Create Income with Zazzle at Home For Free!

So, I know we are all doing our best to stay home and be safe right now. I can imagine it has been a huge strain on the income of those who depend on their jobs, that they may not be able to attend now. Luckily for those of us willing to learn new skills and venture out, Zazzle is free for everyone!

I know what you might be thinking...

"I don't know how to make art!", or "I have no idea how to sell products online!"

Don't worry, Zazzle already makes it super easy for people to create products and make money.. And I'm about to make it even easier! I want to share with you a few simple things to help you get started on Zazzle!

(If you want to make money on Zazzle WITHOUT Creating any Products, find out how HERE)

Let me start out by saying that I am a completely self taught digital artist! I have had art classes in high school but nothing beyond this until recently. The only real skill one needs to have is the skill of Adaptation. If you are willing to learn a couple of simple (free) programs and learn how to manipulate images with those tools, then you can make money on Zazzle.

Even if you don't want to learn image editing software, you can take some winner shots with your camera, and use those images for Zazzle products! It's seriously that easy

GIMP 2.10.12

I am NOT an affiliate of GIMP in any way. I simply love and appreciate this valuable FREE tool! GIMP mirrors Photoshop in many way, and has most of the same features, but it doesn't cost $500+.

There are other versions of this program, but 2.10.12 is the version I currently have. With a little google search, you can find completely free brush packs with different textures, free gradient packs, free color palettes, and free tutorials on Youtube. It took me a while to put some effort into really learning how to use this amazing program, but once I did... I found that my design game completely changed!

The tools in GIMP include pencil, many brushes, scew, perspective (dragging corners like the screen shot you see on the laptop above), Hue-Chroma-Saturation and Color change, a fuzzy select which selects any space of the surrounding color you've chosen, Transformation and Morphing tools, Cartoonize and other popular filters, Tiling and repeat celection features... and OMGS so much more! Unlike many other image editing software, you can have multiple layers, and multiple windows open. What's more... If you make a mistake, there is an Undo History where you can click backward to any step you've performed and start again from there! It truly is fantastic!

GIMP is free to download here: https://www.gimp.org/downloads/ GIMP has been a trusted tool since 1996, and offer free tutorials for all of it's features.

• But what can I do with this?

Edit photos that you've taken and draw your own images.

• But what if I don't have any good images and lack confidence in my drawing?

IMAGES TO USE

First of all, find a way to gain more confidence! But if you truly don't feel you can create something on your own there is one resource that is well known... Public Domain Images.

There has been a huge stink about Public Domain Images, mostly raised by other designers and often times it's the idea that someone could make money for free or without much effort while they themselves are working tirelessly to create products.

Aside from that, it's important to understand that ORIGINAL work is what sells best on Zazzle for a very good reason. But also, it's nice to be a decent human being and not take other artists who provide Public Domain images to the world for granted.

The truth is that, when I started out on Zazzle about 4 years ago or something like that, I started with nothing but CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) and Public Domain Images. I was so excited! Like "Yeah! Imma make some money and I don't even have to work hard!"

Let me tell you how much of a failure it was. First, there's the fact that it's impossible to gain respect as a Designer when none of your work is original. Second, I made ZERO sales in the first 2 years! ZERO! Why? Because my content was not original, and Zazzle recognizes PD & CC0 images. So do Designers, and many Customers.

Also, I'd like to point out one of the main sources of CC0 Images: Pixabay. There are others, but to be honest, Pixabay is one the best. Just a year or 2 ago they changed their user agreement and it now states that the person using the image MUST alter the image in some way before it can be sold! So that solves the "Can I use this image just like it is on a product and sell it."

Pixabay is fantastic for artists who upload their work, because users can donate to the artist in the form of a "Coffee" which helps the artists get paid for all the hard work they do.

Regardless of what you choose to do to get started, use the images that are available to you so that you can play around with editing software and learn your strong points.

