Finding Success on Redbubble: a Q&A

In my previous post, I talked about how I started gaining passive income as an artist on Redbubble. I explored how I was able to fine-tune my shop and boost my sales through trial and error. Let’s dive deeper into this topic as I answer questions from my social media followers.

How did you find out about Redbubble?

I don’t remember, but I definitely started out as a shopper and not an artist. I was probably looking online for some stickers and landed on the site!

What made you decide to try selling your art on there?

I was searching for ways to make money off of my art. I read about print-on-demand services and Redbubble was on a list of popular POD sites. Having previously shopped on Redbubble, I was already somewhat familiar with the site, so I decided to give it a try.

What is your niche? How did you choose it?

I primarily sell Christian designs (like Bible verses, Christian quotes, and cross designs.) I did not start out working in this genre. When I started my shop, I made a huge variety of designs, like monograms, inspirational quotes, random illustrations, abstract art, etc. I ended up narrowing my portfolio down to Christian designs because I enjoyed making them the most, and pretty soon I started attracting a customer base that specifically enjoyed those designs.
I also tried selling botanical patterns for a while. Although I did sell a few, it was clear that people were coming to my shop because they wanted to see my Christian designs. Because of that, I decided to cull my shop stock so that it appeals to the traffic I’m already getting.

How many designs do you have in your shop?

I typically have less than 50. I try not to keep too many up, because I only want customers to see the ones that they are most likely to buy. Too much stock in an online store can mean losing the attention of the customer.

How do you come up with new designs/choose which ones will be in the store?

It’s a combination of following popular trends and letting my own creativity flow! It can be frustrating, because the designs that I like the most are typically the ones that don’t sell. The designs I make by just doodling without any intention of really selling them are the ones that tend to become popular. I sometimes cycle through different designs to gauge how they will sell.

What products do you mostly sell?

I sell a ton of stickers. I also get a handful of sales from t-shirts, tote bags, and tapestries each month.

How often do you have to make new designs?

Redbubble does not require me to make a certain amount of designs, however I like to try to update my shop at least a couple times a month.

What is their product quality like? Have you tried using them for art prints?

Redbubble’s product quality varies based on the item and the type of printing that was used on it. Their t-shirt printing varies from excellent to just okay, depending on the design and how it was printed. Their stickers are thick and durable. I’ve gotten some great items from them, but I really would not recommend their art prints.

What percentage does the artist make from each sale?

I think the default for most products is 20%, but the artist can control the profit margin by adjusting the markup percentage.

Do you know of any sites like Redbubble, where artists could sell their own merchandise?

There are almost a ridiculous amount of sites where artists can use POD services. Some of my favorites are Printful, Society6, and Inprnt. I will have to write a future blog post to talk about these more extensively!

Do you recommend Redbubble? Do you think it would work for me? Do you think my art is good enough?

I absolutely recommend Redbubble for artists seeking to expand their income. It’s easy to start a shop and requires no work to keep running. I also love that Redbubble does all its own advertising, so I never feel like I’m struggling to bring more customers to my shop. I think anyone could make money as an artist on Redbubble, regardless of skill level. It has a vastly diverse product range and customer base, so there’s something on there for everyone! The hardest part is just working past those first few months where you don’t have an audience built yet. Keep working, and you will eventually see results.

Passive Income for Artists

How I Made $1000 in My First Year on Redbubble

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Around the beginning of 2021, I started searching for ways to earn passive income with my art. I quickly discovered POD, aka Print-on-Demand, a service offered by various companies who will print your custom design onto the merchandise of your choosing. This means that artists can have their art printed on mugs, t-shirts, tapestries, stickers, greeting cards, etc. and order only as many as they desire to sell. On top of this, many of the companies that provide POD services also provide a service called drop shipping, where they produce, print, and ship the artist’s merchandise directly to the customer.

The combination of POD and drop shipping allow artists to design and sell their art without ever having to keep inventory or deal with postage and packaging. Thanks to this technology, any artist with a computer can successfully grow their art business without having to even leave the house!

This brings us to Redbubble: a POD site I had shopped on, but never really tried to utilize for my business. Part of my passive income adventure meant trying as many POD services as possible to find what worked for me. Redbubble became one of many of my online shops.

While I continue to use several POD sites, Redbubble has become my most dependable source of passive income so far. My Redbubble shop consistently makes around $100-200 per month (more around major holidays) and my sales are only growing. I have learned that this is not the case for most first-year Redbubblers, so… what did I do differently? I’ll be honest, I can’t say I know for sure, but I can share with you some steps I took that helped my shop grow!

