A little over 2 years ago, my nanny (our fourth go-around with childcare in just over 2 years, by the way) sent me a text saying she was going to have to leave for an extended amount of time due to a family emergency. She sent this text at 6 p.m. the last Sunday of our Spring Break. Nevermind the fact that she had cancelled on us multiple times in the 4 months she worked for us and I was out of sick and personal days. We had 9 weeks left in the school year and my husband and I knew we would be moving out of the state in September. I had no time to scramble for a sub and make sub plans, send e-mails to all parties involved, and get someone to cover an IEP meeting for me the next day. My husband and I put our children down for bed, and then as we got ready to get in bed ourselves, I told my husband I thought this was God’s way of telling me it was time for me to leave the teaching profession, and the workforce altogether. He looked at me, pondered for about 5 seconds, and then said the two words every wife likes to hear: “You’re right.”
That night, we made a decision for me to leave the workforce so that I could stay home with our children, and I officially resigned the next day. We knew that no one would love and take care of our kids like we did, and their emotional and physical well-being was (and still is) of utmost importance to us. Sure, it was scary…I had been working since I was 16, and I had 14 years of teaching experience. A large portion of my identity was tied to being a teacher, and I really did enjoy working with students and their families (administration, not so much….just being honest!). We knew that if I left the workforce for any extended amount of time, it would be difficult for me to find another job if we weren’t able to afford me to stay at home. The financial jump was risky, so we immediately cut the fat from our budget and started making other adjustments to be as financially secure as we could. Thankfully, my husband is in the military and we have free healthcare and housing/food allowances. But as an experienced teacher with a Ph.D., I was walking away from a $60,000 salary to…well, who knew?
At this point, I had been selling resources on TeachersPayTeachers.com for about 3 years, and I was bringing home consistently over $1000 a month (except for those slow, slow summer months!). It wasn’t bad for supplemental income (which actually just went toward the cost of child care), but I told my husband that I thought I could grow TpT to become a primary, not just a supplemental, source of income for our family. From that point, I dedicated myself to earning a full-time income on TpT.
As of today, I’m certainly not the most experienced seller or best seller on TpT, but I have made a substantial increase in sales each and every year (see the chart above). What’s more noteworthy, however, is the fact that I was able to do this on a very part-time basis. Over the past two years, I’ve dealt with moving to a different state, giving birth to twins, the unexpected death of my father (and the ensuing legal complexities of his estate in another state), homeschooling my daughter, and doing all of this by myself as my husband travels quite frequently with his job. Needless to say, I’ve had very little time to devote to TpT, but my sales have continued to grow!
I am not looking for recognition, but I want to motivate other educators who are intimidated about selling their resources on TpT. I was intimidated too at first, but I’m so glad I challenged myself because the reward to be able to stay home with my children while providing students around the world with quality resources is invaluable.
So, ready to get started? Here are the specific strategies I used that I believe helped my store grow and sales increase, and they don’t involve the use of social media!
- Create original resources with your own creative spin and ideas. It’s very tempting to search through TpT to see what’s selling and then to create another version of the best-selling products and upload it. Not only is this creatively stifling, but it’s re-inventing the wheel. For example, a few bundled algebra units from top sellers sell really well on TpT. Not only do I not have the patience to create entire units, complete with notes, practice, hands-on activities, assessments, etc.; but it’s already been done, and done well, so why compete? I found a niche with creating mostly practice or single-lesson products that involve integrating art into math. I wasn’t sure that sales from $2 worksheets would pay the bills, but apparently there’s a niche, because my income is paying the bills!
- Spend money to make money. When you first sign up to sell resources on TpT, you must choose between the free or premium membership. The difference lies in the amount of commission you receive, basically. I chose the premium membership from the start, thinking that I would make back the $60 annual fee, surely, within the first year. Well, I made it back, plus more, in the first month! So if you have some really awesome resources and are ready to start sharing them, go for it! Have some faith in your abilities, save yourself the shoulda-woulda-coulda, and just get a premium membership! Other things I have spent money on, but wish I would have bought sooner, include Adobe Acrobat DC, Tailwind, and a store makeover including logo design and banners. All of these things have made my work more efficient and were totally worth the cost (which is tax deductible, by the way).
- Find time to create new resources. Teachers are the most over-worked and under-appreciated professionals in this country, I believe. Teaching duties go well beyond the final bell. Teachers either stay at the school late, trying to catch up, or they take their work home with them, trying to catch up. Then the demands of a household, family, children, exercise, extracurricular activities (or 2nd job, for many teachers) eat up any extra time. It’s hard. But to be successful at TpT, you will have to carve out time into your schedule, even just an hour or two a week. I wake up an hour earlier than normal a couple of days a week to work on TpT. You may be able to work an extra hour at night (that doesn’t usually work well for me, but hey, if you have the energy, do it!). I used to go to the local YMCA and utilize the child care there. I would work out for an hour, and then work on TpT for an hour. But the drive was so far away that I decided to save myself the driving time, buy a Peloton, and use that time for TpT. 🙂 I also really make use of the weekends, summer, bad weather days, and holidays. If you seriously want to begin making some decent money on TpT, be prepared to replace other activities (watching TV is a good one) with creating resources for TpT.
- Focus on TpT. Other web sites exist that allow educators to sell their resources as well. In my experience, the time I spent uploading products to these websites was not worth it at all. In retrospect, I should have spent that time working on another product to upload on TpT. I feel like TpT generates the most traffic out of all the educational marketplaces, and they do a great job advertising on our part, keeping teacher-authors updated, and reaching out to customers via e-mail, Pinterest, etc.
- Take advantage of the tools available to you. TpT has a brilliant model. The more money we make, the more money they make. Everyone wins, everyone is happy, right? TpT understands that their livelihood depends on the teacher-authors to continue producing high-quality, in-demand resources. To help teacher-authors become successful, TpT offers a plethora of seller’s resources. Sellers can scroll through the many topics of the seller’s forum, virtually attend webinars, or even attend the annual convention held each year in a different location. Personally, I’ve never attended the convention (but would love to!), but I’ve found the seller’s forum and webinars extremely useful in guiding me and the future of my store.
My husband and I don’t use social media for various reasons (mostly because of security risks to his job), so I decided not to involve the use of social media with my TpT store, either. I’ve found that it is possible to survive, and even thrive, on TpT without the use of it! The tips I offered here are what worked for me, and I hope you can use them as guidance or inspiration as you begin (or delve more deeply into) your TpT journey.
Best wishes for success!