How to Earn Passive Income with Cartography?

[IllustratedPageBookDesign]

Hello everyone! I'm mostly a book cover designer, but maps for books are becoming a larger part of my business. I know that for a freelance artist, it's important to develop sources of passive income. That's always been a problem for me with book covers (I use stock photos so can't sell prints under the licensing terms), but I figure maybe there's more avenues with maps?

I've thought about selling PNGs or brushes of line art buildings, trees, compasses etc, but I'm not sure if there's a demand for them.

Since I've only ever done maps for books, I'm also not familiar with the RPG space (besides casually playing a few games with friends).

Does anyone here have experience with earning passive income?

[Turambar]

I can't speak much about this from experience, but cartographyassets.com might be a place to look if you are interested in selling map symbols, etc.

[IllustratedPageBookDesign]

I'd never heard of Cartographyassets.com!

[Tiana]

CartographyAssets or the Roll20 marketplace or Patreon or small Kickstarters for things you were already going to make are probably the way to go. I recommend not assuming you can just know what RPG people need without getting into the hobby though, while yes it is how to get passive income your things won't sell well if you don't actually understand what RPG DMs need for their games. Don't just casually play a few games. Run a game and then make things based on what you thought and felt you needed. It's the best way to actually make a viable passive income product. Most of my stuff I made because I wanted it first and figured it would sell second.

If you look at my signature you'll see my links, and I will say, I make $300-$600 a month passively now between Roll20 and Cartography Assets alone. Well, this month might even hit $700 with the Roll20 marketplace anniversary sale packs, that's really boosted my income there, about 30% higher than typical. You don't need a ton of things, just things that will periodically sell. But, you might do better selling those pngs and brush sets, since you're focused on novel-style mapping, and sure, those kind of things sell too. Artstation marketplace is one place you can sell them, Designcuts is another.

[IllustratedPageBookDesign]

Thanks! I will need to look at Roll20 and Cartography Assets. ArtStation and Designcuts are good suggestions too!

I've DMed a few campaigns, but I never used much in the way of maps. I tended to just use automatic generators for the dungeons and rough sketches for my own reference. Most of my RPG experience was just with friends or with the RPG club at my college. We never used figures, battle maps, or the like. I know there's a lot of other ways of doing it that I haven't seen, and I certainly don't assume I know what the RPG community needs or wants!

Since my audience is basically all authors, I don't know that I could do much with a Patreon or what I'd do a Kickstarter for. The authors I work with mostly need custom work, and premade maps aren't as big a thing there. Which might mean I need to find a new audience to target.

[Tiana]

Yep, or a different product if you want to target authors. What else do artists buy? Premade book covers that they can put their own text on? Preset text designs that they can change in Photoshop? Page designs? Chapter break designs? Can you edit, sensitivity read? Animate book covers? Make book trailers?

You could always kickstart doing like, a remake of a city map from a popular setting for an RPG.

Given your response I doubt you really have a good sense of what the contemporary virtual tabletop RPG community needs which would create a delay while you do the research, which would be playing in a game that uses figures / battlemaps and then running a game that uses figures / battlemaps and probably getting good and familiar with at least one popular ruleset. But looking at your work you have decent potential to make nice assets that could be bought by other creators of maps, maybe have a go at doing like "a compass pack" "a frame pack" "a set of mountain brushes" "a set of rooftop brushes" kind of pieces for passive income? That would be targeting 'other artists' but there's overlap with this and virtual tabletop pieces.

Your most viable virtual tabletop product would be premade city maps, I think, you do nice accessible looking illustrations. People do sometimes buy those. But you'll have to make them higher res than the book maps (20x20 - 30x30... quite a bit bigger typically) and if you get a decent number of commissions it probably won't be worth it to dabble in making an experimental city map to resell. But if you have the time that might be something to do.

Remember if authors are your primary target audience go hang out around authors. Writer Twitter and subreddits. Author forums. Nanowrimo. Beta read. Review books. Be around for them.

[IllustratedPageBookDesign]

Premade covers are huge, but unlike with RPG maps, they're only sold once. So along with the other things (trailers, editing, formatting, etc) it's not income that's passive/scalable. I have been thinking about doing frame packs, brushes, etc for both other artists and the author DIY crowd. I think I'll probably go ahead and focus on that, and make the sets both Photoshop brushes and PNGs that can be used on Canva. DIY authors are obsessed with Canva.

I actually think it'd make sense to do an experimental city map. I need something poster sized, both for my portfolio and for a self publishing conference I'll have a booth at this fall. So it's worth it to fit that in around my commissions.

Thankfully I worked in publishing before leaving NYC for freelance cover design! So I do have a lot of connections in author spaces.

Thank you so much for all your help!

[Scelus Sceleris]

Hi everyone from an old member!
It is not a question related to passive income, but to income.

Is there anyone here doing Mapping Software Development as a job?
In addition to my passion for cartography, I also have some programming skills, and more recently I discovered the mapping software development field, which combines the two.
Is there market demand for this field?

[Turambar]

Hi everyone from an old member!
It is not a question related to passive income, but to income.

Is there anyone here doing Mapping Software Development as a job?
In addition to my passion for cartography, I also have some programming skills, and more recently I discovered the mapping software development field, which combines the two.
Is there market demand for this field?

I don't work in this field myself, but I know there programs like Wonderdraft, Inkarnate, Other World Mapper, Worldographer, etc which have many users. I can't speak to the exact market size, but based on Discord servers and subbreddits, Wonderdraft and Inkarnate at least have tens of thousands of users.

[Tiana]

I would say that what the market really wants right now is a city map making tool that works similarly to Wonderdraft.

Sure, some people want map making tools. Some are very popular. If you are interested why not.