Table of Contents
What are printables?
Printables are pdf files that can be bought, downloaded, and printed as many times as the customer wants. The pdf could be a piece of art, a table, a chart, etc.
There are many different kinds of printables you can easily make and sell to earn extra money this month.
You can make a printable of the calendar for instance or a coloring page.
Step 1: Research the kind of printables you want to make
Here are some of the most common types of printables:
- Coloring pages
- Flashcards of words for children
- Dish duty chart
- Laundry duty chart
- Mazes for children
- Props for photobooth
- Wedding table number cards
- Weekly planner
- Diary pages
- Calorie tracker
- Budget planner
- Decoration/art
Think about which of the above interest you. Now that you have your picks, go to Etsy and type in the names of the printables and see what pops up.
For instance, if I type in “Weely planner printable” into Etsy, this is what I’d see.
You can sort by top customer reviews to find the best products to model from and take notes from.
Click on one listing that isn’t too complicated and has got many positive customers reviews. Ideally, they should have 4 or more stars.
Take a look at the listing below.
They have a pretty minimalistic weekly planner design. This is something you can easily make with Canva. We’ll talk about how you’ll do exactly that.
Take a look at several different designs to inspire you. Take note of what the customer likes. You can go to the reviews to see what the customers like and don’t like to incorporate into your own design.
Step 2: Go to Canva and create a design
Now head on over to Canva. Canva is a free graphic design website. Want to know the 14 ways to make money in Canva? Click here.
You’ll create an account on Canva and log in.
Once you logged in to Canva, you’ll click on the “Create a design” button and then click on the “custom size” button on the bottom.
Type in “8” under width and “11” under height. Make sure it’s set to inches. Then, click on Create a new design
You can see templates on the left. You can use that if you want but in this example, we’ll start blank. We’ll create a minimalistic weekly planner.
You can click on the “elements” tab on the left and search “line” to find the line you want. Click and drag into space. You can also adjust for thickness and color.
Click on the “text” tab on the left to drag a text into space.
You can change the font by clicking on the text box first. The top menu will appear. Select the font you want. You can choose to import your own font but you’ll have to subscribe to Canva Pro to access that feature.
Here I type in the names of the week. To center your texts, you’ll click on the three dots on the top right of the screen. Click on “position”.
This box will show up. Play around with the buttons to see what button will make your texts center on the right axis. Ctrl + Z to undo.
For me, I clicked on “center” under “align elements” and “vertically” as well as “tidy up” under “space evenly”.
Here’s the end product.
It’s a very simple design.
To download, click on the “share” button in the top right corner and then click on “download”. It’s better to offer both PNG and PDF files for your customers.
Down the PNG file and the PDF Print file separately.
You can directly upload this to Etsy now if you want but you can choose to make it an editable PDF using PDF escape. Personally, I would stop here with this one but if you’re making a grocery checklist, for instance, you can make your PDF editable. Go to the next step.
Step 3: Edit your file on Pdf escape
Go to pdfescape.com. You can sign up for an account for free.
Click on the “Free online” button and upload your file.
Once you uploaded your file, you’ll see this page.
To make your pdf editable, you can click on the button on the top left corner called “form field”.
You have many options to choose from. You can draw a text box for people to type things in.
You can have a checkbox for people to check things off. You can have a dropdown for people to choose from. In this example, we’ll have a checkbox. Click on the “Checkbox” in the dropdown.
You can click anywhere on the screen and the checkbox will appear. Click the box to uncheck. Drag the box into space and resize it if needed.
If you want to delete the checkbox, click on the trashcan icon on the top.
When you’re done, you can hit “save”. It’s on the left-hand side of the screen. And then click the green button underneath that to download the PDF.
Congratulations! You just made an editable PDF!
Step 4: Upload your printables to Etsy
Now that you have your PDF and PNG file ready, it’s time to upload it to Etsy.
Go to Etsy.com
Once you are signed in, go to your “shop manager”. The button should be on the top right-hand corner somewhere. When you’re at the Shop Manager page, click on “listings”.
Then, you’ll find the “Add a listing” button on the top right-hand corner.
Click on the “Add a listing” button.
You’ll see this page.
Add photos and video if you have any. You can give a partial preview of the pdf. Again, you can make the mockup using Canva.
You’ll also want to add a title, fill out “who made it”, “what is it”, and “when did you make it”.
For who made it, click on “I did”. For what is it? Click on “a finished product”. For when did you make it, click on “made to order”.
For category, type in “printables” and select the first option.
You can choose automatic renewal or manual renewal. If you choose automatic, it’ll charge you 20 cents every 4 months for the renewal fee as long as there are still items left in stock.
Under Type, click on “digital” since it is a printable you’re selling.
Make sure to give it a good description. Take a look at what the best-sellers are saying in their descriptions.
You don’t have to add a production partner if you made it yourself.
You can add 13 tags.
Then, you’ll set the price. Price your printable at the price that others are selling their printables at.
You can make the domestic and global prices the same or different.
Fill out the quantity, you can put down ‘10’ or ‘999’ whatever you want. If you had chosen automatic and it isn’t sold out at the end of the listing period, the listing will renew automatically every 4 months and it’ll charge you $0.20 USD each time.
You can add a note for buyers who downloaded your digital file. Click on the underlined text in the “digital files” section if you wish to do so.
Click on “upload file” and select the files you want to upload. You can add up to 5 files.
When you’re done, click on “publish”.
There, your printable is now available on Etsy!
Where to get graphics for your printables
When you’re making printables, you may find that Canva doesn’t have all the pictures, graphics, icons, you want, you can get them from the following places:
- CreativeMarket
- Creative Fabrica
- Pixelbay
- Unsplash
Just to name a few. Some of those are free while others need you to pay to download the graphics.
These graphics could be leaf decorations for instance or even fonts.
Places to sell your printables
Here are some places you can sell your printables:
- Etsy
- Creative Fabrica
- Gumroad
- CreativeMarket
Final thought
In this article you learned:
- How to research digital products to make
- How to make printables using Canva
- How to use PDF escape to make editable printables
- How to upload a printable on Etsy
I hope you can use what you learned today to create an extra source of income for you. Good luck!
