Justyna Dorsz

“Spacing Out” design sales stats

I plan to share sales data of all my designs. Everyone always asks how much you can earn. Today, let’s see sales stats for “Spacing Out”.

"Spacing Out" by Justyna Dorsz
“Spacing Out”
Sales Stats

Average Monthly Earnings: $16

Total Earned: $655

It earns me only $16 per month. Not much. But that’s the thing about passive income — you make a design once and then it keeps earning you money without you doing anything else. And when you have 30 designs, or 50, or 100, and each one brings in a small passive income — well, you do the math.

As with many of my designs, when I drew it, I wasn’t sure if I should publish it. But I did, and now I have an additional $655 that I wouldn’t have, had I not submitted it to Threadless.

“Spacing Out” T-Shirt

Space Botanica

You’ve probably heard that you should choose a niche for your store and that all your designs in that store should be thematically consistent. If you want to make designs with a completely different topic or style, then you should create a new store for them. When customers visit your store or see your logo, they should know what to expect.

When I was starting with designing t-shirts, I heard that too. I had a separate store for my designs with ducks — somehow that store never got popular. And another store with monsters, it didn’t get any traffic either. I also had a store named “Fox Shiver” that was supposed to be about little foxes in frozen lands. I didn’t know it was going to be as popular as it is, so I kept adding different designs to it — a lot of cats and space art. Now my store is a mess, and I might need to fix it one day. Or maybe I will leave it as is.

Here’s one of the designs that should not be in my store. It’s plants and space combined. When I made it, I only had a separate store for ducks and another one for monsters, but not a store for space designs. So I added it to my Fox Shiver store.

Space Botanica

When you decided on a niche and know what you want to draw, then that’s good. You are probably a more organized person than a lot of artists and definitely more than me. If you can’t decide on a niche, don’t worry about it. You can add all your designs to one store, and after a while, you will see what’s popular or what you like to draw the most. You can always move some designs to another store if you want to. The important thing is to create.

Adventures in Crime Fighting

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

My blog is becoming monothematic lately. I’ve been spending much of my time dealing with people who steal my designs and sell them as their own, and so I mostly write about that.

Two days ago, I reported listings with my art to Amazon. They acted on it immediately and removed the listings. A few sellers then wrote to me asking to let them keep selling apparel with my design. Here are some quotes:

  • “let us sell this t-shirt till they are sold out as we have massive inventory in Amazon”
  • “this t-shirt is the best seller in our store”
  • “the new employee listed it”
  • “in the future send your designs to us”
  • “you know sometimes we can’t know if we have infringed other’s copyright”

People don’t realize that what they did is a criminal offense. But when more and more artists start suing them over copyright infringement, they will soon learn.

Artists and lawyers

I hired a law firm a month ago. I wrote about it here and here.

On Monday, I spent two hours at a notary public office authenticating another bunch of screenshots of websites where my design was sold illegally. It will be used in court.

I thought it was unusual to sue someone over the use of your art. Before I talked with a lawyer in December, I hadn’t even been sure if my art was protected by law. Now I am much more informed about my rights.

And it looks like other artists are too! This past month I talked with others and it turns out that some of them have attorneys too. There’s greater awareness among artists now. Some have considered hiring lawyers, but are afraid of costs, and I understand that. I was worried too, at first. But my lawyer is excellent, and thanks to her negotiation skills, some of the sellers have already paid the compensation, so my legal fees are completely covered.

I talk about it with any artist who wants to know because it’s my hope that more and more artists will consider protecting their art through legal means.

One thing that surprised me after I hired a lawyer and we contacted the illegal sellers and asked them to pay the compensation — is that so many of them think that they did nothing wrong. In their minds stealing art is not a crime, some claim that it’s barely a minor offense. I wonder what their possible defense will be in court.

It is payday

Source: Dungeon Keeper Wiki

There’s an old, but awesome, game called Dungeon Keeper. Have you played it? There was also a sequel. You are an evil overlord of a dungeon and you have minions that do your bidding. You have to pay them though, so every once in a while the narrator would say “It is payday” and all the minions would go to your treasury and take most of your gold.

The voice that says “It is payday” stayed with me forever. Here, listen to it:

Voiceover by Richard Riding

So, I thought about it today because today is a payday of sorts.

You probably already know that Threadless is my favorite website to sell designs on. I write about them so much that soon you will think that my posts are sponsored. But I have to let you know about another good thing that comes from working with them. You see, they have partnerships with companies like Hot Topic and TK Maxx. Every now and then some of your designs might be selected and, with your permission, sold in Hot Topic and TK Maxx stores or on their websites.

You get paid every quarter, and today is payday.

Open your Threadless Artist Shop here 🙂

A note on promoting your art

Yesterday someone asked me for tips on marketing and getting traffic to your store. These questions come up often. Too bad, I can’t help with that.

My strategy has always been to create good designs. I assumed that people would find their way to my designs somehow, even if I don’t promote them in any way.

And they did!

If what’s stopping you from opening your store, is the fact that you have no followers on Instagram and Twitter, or that you know nothing about marketing — then stop worrying about that. Create designs, upload them, do your part. Trust that if you create consistently, then people will notice and buy from you.

Along the way, post your art on social media of your choice. The most important part is to create something and add it to your store.

Repeat it 50 times and you will get sales.

Tagged With:

How to protect your art

If you create designs and submit them to online stores like Redbubble or Teepublic, you will soon find out that there are a lot of thieves. They will steal your designs and try to sell them in their own stores.

Luckily, there’s an easy way to deal with them. You have to send a Notice of Copyright Infringement (or DMCA Notice) to the website that stolen images are sold on.

So, let’s say you notice your art being sold without your permission in someone else’s store. All stores have dedicated email addresses for reporting copyright infringement.

You can find how to write a notice of copyright infringement on the Internet so I won’t repeat that here. But I will show you the template that I use for reporting stolen art. You can copy it, supply your links where indicated, and send it.

My DMCA Template

Hello,

<–Short intoduction, e.g.: My name is…, My website/porfolio … –>

The material being infringed upon:

<—Here you provide the title of your artwork that was stolen and a link to your design online, it can be on your website, or any of your stores. –>

The material that is infringing upon my intellectual property:

<— Here you provide links where your design is sold illegally –>

My data:

<–Your full name –>

<–Your address –>

<–Your phone number –>

<–Your e-mail address –>

I have a good faith belief that the content described above violates my rights described above, and that the use of such content is contrary to law.

I declare, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained in this notification is correct and accurate and that I am the owner of the rights described above.

Best regards,

<– Your full name –>

End of DMCA Template

So tragic, so funny

We all get sad, we all have doubts, we are demotivated, confused. But we don’t necessarily want to wear it on our t-shirts for all the world to see. That would be like telling everyone you meet that you are depressed or endlessly complaining about your life.

Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1216219-adventure-time

But if you can make a bad situation funny, you create a distance. I keep it in mind when designing. I touched on this subject when I wrote about “Not Today” and “Overthinking and Also Hungry”. Designs need to be relatable — overthinking and not feeling motivated are things that everyone deals with.

But sometimes I take it even a step further.

Cozy and Despairing - by Justyna Dorsz
Little cat in a fluffy blanket. Cozy and despairing.

I wouldn’t wear a t-shirt with just the “despairing” word, unless maybe in an ironic sort of way. But that’s the thing, I can only show my emotions when I create some distance: if it’s either somehow ironic, or humorous. I don’t really want everyone to see that I am in my “despairing” mood, but I can wear a funny t-shirt that encapsulates this mood.