Of course, it's up to you to do your best to learn copyright laws, what they mean for you, and what you are expected to do to abide them. Zazzle has a team specifically for calling out those who violate copyright laws, and someone WILL notice! So always follow the law.

When I need free resources for images, I only ever use CC0 or Public Domain resources. It's important to make sure you trust the source you're getting your images from. There are tons of places that say "free"... And you may find yourself in a heap of trouble if you use them. Always, ALWAYS vet your sources!

There are other paid resources such as the Creative Market and Design Bundles sites that are good, and they too have their own terms of use so be clear on what you can and can't do with those resources.

LEARNING DESIGN SKILLS

I am in no way affiliated with Alison.com ! I wanted to mention this site because they have some pretty good FREE courses for Digital Design including Advanced Color Theory and Applied Design Principles. The courses offered are very in depth, incredible break downs for helping you understand what professional designers know, and how to use that knowledge to create amazing designs for your products. I admit, my designs and typography completely changed after taking some of these courses! And as a result, my sales grew because I was able to present unique work with the customer in mind.

WHAT CAN I DO WITH MY IMAGES

Sign up for a Zazzle Account and open your first store. These steps are very simple and I may talk deeper on this later on. Once you open your store and follow the promps on the store's homepage, you'll be well into creating products before you know it. I advise against "Quick Create" for a multitude of reasons. The main reason being that it's a waste of time! On the Products tab of your store, tap the blue "Create New Product" button. Here is a list of what you can create:

This view is far from complete. There are thousands of products to place your image on! When you choose the product you want to create on, you'll tap the blue "Customize" button to open up the editor and it looks like this:

Zazzle has tips and video tutorials on how to use the editor so I won't go too deep into that. But the editor has some pretty great features! It even has filters to apply to your image to change it's look. There are many wonderful fonts for text, a complete color picker... You can layer as many images as you need to on the print field, resize, flip, turn... Whatever you need to do. There is a small preview window on the bottom right so that you can see how the product will look, and when you click on that image it blows up to a larger preview where you can see all sides and situation images of the product to make sure you love how it looks before tapping "Done".

It's that easy. Once you're done, you can tap the "Sell" button and input your Title, description, tags, and royalty rate for that product. These things are going to play a crucial role in how your products gets placed and found in the marketplace, in searches, and even on google.

Zazzle has a very extensive reach and does most of the marketing for you! They have ads on Pinterest, Google search, many websites, Facebook and other Social Media, and they even do deals on Groupon. Zazzle's SEO is fantastic, and making sure that your tags, descriptions, and titles are fantastic is what will get you the most sales.

Pinterest is aother really great way to promote your products. Pinterest has become a search engine of it's own as well, and I personally have seen my sales boost WAY UP since I started using pinterest less than a year ago!

GETTING SEEN

People can't buy what they can't see!

When you've finally posted your product for sale, now it's time to promote it! But how? Where? When? I started out with simple free promotions on Facebook, which I still continue today. A great way to promote your Zazzle Store is to create a facebook page and begin sharing your product links (making sure you're signed into your zazzle account so that your referral link is intact). Zazzle has some pretty amazing sales all the time, so make sure you highlight on current sales in your text attached to the post.

I try to share on my pages frequently, and what I do once I've made a post is to go ahead and share it in as many groups as I possibly can. You can share your products on your personal account to your friends as well as sharing your page post on your personal account, but we want to reach more than your friends and family too. You can join "Buy, Sell, & Trade" groups that will allow your posts, Advertising and Promoting groups, and Artist groups as well provided they allow your product posts.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

A few years ago I tried out this tea company that turned out to be really shady, but they had a great advertising program and one of the only things I took away from that program was that Local Buy, Sell, and Trade groups bring the most customers. It actually turned out to be true for Personalized Zazzle Products as well. So what I mean by "Local" is not specifically local to you, but more as in a specific town or area, for example "Tulah County Buy, Sell, & Trade" (as an example and I don't think that's a real place haha!) But you get what I mean. It can be local to you, or local to another state. It's important to always abide the rules of any group you join of course, so make sure your posts are allowed. I always check, or message the admin and ask before I post. If you are not in that group's "local area", you may not be allowed to post in the group. Some care, some don't.

