Can You Make Money from Fonts?

I planned ahead.

In late 2018, I began lettering, programming, and branding fonts to plan for their 2019 release.  It meant that I spent 4-5 months *not* releasing anything, but I felt that the consistency of releases in 2019 would outweigh the lack of new fonts being pushed out toward the end of 2018.  During those 4-5 months, I wound up with enough to get me through July 2019.  So, in the beginning part of 2019, I used that time to letter, clean, program, and brand fonts for August through December.  By the end of June, I’d rounded out the rest of the year with fonts scheduled for every other week!  (I even have a few stowed for January 2020!)

So what did I do with the rest of my year, if I had 2019 scheduled out for font releases by the end of June?  Well, I planned for 2020, of course.

Between May and July, I began lettering alphabets every single day.  I set a goal to letter at least 100 alphabets in various styles.  I stowed them for review, cleaning, + programming for the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, in order to keep up with the one font released every two weeks.  I don’t have a concrete goal to release a new font every two weeks for 2020, but I do know that consistent releases helped with ensuring a steady flow of traffic and interest.

I’ve also spent a TON of time bolstering my SVG collection, and adding them to my website.  Whenever my Etsy sales started taking off, I realized adding these cuties to my website might be a good idea!

Sales

I ran weekly sales on my own fonts. My website itself has never seen a ton of traffic, but every little bit helps.  In this case, it didn’t really help.  Ya win some, ya lose some.  Here’s hoping 2020 will be an improvement!

I said yes.  A lot.

What did I say yes to? Deals and & more sales.

I ran weekly sales on my own fonts through my website (like I mentioned above), and occasional sales on Creative Market.  In addition, I pre-set about one week every month to go on sale on my Etsy shop.  I dabbled in a few coupon-based sales (ineffective) to compare, and decided that I’ll stick with an overall percentage markdown here & there (10-15%).  I don’t think it drove more or additional sales overall, but I do think that people will take note of the fact that something of stellar quality was marked down, and they’ll probably want more.

A little side note about Etsy + SVGs: A while back (in October 2018), I made the decision to remove SVG files from my Etsy shop to focus on fonts exclusively. What I found was that their removal caused a significant drop in visits, which meant a significant loss of income on my Etsy shop. No, seriously, look.  It completely TANKED.  That massive dip is impressive, but what’s even more interesting to me is that bringing back the SVGs meant that it recovered almost immediately. Sooo, I guess I said “YES!” to continuing SVGs, as well.

What’s funny is that I didn’t think that they made that big of a difference, but they most definitely did! When I brought them back — and I also made some new additions. Or, like hundreds of additions. Throughout 2019, I added SVGs consistently. 

Even though SVGs for crafters aren’t really fonts, I definitely count them in my income because they’re all hand-lettered the same way my fonts are.  If you skipped over the bit further up top, I mentioned that the process for hand-lettered SVGs has helped me to refine my process for fonts & vice versa.  I recommend this for anyone looking to bolster their font income + keep practicing lettering.  As an additional little tidbit of information – a lot of the same people that purchase SVGs also purchase fonts.  A lot of my SVG customers come back for fonts; a lot of my font customers purchase SVGs.

Anyway, back to saying yes a lot!  The greatest single deal I ran was with SoFontsy.  On top of participating in their regular bundle offerings, they ran my Entire Shop Font Bundle for a limited two days.  This brought in a whopping $2000+ for me, and really helped to solidify my April numbers.  In fact, I met my monthly goal before we even hit the half-way point in the month!

What did I say no to?

I won’t name names here – I know + understand everyone needs to make their own decisions about what may benefit them.  There was one group that approached me twice to run deals, but their percentages did not stack up with my expectations. Their original offer was 30% to the designer. I let them know I needed more than that, and they said the best they could do was 40%.

Initially, I agreed to this, and asked for more details on the contract. They provided the contract, but never specified an end date on this deal. It didn’t give me a very good gut feeling to have to ask questions regarding end dates, what I was obligated to, etc. When questioned about it, they let me know that deals run from 2 months to 2 years (!!!!), depending on what the designer wants. They also required that I not sell the same deal at a lower price while it was running with them.

While I understand the basis of this, I don’t quite like the open-ended deal and being obligated to maintain pricing because of *them.* In addition to this, they boasted 87k+ subscribers through e-mail, affiliates, and social media. When I did some research on this, I was surprised to see that they had a large number of Facebook followers, but very little interaction on their pages. The interaction that *was* there didn’t seem very positive — it seemed like there were quite a few people that made purchases, but were not very happy.

So, this deal got a no from me. 

There was a second group that sorta seemed the same.  I approached them about running a deal, but communication was very spotty, and their contract terms were less than clear — I had to ask for specific information that you’d think they’d be up front about.  Whenever I realized it reminded me a bit of the aforementioned group, I decided to nix that idea, as well.  While I remain open to deals like this, I think I’ll be sticking more to the tried & true.

For what it’s worth, I’ve run deals with Font Bundles, Hungry JPEG, Pixel Surplus, Mighty Deals, and So Fontsy.  I actively sell on Font Bundles and So Fontsy.  I used to sell on Hungry JPEG (find out why I don’t anymore).  Pixel Surplus and Mighty Deals are … well, deal-based websites.  I don’t think a seller can have a shop there.

I submitted fonts for certification on Creative Market.

I posted about this in early May 2019!  I submitted a few fonts for certification on Creative Market in March 2019, and received certification in May.  Once those fonts passed certification, I submitted a few of my best sellers — Spring Market, Barcelona Nights, and Farmhouse Country. 

Creative Market originally took 40% of Certified products as their commission, but this changed in December 2019 – they now take 40% of all product sales, so there is no difference between the commission rate for Certified and products without the Certification badge.  So, I submitted more because…why not?  I quite like the idea of someone vouching for the quality of my product.

Creative Market says that shop owners with Certified products get better visibility, and make more sales.  I didn’t notice a big change in my visibility, or in my sales.  I will say, though, that I believe it adds a bit more professionalism to my shop.  The blue Certified badge is essentially something that says Creative Market vouches for the product.  If some products are Certified by any given maker, it’s likely a safe assumption that the rest of their products are quality, as well.  I certainly make that leap, so I have to imagine that other buyers will, as well.  If that’s all that comes of the certification, I’m satisfied with that!

I asked, and I received.

For whatever reason, the thought never occurred to me that I could be sending coupon codes to upgrade single font purchases to the all-inclusive bundle that I offer, especially through Etsy.  I realized that if I didn’t ask them to upgrade, or provide them the opportunity to do so, I would likely never see these folks again.  Same goes for SVG purchasers!

Wouldn’t you know, there were a fair amount of them that took me up on the offer.  The All-Inclusive Bundle is a pretty stellar deal, with savings of over 95% and access to all future fonts.  Why wouldn’t they want to upgrade?!