I experimented.

When I started out using POD, I tried to upload as many of my original designs as possible. They varied in style and genre: realistic portraits, fantasy illustrations, text designs, floral patterns… I used them all. Anything I had drawn and owned the rights for, I used. Even though I no longer post EVERYTHING, (nor would I recommend doing so) it was beneficial to me at the time. I learned which of my designs were liked, and which ones would be totally ignored. I learned that if I used stock photos/illustrations in any aspect of my art, they were less likely to sell than my original works. I learned that once I had a design that was enjoyed by others, customers would come to my shop looking for other similar designs. I learned that success looks very different depending on the site and artist. On some sites, my book quote designs make my main income; on others, it’s my cutesy house illustrations. Different sites have different audiences with different desires.

Experimenting with my products visually helped me build a more profitable business. Would customers prefer white text on a black background, or black text on a white background? Would they prefer repeating patterns, or pictures with one focal point? I played around with my designs until I was able to pinpoint what customers wanted from me.

I avoided anything copyrighted.

One of the things that makes Redbubble popular is that you can find art that caters to anyone’s individual taste. In the past I’ve bought a vintage floral apron for myself, a medieval notebook for my son, a meme poster for a friend, and even biohazard stickers for my husband – all from Redbubble. The possibilities are endless. The downside of such possibilities is that, while you can create almost anything, you can also easily infringe on something that is already copyrighted. TV shows, books, movies, and pop culture have a high demand for merchandise. (Just think of how many Star Wars or Harry Potter t-shirts you’ve seen.) Fan art will often be more popular than original art, because people are more likely to buy a product when it depicts something they already love. Thus, the temptation for artists to use copyrighted material grows.

The dangers of using copyrighted material, in my opinion, are not worth losing your business. Not only can your shop be closed, but you may also face legal charges in certain circumstances. Research and understand things such as commercial licensing, public domain, and copyright infringement before you start making designs. Even when you download a new font, you need to make sure that the creator of the font will allow you to use it for commercial purposes. There are Redbubble shops that primarily sell things that are not legal for them to sell (such as merchandise from your favorite TV show) and get away with it. That being said, I have encountered many Redbubblers who have lost their shops or had their artwork removed from the site because of copyright issues. In general, I suggest steering clear of any material that legally belongs to someone else, unless you specifically have rights to it.

I found my niche.

Any art-related business you start will have to answer the following questions: To niche, or not to niche? This could be very easy to answer if you start out with a specific business in mind. Maybe you’re out to sell your realistic, ink drawings of ravens. Maybe your passion is making repeating geometric designs. In any case, for a business to be successful, the customer base must be identified. Finding a niche can bring you customers who are looking for products in a specific category.

When I started my Redbubble shop, I did not know how to establish a customer base. All of my work up until that point had been freelancing; I had always found my clients first, and then drawn what they wanted. In this new endeavor, I was producing art and throwing it into the nether of the internet, praying that someone would take notice. I realized when one style of products began getting more “likes” and sales than any of my other works, that customers were going to my shop specifically to find more of what they liked. I started pruning and gearing my portfolio towards that niche, and my sales increased.

That being said, there are quite successful RedBubble shops that do not work within a niche. Every artist must experiment to find what works for them!

I studied.

This is likely what has had the largest impact on my RedBubble sales: I studied as much as I could. I spent time figuring out the best tags to use. I scrutinized popular products to see what made them popular and what sort of designs were trending. I found YouTube videos about product design. I looked at current trends. I learned how to write descriptions that would be caught by search engines. I observed my shop’s traffic through Google Analytics, and gained valuable information about my shop’s audience.

I still have much to learn, and the market is constantly changing – so I have to keep studying. I know that as soon as I stop growing, so will my business.

I quit spending time and energy on marketing.

One of the reasons I recommend RedBubble for artists is that they market for you! Redbubble gets plenty of traffic, and they are great at driving customers to new products and shops. Through targeted advertising, they can even bring you customers who are specifically relevant to your products from third party websites. This means that Redbubble can feature your products in ads on places like Google or Youtube and bring you new customers straight from there – without any work from you!

During my first few months on Redbubble, I tried posting my new products on Pinterest and sharing them with friends and family via Instagram. I noticed that the few sales I was getting at the time came from Redbubble itself. I’ve never gotten a sale from Pinterest, and I’ve had only a handful of friends and family buy from my shop. With my Redbubble audience growing on its own, I decided not to waste my time with marketing. This gave me more time to work on new designs and tweak my shop.