One other reason I find that local groups are more effective, is the fact that in "Advertising" groups, the majority of people in the group are TRYING TO SELL SOMETHING! I've gotten sales from these kinds of groups, but not as many as a targeted area or a targeted audience like "Witches & Pagans". Sellers of other kinds of products ARE STILL CUSTOMERS AT HOME though. So that's something to think about.

I've also found that in Promotion and Advertising Groups, some of these businesses may need things that Zazzle provides, like Business Cards, Event Invites, and other Promotional material that can be found in the "Office-Small Business Supplies" category on Zazzle. So those promoting their own business can still become your customers if you target the audience of the group you're posting to.

PINTERST BOARDS

Pinterest has become a huge deal for me lately. I don't always have time to get on there, but when I do, I try to pin as many products as I can. Zazzle also promotes on Pinterest and you may very well find your design promoted by them after you've posted it to a board! It may not seem like a big deal, but consider the thousands of people posting products to Zazzle every day. Pinterest's home page caters to the individual's viewing and pinning history. Say that you pinned a product related to other pins that you have pinned to a board. Everyone who is interested in that board or similar pins will have this pin suggested.... and everyone interested in what that person is interested in could also see it. The longer these pins stay up, the more views they acquire, raising your views per month. At a certain level of views per month (not sure on the actual number) you enter SEO and get suggested to more people. My Pinterest is currently at 180K views per month and I'm aiming so much higher! haha!

I'm learning from a wonderful lady who is also a Zazzle Designer and she has taught me how to use Pinterest the way she does to get so many views and sales. I am by far no expert! But she is, and what she says is to be sure to add other pins that compliment or go along with the Product pins. I'm not that great at it but 180K in a few months is pretty awesome I think.

BLOGGING

Well, as you can see from this particular blog that posting content people are interested in along with relevant products is pretty important. Again, this is something I've only recently started.... (again). I had several blogs over the years and sort of gave up on them because I didn't understand WHY it wasn't getting any views! The real problem was promotion and back then I didn't understand how to do that. Regardless of how amazing your blog posts are, what's most important to focus on when attempting to advertise on a blog is that the blog itself gets seen! This is going to mean learning SEO strategy for blogs in particular making sure it gets found by search engines, and making sure it gets seen on social media.

PODCAST & VIDEOS

Many people have had success with Podcasting. I'm still learning how to keep up with it and finding ways to let it help me create sales. Of course, my particular podcast isn't focused on selling products. It's focused on Occult Spirituality. But I do utilize the website to include Zazzle ads, and I sell merchandise specifically designed for the Podcast. You can check the site out here: https://quixoticeap.wixsite.com/cosmiccrowpc

Unfortunately I haven't been able to create any new episodes since after taking my son out of school. It has proven difficult to find quiet time to myself to make a recording worth listening to. But I do hope to return to that some day.

I add my podcast to videos that I upload to Youtube, with links to the site and my Zazzle shops in the description box. This, again, is something I'm not an expert on but many people have had success with Youtube and there are some wonderful free tutorials on how to make money with Podcasts and Videos.

OTHER PLATFORMS

I've heard many Designers talking about using Instagram and Twitter to generate sales. I haven't done so well with Twitter myself because I haven't taken the time to learn an Advertising Strategy for either of those platforms. But like any platform, all it takes is time, effort, and willingness to learn and adapt.

Other platforms I'm not sure about (but would like to explore) PaganSpace, Tumbler, Reddit, Qzone, LinkedIn, Medium, Mix (StumbleUpon), Skyrock, LiveJournal, and OpenDiary. There's also a great site called about.me where you can create a free profile with links to your shops. I thought it was really cool so I created one for myself. I'm not exactly sure how effective it is, but it's worth what little effort it takes.

