Adding Almost Passive Income

The photo of the two bear cubs above was taken last summer when I participated in a black bear field study course with the Dr. Lynn Rogers of the Wildlife Research Institute.  It was an incredible experience to study bears in their natural habitat up close and personal. I then wrote about it for Narrative.ly and Kristie Burns of the BEarth Institute leant her fantastic photographic skills. Writing, photographing, composing, pitching ideas to magazines and newspapers and publishers, these are very active ways to make income. And they are necessary in creative professions. 

But equally necessary, and sometimes overlooked, is the making of more passive income. How can you take what you've already created and have it continue to bring in revenue, the way royalties come in from books that were long ago published? (The book writing and selling to the publisher is active; income that comes later is a bit more passive). Artists know that they often sell more prints of a particular painting than the painting's more expensive original. This is one reason why they do signed and numbered editions.

The IRS has a very limited definition of passive income: income from a rental property or a business activity in which the investor doesn't materially participate. But a slightly broader definition, used in business, would be income resulting from cash flow received on a regular basis, requiring minimal to no effort by the recipient to maintain it.

Last week, I was contracted to write an article for Craft Industry Alliance  on print on demand (POD) companies that can be used by artists, designers and other creative types to create mass market products from their designs. And as I've been researching and talking to the experts who use these services, I've learned 1) plenty of companies around the world do variations on POD services and 2) some people claim to be making a lot of money with POD designs on things like t-shirts, fabric, leggings, coffee mugs, prints on canvas or posters, iPhone cases and a whole wealth of tchotchkes.  

Jules at CreatingBeautifully.com featured one such artist in Austria who sells on RedBubble.who talked about how she started selling her designs. Other bloggers, creative consultants and designers have written about how they sell on Society6 and TeeShop,. And some have even written e-books about how to do so. After reading a few of these blogs and articles, I decided to try it for myself. I already make passive income through rental properties and royalties from books and stories. I used to have a store for my artwork on OpenSky (but that was definitely active income as I painted commissioned work). Sites like RedBubble charge no upfront fees. (It works a lot like Amazon's CreateSpace: free uploads and pays a percentage from your monthly sales, and they do all of the sales, printing and shipping).

I'm not sure yet about the quality of the products beyond reviews already on the site. I know with Amazon CreateSpace, quality varies. Author and dancer Alison Rose has told stories of how sometimes her children's picture book Shoes Off, Mommy? has upside down pages within the covers; I have not had this problem with CreateSpace but I can understand how that could happen.  

So this past Saturday, I set up a store on RedBubble so people can order travel mugs, pillows and a plethora of products based on my paintings and photographs. I will upload other designs regularly as that's what the experts say to do to get noticed. The whole setting up process was relatively quick and easy. The site is very user friendly.

Today, I ordered some samples of my products so I can investigate the quality myself. I'll let you know in future weeks what I think of the RedBubble products and how sales are going. And if you're a creative who has POD stores, feel free to comment below about how that is going for you, what you like or don't like about it, and anything you think would be useful for freelance and entrepreneurial people to know about Print on Demand. I look forward to our conversation. 
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