I didn’t give up.

When you try something new, you will often be faced with the temptation to quit when you are not successful right away. In my first few months of selling on RedBubble, I was tempted to give up and move on to something else. I would excitedly post a new design only to have it largely ignored by the masses. Remember how I said I was working on as many online shops as possible? It took me several months to see significant sales in any of them, and in some of them, I still don’t! I used the disappointment and frustration I felt to motivate myself to improve my business and art skills. I only started to see results after I had failed over and over… and over… again.

Ultimately, $1000 is not much to earn in a year. What I really gained was knowledge and experience to build a POD business. RedBubble gave me encouragement in knowing that I can make money from my art (without freelancing) and I can only grow further as an artist!

Growing Your Art Skills

5 Common Mistakes Made by Aspiring Illustrators

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Turning illustration skills into a business can be intimidating and confusing. Aspiring artists or illustrators may feel lost in a sea of decisions to be made and possibilities to explore – or they may feel like the illustration business is a maze full of dead ends. I’ve noticed several mistakes that aspiring illustrators tend to make when starting their own business – largely from making them myself! Let’s look at five of those common errors.

1. Being apologetic or timid in starting a business.

When I first began seeking my own clients as a freelance illustrator, I had no confidence whatsoever in my ability to run a business! I was so afraid of disappointing clients that I would often trap myself in unreasonable deadlines with less-than-sufficient pay. I had to learn how to practically negotiate jobs in a way that not only pleased my clients, but also clearly communicated my own expectations and limitations.

Regardless of your field, having a confident voice in your business is crucial. Potential customers want to know that you know what you are doing and that your services are worth paying for. New illustrators (or new entrepreneurs of any kind) are often afraid to sound overconfident or conceited by calling attention to their new business. While guarding yourself from smugness is certainly a good thing, sounding apologetic or timid will drive fans, customers, and clients far, far away.

Here are some ways you can build authentic confidence in your business:

Remember that most businesses have meek beginnings. Even the highest-paid, most well-known illustrators had to begin somewhere.
Equip yourself to run your own business by learning as much as you can. Nervous about finding an illustration agency? Research agencies who work with illustrators in your field. Anxious about how you will price your work? Study how similar projects are priced. If something in your business isn’t working, research until you have found a way to make it work.
Practice drawing. The more you practice, the more confidence you will have in your skills.
Don’t point out flaws in your art to others. You likely will see what you could have done better in your work – don’t draw attention to it. Instead, internally challenge yourself to improve next time. Pointing out your flaws will only draw attention away from what’s good about your art.
Communicate with clients, customers, and social media in a way that is clear, engaging, and friendly.
Persevere. If you seriously want to pursue professional illustration, do not give up when you are disheartened. You will face days when your social media engagement is low; you will have dry seasons where you wonder if your business is worth pursuing. You must learn how to get through those if you want to have a thriving business someday.

Remember to take yourself and your work seriously. Illustration is a useful skill that you can offer to the world!

2. Overpricing or underpricing their work.

Whether you’re freelancing or selling your art directly, pricing your work is difficult when you’ve never done it before! Improperly pricing your work is almost unavoidable when starting an illustration business, because there are so many factors that determine how something should be priced. Artists and illustrators tend to lean to two extremes when it comes to putting price tags on their art:

Underpricing: selling your art/services at too low of a price. When calculating your price, you should add in the cost of the materials you used, the time you spent working, and any shipping/production costs. If your art does not bring in enough money to cover the production costs and pay you for your time creating it, your work is underpriced. Artists can also underprice their art by having too many sales or giving out too many coupons.

Many artists who are new at selling will underprice their art because they are afraid people will not want to pay higher prices. If someone likes your art, they will pay a reasonable price for it. If you are freelancing, do not sacrifice decent pay just to land a job. If your skills are worth paying for, someone out there will pay for them.

Overpricing: selling your art/services for too high of a price. A price is too high when it covers all the production expenses (including time) and is noticeably higher than similar work in the same category, without having a difference in quality.

For example, if I am selling hand-drawn, realistic, sports car illustrations, I should be comparing my prices to those of other hand-drawn, realistic, sports car illustrations. I should pay attention to the quality of the other artists’ work and note if my own drawings are the same quality. If my work is about the same quality as someone else’s, and they were produced with the same methods, then they should be similarly priced. After all, why would a customer buy my drawing, when they could basically buy the same thing from someone else for less money? Pay attention to the market you work in so that you know how to price your work.

