I've been experimenting with Midjourney and DALL-E 3 to create digital wall art and printable planners. I've seen some sellers making thousands, but I'm worried about the legalities and the sheer volume of competition on Etsy right now. Has anyone here actually had success selling AI art recently, and what's your strategy for finding niches that aren't already flooded with generic designs?
3 answers
Success on Etsy now is 20% art and 80% SEO and marketing. I started my shop in early 2023 focusing on "Dark Academia" style digital papers for junk journaling. Because it's a very specific niche, I don't compete with the million "sunset landscape" posters out there. You have to ensure you're upscaling your images properly (I use Topaz Photo AI) so the print quality is high. As for legalities, Etsy allows AI art as long as you disclose it. It’s a grind, but I make around $600 a month in semi-passive profit.
Cynthia, do you find that you need to run Etsy Ads to get any visibility, or is your organic SEO strong enough to bring in buyers without eating into your profit margins?
Don't just sell the art; sell the "Prompt Bundles." People are looking for ways to recreate specific styles, and selling a PDF of 50 curated prompts is a huge trending niche right now.
Ryan, that is a brilliant pivot! It’s like selling the shovels during a gold rush. Austin, you should definitely look into offering both the art and the prompts.
Kevin, I only ran ads for the first month to get some initial reviews. Now, 90% of my traffic is organic. The trick is using long-tail keywords in your titles and tags that people actually search for, like "vintage botanical junk journal kit" instead of just "flower art."