2024: Making more of what makes me happy
What I am up to in 2024 regarding what happened in 2023
Happy new year everyone,
I hope you get a get a good 2024. 2023 was tough for many people. Here 2023 was a transitional year as I focused my time, energy and revenues on passive income. I should better say products than passive income, because most of what I sold required more than creation and sale.
In 2023, I decided to quit client work and focus on prints and fonts. Fonts are totally passive income while prints are what I call “semi” passive income or a product. You do the design once but you have to print and ship each order. In 2023, I also launched a paid membership for this newsletter. This is a product too. Most people who subscribed are more here to support my work than looking for benefits, but still, I did write more than 20 paid posts and sent many gifts by mail to some of them.
In 2023 I also did some workshops, initiated by different organisations but they really helped me in terms of revenues.
And I did a few projects for people who were already clients and that I wanted to continue to help. I think I did 3 of them. So really few.
So what am I looking for in 2024?
There are a few important points I want to develop here.
More passive income
I learned many things about my business in 2023. And something really came to my mind recently: I need to focus and put my energy on things that require less time. The perfect example is the Christmas time. I launched my greeting cards end of November and spent a large part of my time to print and send the orders in December. For cards that I sell at €4 each. It is not worth it. This is here a lot of time spent for few revenues.
Why? Because printing and shipping cards costs a lot of time. I need to print several per sheet, cut the sheet, fold the card at the right place and put it in an envelope. It may sound nothing special but when you have A LOT of them to ship, it is a real task. When I sell prints, I just have to print and ship them. This is much easier.
And the other part here is that a card is not a lot of money. So I spend a lot of time on this product for not much money. I need to change that. I need to focus on products where the balance time/revenues is much better. And passive income is perfect for that.
More fonts
In november I started the Practica program to get a real good training on how to do fonts. It does end in April. And with this program, I want to create more “easy to use” fonts. I still want to keep the fun in everything I do. Don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to reduce the fun to make more money. But if I can still have fun and offer something for a wider public, why not doing it? So I 2024 I want to create more fonts, and for a larger public.
Here are some shots on what I am working on right now. This is Work In Progress, far from being perfect :)
I also want to extend the distributors I sell them through. Right now I sell my fonts through my website but also through Creative Market and I Love Typography. In 2024, I will try to distribute my fonts via MyFonts and Fontspring. If I have time I will try to see how I could be included on Adobe Fonts, depending on the fonts I am able to create.
Selling fonts is the core of my revenues because they sell regularly, every month I make between 200 and 400€ with them. And I sell only weird and experimental fonts. So I think there is much to improve in terms of sales.
Less prints
To be honest, this Christmas time really killed my energy. I had so many parcels to send. I tried to optimise but still it took me too much time away from the fun. So in 2024, I will stop selling most of my greeting cards, the most cheap product will be my “Mini-prints”. I will continue to do more of them and try to focus on more valuable products such as Screenprinting posters. Screenprinting is great in a sense of craft but also because you print the posters once and it is limited prints. I like the preciosity behind that craft.
Development of my membership
Today I have 25 persons who pay for paid content, support and more. The first year of the membership was pretty good to me as I made around $2000 with it. But it is difficult for me to communicate around it, to promote it. I am not even sure if you people are aware of that paid membership. Are you? So in 2024 I will try to organise it in a better way but won’t change the content. I could manage writing more than 20 posts, manage the WhatsApp group, manage to send 2 times gifts to founding members during 2023. But there is one thing I would like to add.
Draw with me sessions!
I want to share more and be in direct contact with you guys. So this year, I am going to introduce “Draw with me” sessions. I will choose a subject and I will draw in front of you on Zoom “without net”. You will be able to draw too of course and ask me for feedback during the session.
The first session will happen this month on the 24th of January, at 6PM Paris time. It will last around max 2 hours. This is FREE to everyone. Paid members will have access to the replay. After the first session I will see if I keep it free or if I make them only for members. To be honest, I think it will stay free. I may add special sessions for members.
Fanzines and ebooks
This is another new thing I want to do in 2024: ebooks and fanzines. ebooks are great passive income, and fanzines are fun and punk projects. There are many subjects I would like to develop in these formats. This is still new in my head but being able to create a fun ebook you can print at home and read would be a great project for me. So I want to push in that direction. I will write about many subjects “for creatives”, like passive income, communication and social medias, mental health or even “Nature for creatives” :) I think this is where I want to focus most of my time. This could be a great investment and great passive income.
More Art
Yes, more Art. I will put photography and painting in that category. Two mediums I started to do this fall. And they both bring me a lot of joy. I don’t share much about these, maybe photos on Threads, but painting, I keep it private. Or mostly private as I share pictures of them with friends and the paid members of this newsletter.
But making Art really had an impact on me these last months. And I want to do more of it. In the search of a better balance between work and life, I decided to block my Fridays for painting and photographing. It is really important for me.
Also doing creative things for me and not for the algorithms or money helps me to stay motivated and positive. It really helps my mental health to tell you the truth. The creative process seems different too. So I want to do more of it in 2024. Maybe I will share some photos or paintings here at some points. Right now this is not a theme to me. I just want to create, and create more.
Again, 2023 was really interesting and positive in terms of revenues. 2024 will be adjusting the existent and try new things. But overall I want to spend more time creating and less doing logistics. I want to have more fun and see if I can make the same money or even more. I will let you know how it goes :)
And you?
What are your plans for 2024? More passive income maybe? More fun? Let me know in the comments or reply to that email. I would be really happy to chat and maybe help you if you have questions or ideas.
This is it for today. No inspiration this week as this email is already long enough but I have some nice works and books to show you next week!
Enjoy the weekend and take care!
Francis