Freelance illustrators will quickly find that overpricing their services can lead to lack of clients! Do your research and learn from the mistakes you make. Knowing how to price your skills properly is vital to illustrating.

3. Making their main goal to “get noticed” on social media.

On social media, it’s easy to equate a certain amount of followers with success. While things like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc. can all be great tools to build your clientele, DON’T make it your main goal to become popular online. If you produce content constantly just to make yourself seen, you’re going to burn out, and your fans will be able to tell you are being ingenuine.

Instead of making content for the sake of making content, use social media to build genuine relationships. Find things that are fun for you to post and have genuine engagement with your followers. Participate in the community. Reach out to others with similar interests to you. Seeking real relationships is more effective for building your business than simply trying to gain followers!

If you consistently work on your business, it will grow. Don’t stress about getting “noticed” on social media!

4. Not having definite goals.

Many aspiring illustrators set off to build their businesses without definite goals in mind. This leads to their efforts being scattered in various directions and endeavors, with no real momentum behind any particular project. To be successful in almost anything, you must have specific goals in mind and map out steps to reach them.

Start by asking yourself, “What do I want my business to look like ten years from now?” Then, work backwards from there until you have practical steps that you can start taking now.

Here are some practical goal examples for illustrators trying to start a business:

Reaching 100 sales in your online shop
Making a list of agencies you want to apply for and contacting each one
Improving or replacing the 3 weakest pieces in your portfolio
Telling 10 people face-to-face about your business
Finding 5 new people in your illustration field to connect and have conversations with on social media

Of course, everyone’s goals are going to be unique to them. You have to decide what you want for your business and make a plan to get there.

Professional illustrators must have specific goals to work towards. Having goals helps you focus on one thing at at time and turns your abstract dreams into practical realities.

5. Not studying enough.

Lack of studying is probably the number one thing that keeps artist/illustrators from growing their businesses. This is likely because new illustrators believe they already have the skills necessary to succeed; or, perhaps, they simply don’t know how to grow beyond their current skill level. Regardless, it’s important to know that there are two subjects a professional illustrator must continually study: art and business.

Art is a skill that must be constantly built and refined. Natural talent will only get you so far, but hard work can take your skills to heights that are otherwise unsurpassable. No matter what your current skill level is, study and practice are necessary for you to improve. There are countless resources online such as YouTube videos, classes on sites like Skillshare or Udemy, online tutorials, blog posts, etc. Many of these resources are free and teach anything you could hope to learn. You can even study offline by reading books or trying to emulate techniques used by other artists.

Staying up-to-date with current art trends can also help you keep your business relevant. Whether you are a logo designer, a product artist, editorial illustrator, etc. knowing what people currently like will help you make art that sells.

Like art, or any other subject, business building can be studied using many different online resources. Grasping business aspects can help you network, gain clients, make a brand, and so much more. Don’t neglect your illustration business by ignoring the “business” part!

For professional illustrators, art and business go hand-in-hand. If you have great art skills, but no business skills, you will struggle to grow your customer/client base. If you are an excellent businessperson, but lack the art and design skills to make your illustrations appealing, then you have nothing to offer any customers!

Remember that illustration is a competitive field, and there are other illustrators out there trying to do the same thing you are. No matter where you are at on your art journey, keep learning new things and practice the skills you already have!

Bonus: 6. Giving up too early.

A newborn baby never comes out ready to walk, talk, and function like an adult. Likewise, brand-new businesses need to be cultivated and given time to grow. Rarely does one start a business only to find it booming and bringing in notable profit the next day. At the end of the day, the illustrators who are most successful are going to be those who persevered and continued building their business in the face of problems.

Turning your love for drawing into a source of income can be a rewarding decision, if you are willing to set goals, study, and persevere. Remember: every obstacle you face in creating a business is an opportunity for you to grow through problem-solving. You will make mistakes, and you will encounter problems. Use those experiences to improve!

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About Me

February 24, 2022June 22, 2024 Saige PotterLeave a comment

Hi, I’m Saige Potter, an illustrator from the United States. I love drawing whimsical landscapes!

I’ve worked for over a decade as a freelance illustrator and designer, in fields such as editorial illustrating, package design, concept art, and more. I am inspired by the beauty of nature as well as the small, everyday elements of slow living. Some of my favorite things are exploring the nearby mountain forests, studying flowers, and finding joy in my typical homemaking tasks. My desire is to capture the feelings that these things give me and bring them to you through my art.