Now that 2021 is behind us, I wanted to do an annual recap about how this past year went for me, business-wise. Overall it went well because I made more money in 2021 than I did in 2020 which is always the goal, but not as much as I hoped because I chose to spend a lot of time doing things besides working. I’m definitely not mad because my goal has always been to create a life where I can step away from work whenever I want, but I am still trying to buy a house with multiple bathrooms, so I know I need to pick up the pace a bit in 2022.
Here’s how all of my income sources fared through the last year:
How I Made Money on Etsy in 2021
2020 was my highest-earning year on Etsy, which might have made me a little too comfortable because I actually made about $10,000 less in 2021 than I did in 2020. That’s obviously not the direction I intend for my revenue to go. However, I know a few reasons why this happened: 1) I spent very little time working on my shop in the first half of this year because I was committed to other projects, and 2) it wasn’t an election year so some of my products were getting stale. My shop has fallen pretty heavily into the political niche, which is why 2020 was such a great year for sales. If anything I probably needed the break because the next few years are going to be wild (by wild I mean awful) in terms of politics.
On a more optimistic note, my main Etsy shop passed $100,000 in all-time revenue in 2021, which was an exciting milestone to reach.
Aside from Etsy, I made record profits on Society6 and Redbubble this year. Those are the two royalty-based POD sites where I upload all my designs. They bring in several hundred dollars a month with virtually no maintenance other than uploading designs and making sure to use good keywords.
Based on all of this and the fact that 2022 is an election year, I have a few goals in mind for my shop. When I say “goals” I mean “things that are subject to change as often as CDC guidelines”, so make sure to tune in this time next year to see how well I’ve committed to any of this:
Add more stickers to my store. I started selling stickers in 2019. They’re the only product I pre-order and ship myself, which is why I only have 25-30 designs available at any given time. When I started selling them I honestly had no idea how much people love buying and collecting stickers, especially highly opinionated stickers. I plan on adding lots of new inventory this year to encourage more multi-sticker sales because there’s very little profit in shipping a single sticker at a time. I also want to sell political bumper stickers because a few customers have expressed interest – I just haven’t done it yet because I have to do some math about it and find affordable mailers that will fit a bumper sticker without bending.
Create more trend-based designs. This is especially helpful with a political store. I watch and read more news than is healthy whether it’s an election year or not, so I need to use the information to stay on top of political trends and catchphrases that can be turned into products for my store. The benefit of print-on-demand is that you can make a design and have it listed on a dozen items that very same day, so whenever I happen to catch a trend and get something listed, it’s a good sales day. I definitely slacked a bit on the trend game in 2021 (not a huge deal since I have several popular evergreen designs), so it’s one place where I plan on putting more of my attention this year.
Use a Social Media Scheduler. My shop does well on Instagram, but – and this is a trend you’ll see more of in this recap – I am not great at consistently posting on Instagram. I’m planning on trying out an Instagram scheduler like Planoly or Later to schedule a month’s worth of posts and see what it does for engagement and clickthroughs. This way I only have to spend a few hours a month scheduling all my posts for the next 30 days, which shouldn’t be difficult for a political/pop-culture-themed Etsy shop. Then I can spend the rest of the month engaging with my audience rather than spending all my brainpower coming up with a new post. This is also something I’m considering outsourcing because I know there are so many social media rockstars out there who can do this better than me.
Hire a graphic designer. I create all my own designs, but I’d like to hire a graphic designer who can do some of the more complex ideas that I have in my head. If you or someone you know would like to work on politically-charged graphics, please reach out to me! mandy@agirlsgottaeat.net.
How I Made Money Blogging in 2021
I started taking this blog and the products I have for sale on it more seriously this year. The first way that I make money blogging is with ads and affiliate links. I made almost double from ads and affiliate revenue this past year than the year before, which is great because it means that more people are reading my content and using my recommendations to start shops of their own.
