How To Market Your T-Shirts Without Spending Money

by Michael Essek   ·   Updated: April 10, 2017

If you’ve been following my blog for any time at all, you probably know that I do almost no paid advertising for my Shirts.

Instead I rely on ‘organic traffic’ to drive my sales – the searching habits of customers who actively seek out the kind of designs I am selling.

This organic traffic can come a number of ways, but will usually be from direct searches on websites (eg. the search bar on Amazon.com or Redbubble.com) or via search engines such as Google.

There are pros and cons of relying exclusively on organic traffic, but the big pro is that you don’t need to spend any cash to make sales.

But organic traffic does have it’s limitations.

Firstly, it can be very hard to stand-out and get noticed in crowded niches and within the search results pages.

The low barrier to entry means everyone is trying to pick up sales via organic traffic, so to get a leg-up on the competition you have to start looking at other ways of getting your products in front of potential customers.

Let’s take a look at some of those ways now…

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15 Things I’ve Learnt About Selling T-Shirts Online

by Michael Essek   ·   Updated: June 5, 2020

I’m three and a bit years into selling T-Shirts online, and I’ve just begun to learn a few things. (!)

I wish someone would have been around to tell me this stuff when I was starting out. But sometimes it’s best to learn things the hard way.

Here’s my purpose with this article: to help the young designer or illustrator get a clearer picture of the key principles that have the biggest impact on your success selling T-Shirts.

If you can grasp and apply these principles, I believe you will be streets ahead of your competition.

Like any business (and be in no doubt – as soon as you start trying to make money from something, you are starting a business) – making money from T-Shirts online takes hard work and dedication. But working hard on the wrong things is not going to be effective. With a clear understanding of what matters and how to achieve your goals, you are much more likely to succeed.

So let’s get into it!

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How To Make Money Selling Print on Demand T-Shirts [3 Key Tips]

by Michael Essek   ·   Updated: January 5, 2023

Can you make money with Print on Demand? The answer is yes.

I’ve been making money selling Print on Demand T-Shirts online for over 6 years.

In my first month (August 2013) I made just $50.

But for the past 3-4 years, my average monthly income from Print on Demand has been between $9,000 – $15,000.

As you can see from the graph below, it took me a while to reach numbers like that:

So if you’re looking for a ‘get rich quick’ scheme then you’ve probably already gathered that this isn’t it.

Three years is a long time – though I’m pretty sure that if you followed my steps and advice you could reach these numbers (or much better) within 2 years or even less.

So what’s the secret?

No secrets really, but there are a few key principles to making money from print on demand that have helped me, and I think they will help you.

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Parody, Fair Use and Mash-Ups: More Copyright Info For T-Shirt Designers

by Michael Essek   ·   Updated: May 27, 2020

Last week I published a basic introduction to Copyright for T-Shirt designers.

This week we’re going to dig a little deeper and focus on an area that causes particular confusion: Parody and Fair Use.

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Copyright and T-Shirts: An Introduction To Trademark And Intellectual Property For T-Shirt Designers

by Michael Essek   ·   Updated: April 10, 2017

There is a lot of confusion around ‘copyright’ in the world of selling T-Shirts online.

• Is it ok to create designs based on Movies, TV Shows or Bands?
• What if I want to draw a celebrity, and sell that on a T-Shirt?
• Do I need to register my work to make sure it is copyrighted?
• What about Trademarks and Intellectual Property?

In this blog post I will clear up these questions and more, so that you’ll have a clear idea of what is ok (and what is not ok) when it comes to creating designs for T-Shirts, and selling them online.

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