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My First Steps into Teachers Pay Teachers

I have started my TPT journey. It’s official. Skyward Teaching is a store on Teachers Pay Teachers. I did it. And you can too.

My TPT Store Beginnings: How I Started My TPT Journey

At first, I only dabbled in Teachers Pay Teachers products. My personal favorites were always the FREEBIES.

The more I used TPT products, however, the more I realized how easy they were to recreate! I started thinking, “I make stuff like this all the time, for the classrooms I support as an ESL teacher! Should I be putting my stuff out there too?”

But that’s where it kind of died. I wasn’t ready to make TPT a daily part of my life just yet.

Getting the Motivation

Fast forward to the next year. I still didn’t have the time to commit just yet, but occasionally, I was making my own resources. I kept getting a good feeling whenever I created them. Choose a great readable font here, add a fantastic border there.

Then summer came. That marked the end of my second full year of certified teaching. I was ready for a long break (after I taught summer school, of course).

During that break, I took a lot of time just evaluating how things were going. Bottom line: it was not going well.

My stress levels were bordering insanity, my apartment was usually a disaster zone, and I would wake up every school day feeling like I just didn’t want to do anything.

How can I change that next year?

The Conclusion: I Started My TPT Journey

I came to a two-fold conclusion.

First, I would need to prepare. I knew what was coming. Now I just needed to be ready.

Second, I needed a productive hobby. Something I could to look forward to outside of work. It would need to be something I could enjoy while also dedicating time to my husband and two (soon to be three) kids.

I wasn’t sure what to do about the second part, but the first part made complete sense to me. As soon as I got back from my much-needed vacation, I rolled up my sleeves and poured my soul into creating or recreating materials I would need for the coming school year.

I created quite a few:

A behavior form
A yearbook template
180 writing prompts
A grade book template
A progress sheet
and so much more

Of those materials, I spent the most time on the 180 writing prompts and the yearbook template.

** Get an exclusive 6 weeks’ worth of writing prompts by subscribing to my email list!

When I finished them, I felt a burning desire to share them. That was when I finally decided to take the plunge into building my Teachers Pay Teachers store–for real.

My Official Start On TPT

I officially uploaded my first product, the FREE Yearbook Page Template, on July 25, 2022.

I uploaded as many other products as I could, and then I began making more.

And then I spent hours reading other blogs about Teachers Pay Teachers. They gave some great tips. My biggest takeaways were:

Don’t wait for “perfect conditions”– just get started
Use Canva or some other equivalent for your cover designs
When you make your cover designs, have a recurring theme you use that marks your products as recognizably yours
Write a powerful description that is descriptive, focuses on key words, and helps the buyer understand exactly what they are getting

I had more insights later, but these were the ones I grasped rather quickly.

Following those instructions, I continued to work, creating a common themed cover photo for each product, and writing decent descriptions for each one.

My First Sale

I made my first sale on August 6, just a couple weeks after opening my store. I was ecstatic to see that notification email in my inbox.

I only earned $1.62 from that first purchase, but I felt that I had taken a step that would lead me down a great new path to entrepreneurship.

My sales in August totaled $40.20, but my earnings only totaled $19.51.

I started to realize that I needed to begin to consider when I was going to purchase the premium account subscription. I didn’t want to buy it unless I knew I would make enough to justify it, but I knew that the sooner I did it, the more earnings I would see coming in.

I finally decided to buy it when my sales were more than $60, even though that meant that my actual earnings were only about half that.

Why Today Marks the Official Start to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store

Today is the official start of my TPT store. That’s what I’m calling today. Why? Because today marks the day my earnings have gone beyond what I paid for the premium seller subscription!

I’m going to making a profit now.