At the beginning of 2021, the only product of my own that I was selling on this blog was my print-on-demand course. I really wanted to turn the course into an eBook, but instead of doing that, I first decided to write an entirely new eBook on how to sell digital products on Etsy. Once that launched and I started getting positive feedback, I started to get neurotic about the fact that I had a course and a book for sale about topics that were relatively similar, so I had a lightbulb moment and combined the course and the book into one product which is how I came up with Printable & Profitable.
Printable & Profitable is the thing I’m most proud of creating this year because it’s the only book out there that teaches you how to start selling printables on Etsy and how to expand into selling print-on-demand products (and it doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars like most of the competition out there). Once the book launched I decided to retire my course and sell this new book as my signature product on A Girl’s Gotta Eat. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and has helped dozens of my readers start their own Etsy shops.
My cannabis blog Jane Dope is still alive and kicking as well. I had the chance to interview some badass entrepreneurs such as Brittany Carbone, who launched a CBD empire from her parents’ kitchen, and Judy Yee, a former NBA dancer who started a cannabis beverage company. My plan for this year is to hire more freelance writers for this site so I can keep it running but spend less of my own time on it.
Blogging Goals for 2022
Stop overthinking and publish more content. I can’t tell you how many times I started writing what I thought was an excellent blog post, then once I got to the point where I needed to refine it and get ready for publishing, I closed the tab and abandoned it in the graveyard of unfinished blog posts due to doubt and overwhelm. I did the opposite of what I tell my readers to do and focused too much on perfection over small steps toward progress. I don’t think it’s entirely a bad thing because I’ve still done a lot of freewriting which is always good practice, but I know that I need to get better at finishing and actually publishing my work this year. My goal is to publish at least one blog post per month on each site.
Publish my next eBook. I have another book that has been in the works for probably a year now, but it’s spent the last few months collecting dust in the aforementioned graveyard of unfinished blog posts. The topic of this book is a more general roadmap to online business, starting with the value of content creation and how you can monetize that through ads, affiliates, or your own products and services. It will go over even more of the processes that allow me to work for myself versus just the product side covered in Printable & Profitable. I have really high expectations for what I want to provide in this book which I know is part of the reason I’m struggling to finish it.
Publish interviews and guest posts on this blog. I’d like to open A Girl’s Gotta Eat up to other bloggers who write about similar content – Etsy, online business, side hustles, etc. to get more perspectives and knowledge on here. I’d also like to interview readers who have used my advice to start a successful shop or another type of business, so please reach out if that’s something you’re interested in doing.
Engage with my readers more often. I get so many amazing emails from readers of this blog and have had a lot of interesting and productive conversations over the past year. It makes me want to talk to all of you more regularly. This is why I started a Facebook group last month for Etsy Printable & POD Sellers. I wanted to have a more personal space where my readers can ask questions and support each other as we grow our businesses. You can join the group here.
Even though this year included a lot of starting, self-doubt, and half-finished projects, I’m pretty happy with how things turned out because I’ve gained so much clarity as to what my long game looks like and what I need to prioritize and outsource to keep things growing. I’ve learned to be patient and trust my creative process, even if it doesn’t sync with the arbitrary deadline I’ve set to have something “completed”. As much as I wish I had my second book done and published by now, I have enough experience working with my own brain to trust that I will come back to it when the timing is right and it will end up even better than I originally had hoped. For now, I try to enjoy the silence and work on something else.
Lastly, I’m glad that I took advantage of my ability to take time off as much as I wanted to this year. It’s because of everything I’ve been building over the last 5 years that I was able to spend lots of time with my tiny new nieces, take impulsive trips into nature with my husband, grow a badass balcony garden with my neighbor, cook a bunch of recipes from TikTok, and start/abandon all the hobby projects my heart desired (sorry calligraphy), all while making more money than I ever have in previous years. And I’m eternally grateful that I’m still in a position where I know I’ll (probably) never need to go back to a “real job” again given my skills and ability to market them. That’s all I’ve wanted to do since I entered adulthood, and there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think “holy shit, I’ve literally created exactly the life I wanted” (followed by the perpetual guilt that I’m not doing enough). So if you’re a reader of this blog, thank you for helping to make that possible. I hope 2022 brings plenty of good fortune for all of us. Onward.
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