Residual Income From Your Graphic Designs

If you are a graphic designer, how do you stay afloat when companies cut their budgets and stop sending you graphic design work? What happens when the cash flow stops?Many graphic designers make their income designing logos, advertisements, website graphics, game graphics and other for-hire design jobs. These are usually one time only jobs and when they’re finished, you have to go find another and another.

What To Do If Cash Flow Stops

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Times are tough for many businesses and hiring a graphic designer is probably not at the top of their priority list. They can easily bypass you and recycle old logos and advertisements.

If you’re like many, you have a day job to supplement your income from your graphic designs. For most designers however, anything that takes time away from designing is absolute torment. So what’s a designer to do? How do you keep the cash flowing in while continuing to do what you love best?

The simple answer is PODs. Print On Demand companies will allow you to build a portfolio of graphic designs, upload them to a website and sell them over and over again on t-shirts, coffee mugs, calendars, hats, and other products creating a residual income for you.

Most Print On Demand companies carry dozens of different products that your graphic designs can sell on. T-shirts, mouse pads, cutting boards, coasters, sneakers, neckties, posters, skateboards, coffee mugs and tote bags are just a few of the products you can sell via Print On Demand. The best part is that you carry no inventory, make no cash investment, and you don’t have to deal with sales, customers, shipping or returns.

All you do is upload a graphic design to their website, choose which products you want it sold on, give your design a title and description, set your own markup, and let the Print On Demand company handle the business details. Once your cleared commissions reach a certain amount, usually $25, you’ll get a check the following month.

Each design has unlimited potential to keep selling and on occasion, your graphic design might appeal to a buyer who is looking to purchase dozens of a single item, such as t-shirts for a charity event or campaign pins for a political rally.
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Many Print On Demand companies have a marketplace on their website that allow customers to shop the designs, bringing you customers and sales. In addition, your customer base isn’t limited to your own city or country. Virtually anyone on the internet can order your products and the POD company will handle money conversions and overseas shipping, leaving you to do what you do best, create graphic designs.

Some of the more successful graphic designers also have their own website to help bring traffic to their POD store. While it is not necessary to have your own website, the more people that see your product, the more sales you will make. There are graphic designers who make their living from POD income without having a website of their own.

You can earn residual income from a POD company even if you aren’t a graphic designer by selling the products and designs created by others. In other words, you can become an affiliate at virtually any POD company and sell t-shirts, coffee mugs, hats, neckties, coasters, ornaments and other Print On Demand products. The affiliate makes money, the Print On Demand company makes money, and the graphic designer makes money. The customer gets a choice of unique designs that he cannot find at the local store covering virtually every subject imaginable.

They Earn,You Earn

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To find reputable Print On Demand companies, search the internet for Print On Demand or POD and you’ll find dozens. A few of the biggest are Graphicriver,redbubble, Zazzle, Cafepress,Brandstack, Printfection, Skreened, Spreadshirt, Imagekind and E-Shirt.There are many others.

What’s more, you are not limited to one POD. You can upload your designs to multiple PODS and create residual income from each. Forums of graphic designers exist that discuss the various PODS and the business of selling your graphic designs on products over the internet.

So go forth, find a Print On Demand company or two and start your own portfolio of graphic designs on t-shirts and other products. Create your own residual income from your graphic designs.