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40+ Log Book Ideas & new Affinity tutorial
Catherine Beebe
March 07, 2024
I keep telling myself I am going to spend fewer words musing about stuff in this newsletter and more time sharing valuable information to grow your business. But last week a course was being promoted that has me thinking about the pros and cons of building your business around giving everything away, or not.
If I am going to get long-winded, the least I can do is put it at the bottom of this newsletter, so you can read my thoughts below.
In the meantime, let’s start out with what’s new…
New Video Tutorial
Last weekend I released another Affinity tutorial on the YouTube channel. If you have used Canva, you know they have all sorts of different shapes of picture frames. Did you know you can replicate that in Affinity? And, stay to the end of the video where I show how to add them to the Assets panel so you can re-use them in your projects. Watch Custom Picture Frames in Affinity.
New on the Blog
As I transition towards an all free, ad/affiliate supported model I am paying more attention to the blog at Printables Academy. This week’s post is 40+ ideas for log books. Come for the list, but stay for a comprehensive look at log books including what to include and marketing angles. (P.S. I swear I had no idea someone was launching a log book course this week when I wrote this!)
Niche Idea: Some of the best niches are mash-ups. Here’s one: budgeting printables as a learning resource for home schooled children. Personal finance is often an elective at the high school level so that is the audience I would aim for. Sell on Teachers Pay Teachers or Etsy.
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How to tag affiliate links on Pinterest. Kate Ahl is one of the first persons that I learned Pinterest from. Learn how to connect with your audience, showcase value effectively, and tag affiliate products like a pro.
Canva Keyboard Shortcuts. I love keyboard shortcuts and I try to share all my favourite Affinity ones in my tutorials (watch the bottom of my videos where the keystrokes pop up). Here is a list of shortcuts you can use in Canva. As I confessed last week, I do use Canva for certain tasks. Creature of habit, or just that it’s easy to log in from anywhere it has it’s place.
Random Musings: To free or not to free
At the end of 2023 I closed down enrollment for my courses. I had just gone through a health scare (that turned out to be a false alarm, although it took about 10 weeks to find that out) and in general was feeling burnt out.
My thought was to focus on getting those darn watch hours on YouTube over the hump so I could get monetized over there. In tandem, my plan was to increase content on the Printables Academy blog and get more traffic there. And then put a tasteful amount of ads and/or affiliate links on the blog (am I being too transparent?).
With Google updates obliterating blogs left, right, and center this may seem like an unwise move. Maybe it is.
Here’s the thing. There is more than one way to earn on the internet. As a business owner, we usually can pay with our time or our wallets. As content consumers, the same applies.
Free content is often more disjointed and you may need to hunt around to piece together what you need to know.
In contrast, courses or ebooks gather things together in a logical order. Pay with time vs. pay with wallet.
If you are on any blogging newsletters, you may have heard the Million Dollar Newsletter Playbook by Scott DeLong being promoted recently. I am a total Scott fangirl, probably because I resonate with being an introvert who just wants to quietly create and earn from it.
Scott created huge content sites on his own. Repeatedly. Trying to remain behind the scenes. His whole model has been content and ads (and not even Mediavine, just simple Adsense units). He is retired at 40. He never even wanted to do a course, saying you can find everything you need for free.
Everything is available for free somewhere. The decision of how to monetize your online business comes down to going through the pros and cons of each option and choosing the one that best aligns with your life.
Option | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
Sell Products | More money, more quickly | Marketing costs (including affiliates), competition, buyer fatigue, sales tax & accounting, and customer support |
Display Ads | Simple & passive (in terms of monetization, the content creation is far from passive) | Needs lots of traffic/views to earn a reasonable amount, takes a long time to get to earning |
Affiliate referrals | The pros of your own product with fewer cons (as long as you don’t break trust by recommending garbage) | Commissions vary depending on the company and product. Physical products earn less than digital. Buyer fatigue can happen here too if all you ever do is promote stuff. |
I’ve made the decision to roll with giving away as much as possible for now. It has meant some sacrifices. I had wanted to take my kids on a trip when my youngest graduates this summer. That’s on hold while I re-build new income streams.
On the plus side, I am letting go of the feeling of always being behind because I can’t keep up with all the things. I work when I can now, keeping it fun.
And that is my wish for everyone on this list—that knowing how to create cool and interesting printables and books will help you find the freedom to have a life and business that fits who you are.
Until next time,
Catherine