the consumer’s pain and the solution the printable carries. This is a very common sales tactic. You might also want to do a Tripwire and gather emails if you can.

Sales Tactic 3 – Harness an existing marketplace + SEO

Another way to sell printables is to become known in a marketplace like Etsy or Amazon, utilizing killer SEO to help people who want your thing find you before they find anyone else.

Tripwires

This subject can be a $1000 course in of itself. But the idea is you offer something for free, people subscribe to your email to get your free thing, then in the thank you page, you have a limited time offer to get something at less than full price. They usually have a countdown timer, product image and description, some more sales copy, full price marked out with sale price in big red letters, and a get it now option.

But you CAN get more creative with it.

I, personally, do not like these after a tripwire fiasco where I purchased $130 of cookbooks I have yet, a year later, to even look through. BUT obviously, Tripewires DO work.

Landing Page

You may or may not decide to have a landing page for your product.

I think a lot of it depends on what your product is, how you’re selling it and your personal preferences.

The idea of a landing page (as far as marketing is concerned) is to have a beautiful page that is ad free, sidebar free, and distraction free (possibly not even a menu) that is there to just sell your product.

It’s a page you link to with most of your advertising endeavors, so when your ad says “learn more,” they click that and go directly to a page that showcases the product you’re selling.

Often used in “sales funnels,” a Landing Page can make it easier to track sales, especially if you have multiple landing pages for multiple ads to see what is performing the best.

Common blocks /items on a landing page:

• Product photos
• Description – exactly what you’re getting
• Benefits
• Pain Point / Solution
• Testimonials
• A little about who you are and why you’re the best person to work with
• Several Calls to Action to Buy Product

You can host a landing page on your own site, if you have one. But if you don’t have a site, there are various places who offer landing page options. You can also always do a Google Site for free just to have a landing page.

Social Media Advertising

The number one way people advertise on the internet is various social media platforms and/or Pinterest.

Each place has its own vibe and culture, and it’s important to get to know that well by spending a lot of time on that platform, so you want to narrow it down to what you have time for.

It’s not enough to just make an ad and pay to display it. There’s just too many options that you need a strategy. You need to know the platform and the people who are on it.

Pinterest

I highly recommend promoting with pins. A huge percentage, like 80%, of people on Pinterest isn’t searching for any particular brand. That means, people who are not a huge brand have an equal chance of competing with huge well-known brands.

Also, Pinterest has a few options for selling. You can…

• Pin Organic Pins
• Advertise Pins
• Pin Articles from your blog
• Pin Products directly from your shop
• Create a Shop
• Join their Verified Merchant Program
• Apply a tracking event tag to help you improve conversions

While Pinterest has a place for almost anyone, the main Pinterest culture is very feminine, inspirational, aspirational, and actionable. Trending topics include recipes, fashion, beauty, DIY, crafting, home decor, etc. Pretty much everything you can find if you combined all the magazines in an average grocery store checkout lane.

Pinterest loves fresh content. Pretty photos. Keywords.

Facebook

Advertising on Facebook is an exhausting task. We are on the brink of hiring out certified experts for JUST THIS JOB. But their event tracking code, AKA the Facebook Pixel, is too amazing to resist.

The thing about the Pixel is that it’s constantly learning people and their online behaviors. When you use a pixel code on your site, it combines forces with everyone else’s pixel codes (like Amazon) to find the exact people who are interested in you and your event.

When I say “and your event,” I mean the thing you want from Facebook. Traffic is one event. Conversions is another event. You decide with your ad and where you put your pixel code which one you want Facebook to do / find people for.

Facebook should be highly recommending that you do both because they designed this so that the two work together, and they want your money, but for purposes of selling printables, I think you should focus on the Conversion.

This is where a landing page comes in handy because you want something where you can (as in you have rights and authority to) install that pixel code.

But ideally, you create a FB page, optimize it for your customer, post regularly and build a following (occasionally boost posts), and then buy a Conversion ad (or several and A/B test) with low budget, maybe do one week a month for 6 months… and then see where you are from there.

But learning how to grow a FB page without advertising a product (instead boost posts to advertise the page) is a huge course in of itself. FB Advertising a website to gain traffic is another huge course. FB Advertising a product, another huge course. And by huge course, I mean a year or two. So there’s a learning process.

Instagram

Instagram is a very visual place. If you’re prepared to make a lot of visual content, some people have found Insta-Traffic to be a life force for them.

Insta-tips:

• Set up a business account & link to FB page
• Utilize hashtags – Tailwind for Instagram will suggest hashtags
• Make all your images match a look
• Consider making shoppable posts

This article from Tailwind tells you more and covers everything I could consider telling you about Instagram.

what is your printable going to be?

I really think your best foot forward to make and sell a printable at the beginning is to have an idea, and then define it.

Try to envision the vibe and look, the purpose and problem it solves, exactly how it solves that problem, exactly whose problem it solves, how you are going to find and connect with those people specifically, and your competitive edge.

A good idea is, “I want to make a planner that uses my watercolor paintings of roses.”

A great idea is, “I want to make a planner for moms of toddlers who have lost their mind and is in need of self care but doesn’t have time for it. It will help resolve some time management struggles that life with toddlers brings to the table, and it will help them take control of the chaos without losing who they are in the process. I am going to sell them on my mom blog and Etsy, and I’m going to try to get published on parenting websites with featured articles. I would love to use my watercolor paintings of roses, but I’m going to use different colors to color code the sections.”

So your first step is to get an idea, and then define the frick out of it.

also check out these amazing resources

How to Sell Printables on Etsy

Top Selling Etsy Categories and Selling Tips

Jungle Scout’s 2020 Consumer Trends with an emphasis on Amazon

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