Happy New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!

A friend of mine recently told me her new year’s resolution was to start selling teaching resources online. She asked me for some advice and I was happy to point her in the right direction. Then I realized this is actually a really good resolution and more people may want to start the new year this way.

So get started today on your new year’s resolutions. Start selling resources online and change your life!

There are more and more resources sites popping up but I only use TES and TPT if it were in my best interest I would only use one. At first it seems like a good idea to put your products everywhere but it just dilutes your brand and does NOT help sales. The only reason I use TES and TPT is because the TES American site is not as popular as I need it to be and the TPT English site isn’t as popular as I need it to be. So I cater for Americans on TPT and English on TES (change spellings and currency etc.) Later this year when TES Australia starts up I will be looking into that but for now these are my sites.

The first thing you need is an account on TES (get one here www.tes.com). I’m not going to go into details about how to sign up it is really straight forward.

You will also need a seller’s account on teachers pay teachers (TPT)  please sign up for one with my link I get credit for signing people up J https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Signup/referral:charleei

Once you have an account think about a good name for your shop. Don’t stress about this too much at first you can use your own name or think one up. You can always change it later if you change your mind but it is a hassle to go back and change the name on all your products!

The first product you upload to TPT has to be free. When I signed up I uploaded a simple (and bit rubbish if I’m honest) worksheet just because it was the freebie and I didn’t want to ‘waste’ something great on a freebie. This is really the wrong way to look at it. Make your first freebie fab because it will drive business. Just this morning I sold 3 sets of activity cards because one of my freebies is a sample of the activities. If you give people free bits which are really, really good they will want to come back and buy the whole package!

So make your freebie product. Something you have used in the classroom is always a good idea because not only do you know it works already but you can also use pictures of it in progress or the finished work (products with real life pictures really sell well).

Right, so you have made your product now turn it into a PDF and make a cover page. There is so much information on both these topics and I will come back and write a more detailed blog post on these later. 

Here is one of my cover pages but you will find your own style. Put yourself on the cover page somewhere, either your name or logo, so people know it’s you they are buying from.

Then in TPT click dashboard – add new product in TES click resources – new product. If you want more detailed advice on uploading to TES I have a video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQVY8YWKMvk

They is really how you get started at first. You need to get some products in your store and you need to make sure they are good quality. Once you have done that you can start marketing them. There are loads of ways to market products – pinning parties, link ups, blog hops, forums, email, conferences. The list is endless but you need something to market before you get on with that part. So try to get about 15 to 20 products ready and uploaded and then start marketing. If you do sign up with my link I send out regular advice to all the people signed up under me.

That’s all I can think of at the moment I didn’t want to throw too much into the first advice post or go over the top with steps, you’re smart people J

Please let me know if you have any questions.