What I learned about Passive Income in 2023

Going from most to less passive, because... well... it is not that simple!

Hi everyone,

I asked Instagram during the week what you would like me to write about today and the subject of Passive Income did win by more than 80%. Impressive.

So let’s do it. I opened my shop almost one year ago, in December 2022 and I stopped doing client work in January 2023. From there on, I focused my income on fonts, book, online course, membership and prints. These are not exactly the same kind of income. Some are totally passive, like my book sales and mostly my fonts sales, and some are less passive, like prints but there are still not totally “active” in the sense that a large part is done in advance, I design them once, sometimes I print them in one session (screen printing) and then I ship them. So it is not totally passive but not totally the opposite either.

So in this post, I will try to separate each “model” or “product” and tell you what I learned and what can be improved.

My book, The Lettering Workshops

I wrote it in 2018, and since, I don’t do anything about it. My publishers, in France and in the US manage stocks, promotion and communication. I just get my royalties once a year. Since 2018, I make something like one big month of revenues only with that book. Which could be around 1/10 of all my revenues. Some years are better than others but this revenue is pretty regular each year.

But it is important to remind that it took me one and a half year of work, and half of my time. So remember that passive income does not mean easy income. This is a lot of work at first.

What could I do to improve sales? I don’t really know. I don’t get a large %, especially with the US version, so promoting more would not necessarily transform in more revenues. For now, I leave it live its own life and I promote it on my website.

My Domestika course

The basic model is pretty similar than for the book. I did spend a lot time preparing the course but that requires nothing after the launch. BUT, here I can have a stronger impact on the sales, especially because if someone register for the course using my affiliate link, I get a large part of the sale.

And that is something similar with fonts and prints, but more with fonts. These products don’t sell by themselves. You have to promote them. For the Domestika course, Domestika invests a lot of time and money in promoting their courses. So if I have now 900 students there, it is mostly thanks to their promotion of the course. I don’t do much to sell it. Which is bad because I could seriously improve my revenues by promoting it regularly.

So here, if there is something to learn, and it is important for other products:

→ It is not because it is a passive income that you don’t have anything else to do after the launch. If you don’t promote it, it won’t sell.

And this is where we talk about fonts…

My fonts

I love creating but I am not really good at promoting. So when I launch a new font, I will talk non stop about it online for a week or two, but then, that’s it. So most sales are made at launch but stop after a few days/weeks.

This is where distributors like I Love Typography or Creative Market are really helpful because they do promote my fonts regularly so I make a few bucks through them.

But a distributor takes half of the sale, so it is also important to make sales by yourself, through your website. And that is where you need to promote your work regularly in order to make some sales. And I don’t really do it. Again, I prefer focusing on my next font than promoting the existing ones.

There are two things I want to change for my fonts in 2024. The first is obvious, promoting more my fonts, and regularly. Last year, I had some coaching with a friend who said I should plan 2 promotion posts on Instagram each week and in a different format on the newsletter. I did not do it in 2023. I will try in 2024.

The second thing is to do more fonts that sell and sell them at more distributors. Fonts can be a good passive income revenue, but I have to create fonts that people want to buy, and not only experimental funky psyche fonts haha :D So in 2024, I will try to create some fonts that will be a bit more “conventional” and sell them on more platforms like MyFonts and Fontspring. This is partly why I am right now part of the Practica Program.

Memberships on this newsletter

Some of you might not be aware of that but I do offer paid memberships on this newsletter. I offer paid members different benefits, like a WhatsApp group, 1 or 2 paid posts per month, and some of them get even 3 prints a year.

I did launch it last January and the revenues of these membership represent also 1/10 of my revenues.

How could I improve it? It is difficult to say. I try to be present on WhatsApp regularly, especially when I print at the atelier. I send pictures of what I print, ask for feedback, answer questions when any, and try to post “regularly” paid posts of my process/doubts.

During the year, I did share some WIP fonts too.

Most of my paid members pay to support my work and that publication. Most of them don’t ask much in return, but I always feel like I should do more. Also how could I attract more paid members?

Again, I am not sure I do promote the memberships well enough. Here I tend to avoid as much as I can to not be like someone asking for money. And on Instagram, I never promote them. So if there are things to improve, this would be to be consistent on what I already do and try to promote the membership a bit more on social medias. Again, not my favourite thing ^^

But I will take the opportunity of the discussion to let you know that if you want to support the publication and my work, want to get more posts, fonts to test or be part of a private group on WhatsApp, you can subscribe for only $5 a month :)

My Prints

These are the “less” passive income. I said it above, but if design is done, I still have to print and send them. BUT, it is still a bit passive to me in some cases, like screen prints where I do design and printing once and then, I just have to ship the prints. Let’s say this is 80% passive income :)

Right now this is my favourite part and also the one I promote the most. In terms of process, these are the short term projects where fonts are long term projects. So I do more of them, I have more fun doing them (maybe because their process is not long), and I enjoy more promoting them.

But again, promotion has to be consistent. I made some great posters last year, like the John Muir one and I could post here or on Instagram about it, and I don’t it much.

Conclusion

So yes, I think you got the idea of what I should work on: planning some promotion posts about my products. And regularly. And this is a good advice for all of us I think. Creating products/passive income is great, but like for client work, there is not only the artistic/design side of things. You also have to focus on selling your skills/products. Passive income does not mean passive attitude. You need to sell and know how to sell. There is so much marketing bullshit around us that it is not easy to find its way. On my side, I try to promote authenticity and try to do it my way. I don’t try to make a fortune neither but just survive without client work.

2023 has been way more positive than I thought in many ways. There are things to improve for sure but I believe I have a “good enough” foundation to continue in that direction.

I just realised I did wrote almost 60 posts in 2023, both free or paid. This is fantastic. And I am looking forward to continue in 2024. Writing posts like this one today really helps me get things out of my head and can be of any help for you, so I am happy.

Have a nice end of the week and talk to you next Friday :)

Francis