How to Design and Earn Money on Graphicriver

In the economy we are living today it is great to find a place where you can earn money to supplement your income, without having to deal with clients and the added stress of deadlines. I just started selling items on Graphicriver about five months ago and it has been going pretty good, much more than I expected! Church Marketing Designs were lacking on the site, so I decided to design some templates for that particular market and it has been a blessing. The competition on Graphicriver is very healthy and it drives me to do better. Graphicriver accepts only the best of the best work. They accept work based on their usability, flexibility, general design quality and how you implement current trends. Here are a few pointers that can help you to be a successful author.

 

Have a Goal

If you are deciding to sell items on Graphicriver or any of the other Envato Marketplace, its important to set some goals for yourself. This will help to motivate you in accomplishing your task. The higher your goal, the higher your motivation will be to pump out those designs.

 

Catch up on your Skills

Read design magazines that are going to help you to design with current trends and quality standards, I would suggest magazines like Computer Arts Magazine and Websites like PSDTUTS+ and Abduzeedo.com

 

Do Research and Find a Nitch

It’s very important to do your research before starting to develop files for Graphicriver. Take a look at all their categories and see how many pages of a particular item they have in the marketplace, some items may be needed more than others. Categories that are full may be missing a particular style, design type, genre etc. Some items may not be represented fully or may not be represented at all, if you can accomplish the task of designing for that particular area then that is wide open for you, you can even set the bar in that area.

 

Be Different

Most importantly, you have to be different in your approach to design, don’t try to replicate someone else’s work, it is very tempting and I have fallen into that trap before. There are so many great designs in the marketplace already, the reviewers are looking for designs that are quality but out of the box, if you are submitting something that has the style of an item that is already in the shop, it has to be as good, better or has some twist to it that begs for attention, remember the reviewers are looking at great files everyday, so by now they have seen it all, so surprise them, try to do something that no one on the marketplace is doing.

 

Design for Seasons and Holidays

Creating Seasonal Templates is the best way to increase you sales, customers are always looking for items for the major Holidays like Christmas, New Year, Valentines Day etc. Plan to design your pieces a month ahead of time, so that you have time for inspiration and execution. Allow time for uploading your files, and most of all for rejections and corrections. Getting your files accepted way ahead of time is beneficial to both sellers and buyers, because sellers, get that early earnings which is always nice to have and in turn the buyers, get enough time to play around with the template and send it off to print, it’s a win, win situation. One delightful thing that I found out is that your seasonal templates will also sell out of season, because buyers have multiple uses for design templates.

 

Review your Files

This is just an extra but vital step you can take in reducing the amount of rejected files. Have someone other than yourself review your files before uploading, you can ask for help from a trusted online Graphic Design friend, family member, someone you know from design school, but most importantly choose a person that will give you a honest review. Honest reviews usually hurt, but in the end your goal is to get your file accepted and start making you some money.

 

Present your Files with Style

Presentation is everything, so make sure to do proper mock-ups and previews of your templates, so that the buyer can have a good representation of how the product will look when printed. The great thing is that the Marketplace already have a host of Product Mock-up Templates that you can buy at great prices. Keep in mind that your preview images should be professional, crisp and clean, do not blow your images up so much that they look pixelated, this is a turn off for buyers! Use the save for web function in Photoshop to optimize your preview. I usually save my previews at 65% quality, this gives a nice medium and the images looks clean and load pretty fast.

 

Getting Your Files Accepted

The more usable and practical your item is, the more chances it has to be accepted in the marketplace. With Graphicriver you have to be tough, persistent and be able to take rejections, some files I submit got rejected and it was hard on my ego because I spend a lot of time designing my templates and preparing them for upload, that being said here are my recommendations for getting your files accepted….

1. Read all their submission rules and get to know them well.
2. Submit only the BEST of your BEST work.
3. Look at the quality of the Top Authors.
4. Organize, Name and Color your Photoshop Layers.
5. Check your work for any mistakes before uploading

 

How to Market your Item

Any successful business need a marketing strategy and that rule can be implemented on Graphicriver. Luckily for you, Social Marketing is Free, with a little time and effort given to it.

1. Make sure you have 30 good keywords to place in the keyword section when you are uploading an item. keywords are extremely important for people to find your products on the site and on Search Engines. You can get good keyword for your items with Google Adwords.

2. Promote your item on every social network you are capable of doing. Amenme (christian), Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Blinklist, Diigo, Friendfeed, Google, Messenger, Linkedin, Orkut, Yahoo Bookmarks, Digg, Flickr, Deviant Art, Dribbble etc. If you use Firefox Web Browser, you can get a plugin that’s called “Addthis” at Addthis.com, which has all the social networks I mentioned, so it is easy to submit. Marketing to social networks, will increase the item visibility on the net, especially in Google searches.

Note: You don’t really have to stress yourself too much with Marketing, because Graphicriver has a excellent SEO and your items get picked up in Google immediately if you have good keywords:

 

Join the Referral Program

The Envato Marketplace has one of the best Referral Programs allowing you to receive 30% of any sales you get through your efforts, that is HUGE!!. Most authors do not know that they can potentially double their earnings by just referring someone to the site. If a new user clicks your referrer link and proceeds to sign up an account and purchase an item or deposit money via any Envato Marketplace, you will receive 30% of that person’s first cash deposit or purchase price. So if they deposit $20 into their account, you get $6; if they deposit $100, you get $30; if they buy a $200 item, you’ll get $60! Here are a few ways you can use the referral program to your advantage. Note: You DO NOT need to sell items to join the referral program.

1. Promote your items with your referral link IMMEDIATELY!!
2. Promote other authors items with your referral link
3. Place a referral link in your email signature
4. Create a blog post with top selling items with your referral link
5. Promote Graphic River Bundles with your referral link
6. Place Referral Banners on your Blog with your referral link

 

Take part in Community Competitions

Once in a while there are community competitions that gives you the chance of creating files for areas on the site that need particular file types, this help to build your portfolio, plus you are automatically entered in the chance to win big prizes. Here is the link to the current competition. Win Two hundred Bucks and other Goodies!

 

Have Fun!

The best thing about selling items on Graphicriver is all the fun you can have, if you enjoy what you do as a designer and you are motivated, then all the extra time you spend designing will pay off. If you get stressed out, you can always take as much time off as you want, there is no deadlines, you are your own boss, your motivation from the goal you set for yourself will bring you back to the drawing board, just have fun doing what you love!