Pay your rent with Zazzle

1. Learn Photoshop. If you want to make money selling t-shirts, you have to know how to use photoshop (see the youtube links below). If you can't make good designs, you can't make your rent from zazzle. A good design could simply be text, but you have to know how to arrange it, center or offset it, sizing and how to make the background transparent for black/dark t-shirts.

Sign up for a good clipart or photo site, like Clipart.com or Photos.com. This will help your designs tremendously.

2. Use Quick Create.Make your designs available on all types of products. T-shirts, mugs, baby clothes. My best example of this was when I had a design "coffee addict" and I sold it on a baby bib. Enough said.

3. Find a niche, but don't limit yourself. My first successes were in my niche, those designs still sell today. It is one of the best ways to get beginning sales and get your designs to come up in searches. I had other ideas that didn't fit with the niche so I added other sections and developed those as well. You can make good money from niche designs, but I believe a combo of niche and universal designs is what has made me most successful.

4. Promote through free sites. I haven't paid for a lot of advertising. Sometimes it works, but word of mouth is just as (if not more) powerful and doesn't cost you money, but will cost time. I promote on sites like myspace, facebook, and of course, squidoo to name a few. I divide my time between designing and promotion. If I spend 5 hours designing, I will spend an equal amount of time promoting.

All you need to know to do this is basic html. How to link an image and a URL. HTML Goodies has good primers on both of these topics.

Another helpful tip, add your shop and a teaser to your email signature. Think about how many emails you send everyday! It's a great way to promote your shop.

5. Don't expect miracles overnight. I have had my shop for two years. I went from earning $60 the first month to $300 that Christmas, to $700 that fall and finally $1,200 Christmas 07. It takes time to build a successful shop, keep adding designs and promoting it everywhere. Pace yourself and you'll see results soon enough.

Update: Christmas 08 was wonderful, I earned over $3,500!

6. Remember it is a job. There's no boss to report to, and no structure. Make your own guidelines and stick to them. On average I spend 30 hours a week on my store. If you calculate my hourly wage it is around $10/hr. There are times I spend 40-50 hours on it, but I am happy to do it. I prefer this to any stuffy office job, but I don't consider it play time. I take my work seriously. Many people think that the money rolls in on it's own and that starting and running a successful shop is a piece of cake. It isn't. It takes hard work, dedication and devotion. Partner a strong work ethic with good designs and you can make serious cash.

7. Set a high percentage. This may seem scary at first, and maye you also sympathize with the customer and don't want to charge them $30 for a shirt. I understand, I was there myself. The truth is, zazzle isn't made for the Target or Kmart shopper. The $7 t-shirt shopper demographic isn't yours. Set your mark up between 25% to 35% per shirt. Think about it this way: I made four sales yesterday and got about $30 from it. If you have a lower percentage, it will take you ten sales to get to where I got in one day. This is a business, and if you want big commission checks, you need a high percentage, period.

8. Don't give up! If you have good designs, put hours into your shop and promotion, don't give up. Results may vary, but I've seen that it simply takes time to get good traffic and big checks.

Those are my top tips and secrets. I have learned all of this by trial and error. I am now a full-time freelancer, with zazzle bringing in the lion's share of my income. I love it!

Please check the additional links and videos I have below for more tips and tools I use for success with zazzle.

Best of luck!