- Rebecca Beach sells PowerPoint and Canva templates and printables online.
- She started a blog in 2015. Once it gained traction, she realized she could make a living from it.
- Now she brings in about $30,000 a month in income and has memberships and an email list.
This essay is based on a conversation with Rebecca Beach, a mid-40s Dallas, TX-based business owner who sells printables. The insider verified his earnings and profits with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I create PowerPoint and Canva templates for personal and commercial use that others can customize and then resell as their own. It may take time to make printables, so my templates speed up the design process. I also sell spreadsheets, courses, and membership, and do one-on-one coaching to help others start their own business.
I spent 20 years in web design and development before starting my business, PLR range. At first, when I was only selling printables with personal use licenses, several people asked me if I could also create printables for commercial use, so I added them to my offers.
My business now brings in around $30,000 a month in revenue. My net sales in 2022 were $350,000 and my gross profit was nearly $200,000. All of my income is passive because I create a digital product once and then I can sell it over and over forever.
I started with a blog called Mom Beach, which I started while my son was pregnant.
In 2018, after being laid off from my job as a senior UX designer and contract developer at Verizon, I took six weeks off to fully focus on my blog.
My content is about working from home and starting an online business. I designed my blog myself – I learned HTML, Javascript and CSS in high school – but then hired a blog designer to redesign it.
I started a new job as a senior web developer at American Airlines after the six-week hiatus, but continued to run my blog on the side. I noticed I was getting free traffic from Google and Pinterest, so I decided to cash in and start selling printables. If you have a blog but aren’t selling products, you’re leaving money on the table. In April 2019, I connected a “shop” link in my navbar to a Shopify store.
In the beginning, I only averaged $100 in sales per month. My husband, who is now very supportive of my print business, was skeptical about the good use of my time. A friend told me that my blog was a “chimera” and that I should focus on my full-time job. A close family member laughed and said, “Don’t quit your day job! I didn’t let their negativity affect me and continued to blog and create printables.
I started generating six figure income from my business in 2020. Once we had to get back to the office after the pandemic, I decided to quit my day job.
I am inspired by many places
I’ll be looking on Pinterest and Etsy for ideas. I also checked Amazon, Michaels and Barnes and Noble to see what planners they have for sale and read fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle to see what colors are trending.
I add at least two new products every month to my shop. Sometimes when I create a blog post, I create a specific product to sell for that post. For example, I had a blog post about saving money on a cruiseso i did a printable cruise trip planner.
I also sell financial printables and spreadsheets. I fell into the finance niche because I lived paycheck to paycheck and have since rebuilt my credit rating and savings.
I grew my printables business through freelancers, email and memberships
I use independent designers and artists from Upwork to help me create planners and coloring pages, and so far I’ve hired over 20 freelancers. It is totally worth it and has freed up a lot of my time.
I have two mailing lists, one with over 151,000 subscribers and one with over 7,000 subscribers. To build my list, I wrote blog posts that targeted my audience, then placed a signup form in the post at least three times.
I have been using email since the beginning of my blog. Having an email list is more valuable than having social media followers. Many businesses have lost followers and likes overnight due to algorithm changes, but once someone subscribes to your list, they stay there until they unsubscribe.
In 2021, I launched two subscriptions costing $29 and $99 per month, where clients can access exclusive courses, coaching sessions and printables. I started memberships after customers asked for more help selling printables, and I currently have around 190 members.
I grew my business 100% organically using Pinterest and Google, but I’m thinking of scaling my business with Facebook and Pinterest ads this year because Google stopped ranking a few of my best posts on the first page after an algorithm change several months ago. Luckily, it didn’t hurt my income because I collected so many subscribers during the traffic surge.
My printables business means I can be there for my family
I can work as little or as much as I want. I get up at 9 a.m. and write my email to send for the day. Then I check client emails, have lunch, and work on my printables.
I stop work at 3:30 p.m. to pick up my son from school. When we get home, I can give him 100% of my focus. I don’t answer any emails and don’t even go on the computer at night. I want to be there for my family when they are home.
One of my clients, a mom in my membership program, started last year and was able to quit her job with no way out last month. Anyone can do it.