CONCLUSION

I do hope this helps anyone interested in selling on Zazzle to make extra money in difficult times. Like I stated at the beginning of this post, you can still make money on Zazzle WITHOUT creating products! Be sure to find out how HERE.

I've been advised by others not to create posts about making money on Zazzle, but honestly... It benefits both parties whether one is promoting a product or creating one. Since this is a Pagan based blog, it would stand to reason that most people who read this are Pagan, and may very well begin creating more Pagan themed designs on Zazzle. That's a good thing for all of us, so have at it!

Hopefully you can find a beginning with what you've learned here, and I plan to share more tips and tricks as soon as I'm able.

I would also like to add that if you decide to create Spiritual/Pagan/Wiccan products on Zazzle I will gladly share those on my Pinterest, and here on this blog!

Thank you for reading! Have a Blessed Day and Stay Safe!

Making $$$ on Zazzle WITHOUT Creating Products!

Yes! You really can make extra money on Zazzle without creating any products! In fact, you can make MORE from my products than I do! How? Let's talk about it...

If you'd like to become a Designer on Zazzle, check out THIS POST.

BECOME A ZAZZLE AFFILIATE (Associate)

I have a lot of people ask me why I promote other people's products as well as mine. "You're trying to make money right? Why would you promote other artists? Aren't you competing for the sale?"

No, we are not in competition. I promote other artist's work as an affiliate, as well as my own products as a designer. There's one simple reason for this: Affiliates make 15% of every sale made by clicking one of their links! 15%

For those of you who aren't creating products on Zazzle, the royalty rate we set our products at plays a part in why affiliates make more money than designers in a lot of cases. For example: I never set my rate any higher than 13%, and items I sell the most are set between 10-12%. Why? Because in the marketplace one must compete with other's products to an extent. A big part of that is the price. It's debatable and I've seen a lot of sellers who set their rates much higher and say they still get a lot of sales. They say it's Consumer logic to think that the higher priced item is better. However, I've also done some digging into ProDiamond and ProPlatinum sellers and I notice that their rates aren't typically higher than my own.

What you need to know as a potential Affiliate is that when we set our rate to 15% we are charged an extra fee, so most designers don't do it. This means that you make more money than the designers do on their designs in many cases.

HOW DOES THE AFFILIATE PROGRAM WORK?

Quite simply, you take a link and post it... Anywhere people are likely to click on it. Anytime you sell a product, you make 15%. It's that easy.

When you create an account on Zazzle you are given a Referral Number. While you are logged into your account, you can use the various share buttons (one of which is a link button) to share the link with your referral number already attached. You can also add your referral number to any link on Zazzle, and Zazzle will provide information on how to do that! These links have a 45 day cookie which means if someone visits the link without buying, but then goes back a few days later to buy, your referral number is still active and you will still get your 15%. You can find all of the Zazzle Associate Program details here: https://www.zazzle.com/sell/affiliates

Follow the prompts at the link above to sign up for a free Zazzle account and start making money now!

WHAT LINKS SHOULD I BE SHARING?

There are product links and share buttons on every single product page and you can promote any product on Zazzle that you want. Zazzle also provides pre-made Banners for the site, and they give you a link for each one with your referral link already within it (provided you are signed into you account).

Here is one of their Banners:

I won't lie... I'd love for you to promote my products! But you can promote any product you that you can find an audience for.

CLICK HERE to learn more about promoting (closer to the bottom of the post)

Options for promotion include Social Media, Video Ads, Blogging, Radio & Podcasting, as well as others.

WHAT KIND OF PRODUCTS DOES ZAZZLE CARRY?

There are literally Hundreds of Thousands of products on Zazzle created by very talented designers! Zazzle's Categories include:

Accessories (229)
Art & Wall Décor (171)
Baby & Kids (251)
Clothing & Shoes (115)
Crafts & Party Supplies (294)
Electronics (257)
Home (540)
Invitations & Stationery (207)
Office & School (417)
Sports, Toys & Games (78)
Weddings (596)

The numbers next to each department show how many blank products are within each one. This view comes from the creation link for designers, and each are hyperlinked, hopefully so that you can take a look at what items are within each category. By their creator list of categories, Zazzle currently has 3,155 products for designers to post their artwork on for selling.

