passive income

Passive Income through Custom Journal Printing

Salmaan Ahmad

Salmaan Ahmad

August 3, 2023

How do you create passive income with journal printing? Creatives, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and even authors may seek their next big project, but writing a book or developing creative content can take time and energy. So many have begun crafting products that provide passive income streams to support their other passion projects.

But anyone with a bit of know-how and creativity can make passive income with the right project like custom journal printing. Getting started with your passive income stream begins with understanding how it works and learning the steps to make your own custom journals.

What Is Passive Income?

Similar to writing and self-publishing a book, products that you create, and consumers purchase on an ongoing basis without any further physical work by the creator are considered passive. Projects that you can make or set into motion, and then sell, with very little additional effort can create passive revenue. Often, these types of sales fall within the creative realm making them a perfect option for writers, creators, and entrepreneurs.

Popular Passive Income Streams

Passive revenue streams that flow from the publishing niche are very popular. These types of products are timeless or need to be replaced regularly, which will build in potential repeat customers to continue the income cycle. Some of these products also appeal to all age groups, making the possibility of constant revenue potential very lucrative for creators.

  • Journals: These decorative books usually include an appealing cover that may tie in a theme for the journal. They can be created for consumers of any age and may be used for a specific purpose or created for an open-ended purpose.
  • Planners: More targeted toward a specific customer than journals, planners can be date-specific or use-specific. School planners for students, educators, or even parents are popular products for passive revenue, and event-specific planners like wedding or pregnancy planners are all popular products in this category.
  • Workbooks: Whether they coordinate with an event, a course, or something else, a workbook is an excellent source of passive revenue for creators. With specific knowledge tying the workbook to sought-after content, workbooks can be an excellent passive source of income.

Making a Journal That Customers Will Love

Custom journal printing to build a passive income stream is a fairly simple process for creators willing to focus on what a potential buyer would want. Your personal preference for your journals’ graphics, colors, and overall design might be exactly what consumers are looking for, but there is a good chance that it might not be popular, too. So making a journal that your customer will love means starting the process by focusing on your potential buyer.

1. Pick a Target Customer

Decide who the buyer for your project will be so you can make sure that it appeals to them in every aspect. Consider defining multiple aspects of the customer, including what types of things they like, where they spend their time, and what kinds of products appeal to them.

For example, you might choose to appeal to a professional female who spends time on Instagram and Pinterest, has a family, listens to popular music, and loves to vacation at the beach. By narrowing down who might be interested in your journal, you can uncover excellent details that you can use to personalize the journal and how you approach selling it.

  • inclusions like school or activity schedule pages that simplify her life (with details to support work and busy kids’ schedules)
  • places to market the journal (on the social media platforms they frequent)
  • potential themes (using songs, artists, or color palates inspired by popular music or destinations)

2. Research the Market

The next step is to see what other journals are on the market. Sizing up your competition will help you discover what your target buyer is also considering when viewing your product. By understanding the other choices on the market, it will be easier to make yours stand out with unique features or a more appealing cover design to catch the right buyer’s attention.

3. Pick the Right Template

Once you know who is buying your journal and what other journals on the market look like, it’s time to start the design process. Using a free template is a smart start so that you can focus more on the details and design elements and spend less time getting your margins right or deciding how and where to place key elements on the page. And since you have already narrowed down your journal’s focus and how it will be used, picking the right template is much simpler.

4. Partner with a Printer

Before your journal is complete, consider partnering with a trusted printer. Teaming up with a printer like Publishing Xpress ensures that your final project will look gorgeous so it will spark sales to jumpstart your passive income stream.

But a printer with experience working with self-published creators and authors can also make choosing the journal’s paper and size easy. Many printers offer a pricing calculator that includes the different sizing options, papers, paper coatings, and bindings to help creators manage their budgets as well as their design choice options all in one place.

5. Design a Catchy Cover

A journal’s cover is the first thing to catch a potential customer’s attention, so getting the art, design, and colors right is critically important. Your journal’s cover should appeal directly to your target demographic with graphic elements that will catch the right buyer’s attention. And the cover design should hint at the thematic details inside so potential buyers will be excited to open it up. But not every creator is a design expert, so enlisting the aid of a cover design expert can help you make sure that your journal’s cover looks just as amazing as the inside does.

6. Select Quality Materials

Your journal’s front and back covers may be heavy-weight paper, or even include a gloss or other coating to increase durability. But the type of binding will determine how it looks on the shelf and how it can easily be used. The four binding options to consider for your journal are:

  • Perfect binding that uses a strong adhesive to create a book spine, making books attractive on a bookshelf
  • Plastic Coil and Wire-O binding utilizing spiral binding materials that will help journals to lay flat
  • Saddle Stitch binding is an economical choice that is perfect for smaller projects up to 80 pages

7. Include Unique Details

The most important aspect of creating a journal to deliver passive income is making sure that the book is useful and unique so buyers will want it. Blank journals that only provide space for users to add their own content do sell, and for some buyers, they are the perfect journal. But including journal content that is fun, engaging, and memorable is a great way to increase potential sales and maximize your passive income potential. And journals can include one or two fun features or a whole handful, depending on the target consumer you are trying to reach.

  • “About Me” – space for the owner to record contact information, details about themselves or schedules
  • Calendars – can be full or partial page; evergreen formats are best so the journal is never out of date
  • Doodle space – guided or open-ended
  • Lined and blank pages – include all one type or a mix of both
  • Listicle areas – “top ten,” things to remember, important dates, or other content that appeals to your demographic
  • Maps – perfect for travel journals
  • Thematic details – graphic elements that tie the cover, theme, or purpose together should all focus on the appeal to the target user

Start Generating Passive Income with Your Product

Custom journal printing is just the first step in creating passive income, so be sure to plan to market and sell your products to your target customer. Making your journal available for sale on your own website or through your social media, listing it on online retail outlets, or even creating a pin to sell it directly on Pinterest can all be part of a diverse sales and marketing strategy that will help you turn your journal into a passive income stream.

Products like journals are universally loved by consumers of all ages, so thoughtfully designing, printing, and marketing a journal can be an excellent choice for creators seeking a pathway to their own passive income stream.

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