Creating a Product for a Niche Category.

If you are an artist, you probably have your pet projects you are passionate about creating. And that is wonderful, it's what makes you special as an artist. But if you want to make money selling your art, you also have to learn to market yourself, unless you are lucky and have an agent or publicist to do it for you.
How do you make sure to sell products? Create things people want to buy. It sounds simple, but multi-million dollar companies lose tons of money every year trying, and failing to do just that.

One thing to remember when you are creating products for POD sites: You are one in a million. But that doesn't mean selling cards is hopeless. It just means you have to do your research, and create cards for niche categories. Because many times, people don't come into a POD site to browse like they do a brick-and-mortar store, they come in because they have been sent there by a search engine. That's one reason why tags and descriptive words are so important, but that's a whole other blog post. I will give you an example.
On one POD site I design cards for, Greeting Card Universe, one of my most successful categories is will you be my bridesmaid cards. There are currently 5,245 cards in this category. So it could take you years to get your cards noticed in this category (unless you do a brilliant job marketing, more on that in a future post.)
If you examine the category closer, though, you will find it branches out into specific relationships. Will you be my bridesmaid Sister, Mother, Friend, and so on. There are only 326 cards for friend. so if you design a card with a heartfelt request for a friend to be your bridesmaid, you will have a much better chance of filling a niche need and getting noticed.

You can go a step further and create for a relation-specific theme. One theme that never grows old is the fairytale wedding. How many cards are for Bridesmaid invitation, friend, Cinderella? One.

So you can see, with a little time and effort, you can create cards that will be noticed even before people log on to the site.

Here's another example. On GCU, there are currently 197,332 cards for birthday. So if you design just a birthday card, you will be lost in the flurry. O.k., but what about a funny birthday card? Funny birthday cards are one of the most-searched for categories on the site. Well, that narrows it down... to 2,884. But what if you have a peacock fan in your life? Suddenly, it gets narrowed down... to two. 

(All images on this page by Cherie Haines. All cards available at our shop here.)

I would love to hear your thoughts about creating cards for a niche! Feel free to add questions or comments below!

Make Money Selling Greeting Cards and Other POD Products

I worked for a major card company for several years, and as I restocked cards, I would read the ones that caught my eye and think, "I bet I could write something better." I looked into selling ideas to major card companies but very few accepted unsolicited submissions.

About five years ago I was looking for greeting card publishers online. I had made some greeting cards by hand, incorporating my sister's photographs with my prose, and they were selling pretty well at a local bookstore. I really wanted an easier way to create them, so I thought I would search the trusty ol' web. And that's when I found a website that would change my life. Greeting Card Universe. You create a store with your uploaded designs. When a customer orders your design, the company prints and ships the product. You receive a commission.

I read through the site information carefully and then started designing cards using my good ol' Picture It! program. My first few cards weren't super fancy, but they were fun and simple to design. I loaded them up and presto! I had my very own card store.

I had checked out the best selling cards on the site, and noticed "Will You be my Bridesmaid?" cards did very well. I found a picture my sister had taken at a quinceanera, and the infamous "hem card" was created.

After five years, we have made thousands of dollars on this card and variations with same photo. We also joined Zazzle, another POD website where you can put photos and text on mugs, T-shirts, lamps, and hundreds of other products. You can see our store at http://zazzle.com/fairygirlbooks*



Here are a few tips for starting your own store:

• Take a look at some of the top-selling products and categories. Try to find card categories that have best-selling cards but only a small selection. This is a good way to stand out and start selling cards right away.
• Keep your finger on the pulse of the trend. Jungle-themed baby showers? Steampunk weddings? Create designs with trends in mind.
• Watch the forums. You can find a wealth of information and ideas just by asking.
• Put your product out there. Start a Facebook page for your cards(you can see ours here) sites pay for referrals even for other people's designs, so start Pinterest pages with themed cards and other products including your own. Don't just assume items will sell themselves, get out there!
• Find a brick-and-mortar store that will carry your cards. Some cards really do sell well as impulse buys, so see if you can find a bookstore, gift shop, bakery or other place of business that will host a small rack or spinner for you.

Create a website and blog with your cards. (You can see ours here)

I hope this is helpful information to at least get you started! Feel free to comment with any more ideas or questions!