DESIGNERS & AFFILIATES WORKING TOGETHER

It's important for Designers and Affiliates to work together. Why?

Because EVERYONE WINS! I've often felt an air of competition on Zazzle, and I've witnessed it in the designer forums as well. Some have this idea that they must compete with other designers in order to make money. Yes, to an extent there is competition to be placed in search results and in the marketplace. However, many sales will come organically through affiliate links that are found on social media, blogs, or elsewhere.  We all know that organic traffic is best, and we also know that if our descriptions, tags, and titles are appropriate the customer WILL find our product when they search for what they want.

This air of competition, for the most part, must end if we plan to be successful and actually make money on Zazzle.

When you create a Zazzle account, you will gain access to the Zazzle Forum and there are 2 areas in the forum specifically for Affiliates: "Affiliate Design Requests", & "Affiliate Theory Advice and Generating Traffic".

The Affiliate Design Requests is where Affiliates post designs they want to see on specific products. If you accept the request and design what they want, they will then promote the product. This is an important strategy for Affiliates, because they are better acquainted with what their particular audience wants! If you are a beginner Affiliate, consider who you will be promoting to and make sure you give them exactly what they're looking for. Most successful sellers on Zazzle focus on precise niches, and as an Affiliate you will also have to decide what niches will be valuable to your viewers.

The Affiliate Theory Advice and Generating Traffic is exactly what it sounds like. Affiliates discuss there how to target their audience and specific techniques for getting traffic through to their links. It's very important information and will make a huge difference in your own success to pay attention to those who are already making money.

WORKING WITH DESIGNERS

Designers and Affiliates work well together when everyone is clear on what they need and what they like.

As an artist, it may initially be difficult to consider what the customer wants. I know it was for me at first because I simply love to create art and I already have an idea in mind for what I'm creating. But as time went by I realized how much money I was missing out on by not being flexible.

Many Affiliates expect Designers to do this. Many customers expect Designers to do this as well. If I've created something that someone likes, but they say "Can you just make that a different color, and move this thing over, and remove that particular image?"... I will do it as quickly as I can. This builds report with customers and Affiliates who will likely come to you again with requests... and that means more sales!

When you become an Affiliate, be sure you are prepared to ask for what you want. You can always choose from the thousands of products already on Zazzle, but if you like someone's style and want to cater to a specific audience, be completely clear in what you want.

One Affiliate, which I now consider a dear friend, has absolutely no problem telling me what she does and doesn't like. She will straight up tell me, "You need to move that thing, or make this color brighter. I like it but it's just off center. It needs to be fixed." At first I was put off and kind of feeling pushed around, but I realize that she's been designing for many years and that she wouldn't tell me something that isn't going to benefit both of us. Her instinct and technique is incredible, and I have come to value everything she says to me with the highest respect.

The point I wanted to make here, is that if we work together in a professional and friendly way, we all make more money than we ever would alone. It's just a WIN-WIN situation.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

I hope I've covered the most important topics here for potential Affiliates. When you create your account, you can go to "My Account" by hovering over your avatar in the top right corner. On that "My Account" page you'll find everything you need from Zazzle Tutorials to Promotional Tools.

While you may be stuck at home right now... Never underestimate the buying capabilities of other people who are also stuck at home. I've made 7 sales in the past few days which is way more than I expected (with what's currently happening in the world).

When I first started creating seriously on Zazzle, I definitely underestimated potential sales in the Pagan Community. My Pagan/Witchcraft focused shop sells more products than any other shop! If you're interested in selling within that niche you can visit the Cosmic Crow Designs shop to see what products are available.

Thank you so much for reading! I wish you Abundance and Success!