How to Make Real Money on Red Bubble

Quarantined Income Workshop #4

Hello, and welcome to the fourth workshop in the Quarantined Income series!

I’ve been receiving a lot of positive feedback for the first three workshops, and I’m very grateful to everyone who’s been so encouraging of the series so far.

I hope that some of you made use of your weekend to get started in a new hustle that will one day yield a new source of income and hope for the future.

I’m personally in a very good mood because I was one of the very lucky people admitted into the very first Disneyland grand re-opening anywhere in the world. It was so nice to be out in the sunshine, while also dodging the other guests and praying that after months of isolation, I don’t catch the virus during my very first day outside.

The focus for today’s workshop is Red Bubble, which is a platform that isn’t discussed very often because it’s very challenging to make money from.

Today my guest and I are going to explain how you can find your success with Red Bubble. We will also lay out a strategy that will help you differentiate yourself from the competition.

So What’s Red Bubble?

Red Bubble is a platform that will sell your unique designs by printing them onto clothes, mugs, bags, hats, and all manner of other wearables and collectables.

Just from that description, you would think that Red Bubble must only be for the artistic among us, but I haven’t found that to be the case.

Years ago, I discovered that Red Bubble could be just as lucrative for those of us with no artistic ability, but rather an ability to see what’s popular at the time.

People love quotes, and people really love to wear what they love to say. During my Red Bubble phase, my favourite thing was searching the internet for whatever was being quoted in the moment. I’d then write out the quote with a cool font, arrange it nicely on a t-shirt template, then upload it to Red Bubble’s platform.

For me, the most evergreen content has come from quotes that were pulled from TV shows that age really well.

When I think of TV shows that have aged well, nothing comes to mind more prominently than the US version of The Office.

That show has only grown in popularity since leaving the air all those years ago. The show is so evergreen that some of its actors (I’m looking at you Jenna Fischer) make their entire living talking, writing, and podcasting about the show.

So when it came to quoting reference material, The Office became an early focus for me. I’d find popular quotes that I like, write it in a cool font, then add some copyright-free images for good measure.

This resulted in designs that were original, yet referenced material that people already know. People love to wear what they quote, and they love to buy what they already know. So these designs sold quite well.

For further advice, I talked to Sam, a Red Bubble designer who’s been making decent money from the site for the past three years.

Please welcome to the stage, Sam

Sam first got started on Red Bubble five years ago when she got the idea to alter characters from TV shows and format the designs for T-shirts.

Downton Abbey was enormously popular at the time, so her first collection of designs featured altered and exaggerated designs based on characters from the show.

For one design, she changed out Lady Mary’s hands for tiger paws and wrote “Lady Mary Clawly” onto the shirt. For another, she drew Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess and gave her enormous googly eyes, which is a reference to Downton Abbey; but also to Family Guy, who had a joke about Maggie Smith’s eyes seemingly moving independently of each other on the show.

Sam is an artist, so she’s able to draw her own designs and feature them on the site if she wants to. But because she wants to make money, she’s figured out what many other artists on the site seemingly haven’t. Entirely original art is extremely difficult to sell because it’s very difficult to convince people to pay money for something they don’t know or recognise.

Her original art is even better than her art that references pop culture, but it doesn’t sell. A t-shirt featuring a glamorous woman of her own design won’t sell nearly as well as a t-shirt featuring Kim Kardashian slapping her sister just like she did in a recent episode of her reality series.

Sam’s strategy for success is referencing copyrighted material, without ever going so far as to infringe on the copyright.

This means never using images that already exist, but rather designing new ones that are merely inspired by the original images.

For me, I’m not an artist and will never be able to draw an original image. So instead, I try to succeed on the back of quotes, jokes, and poetry that make strong references.

Another important tip from Sam is to make sure you’re checking back on Red Bubble often.

Some artists upload a collection and aren’t back on the site for a while. Artists feel comfortable going long periods without checking the site because sales figures are emailed to them directly, so they feel no need to check back and see how they’re doing.

But this is a bad idea for two reasons. The first is that new items become available for consumers to order all the time, and you need to manually confirm that you’d like your designs to be featured on these new items.

For example, Red Bubble recently added masks to the site. (The protection kind, not the Halloween kind).

If you’d like the chance to monetise this new product during the short window when people are bulk-ordering masks, now is the time to get onto the site and add masks as a purchase option to your designs. You could even design something new that would specifically look great on a mask.

The second reason why you should be on the site often is that you should be adding designs as often as you can.

Every website algorithm favours users who are uploading content more often. This includes Red Bubble, who will feature your products more often in search results if there are new options being added and your profile is updated more often.

In addition to the regular work an artist does, they could easily be dedicating some time every week or two for creating new designs for their Red Bubble portfolio.

You never know which design will be the one that takes off and sets that snowball racing downhill.

Building on the Strategy

So if you’re an artist, try finding a way of including pop culture into your style of creation.

To do this, keep your ear to the ground and get in touch with what’s being discussed in the wider world.

This can be achieved by reading Reddit, but can also be achieved with TikTok, an app through which people broadcast their feelings and passions.

If you’re not an artist, try being creative with words. One strategy I used for a while was making one image work across several different designs.

To utilise this idea, pay an artist for a unique and generic image. (Make sure your purchase includes all copyright including for commercial purposes).

Then, try to think of lots of different ways you can caption the image that will make a funny or interesting series of designs. For example, let’s say the artist creates a sassy cartoon cat for you. Try and think of any captions that could relate to being a cat, being lazy, not being a morning person, etc.

You could create an entire collection of designs, just by reusing the cat and adding different funny captions. You could also colour-swap the cat, let’s say by making it red and including a caption that makes a joke about being sunburnt or embarrassed. (While also referencing a recent and popular moment in culture that relates to sunburn or embarrassment).

Try to think to yourself, “what would I wear on a shirt?” The follow-up thought could be a simple design that features what you love. So just ponder what you’d like to wear, then find a way to make it a reality.

Sam started with a love of Downton Abbey, and now creates designs based on what she see’s on TV that inspires her. She also uses TikTok for glimpses into the world consciousness of impressionable young people at this point in time.

Thanks so much for joining me for today’s workshop, I hope it inspired you to create something new and profitable. Come back again in two days when the next workshop in the series will be published right here on Money Clip.