The Easiest AI Side Hustle You Can Start Today for FREE!

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16 Jan 2024

Passive Income Potential from Low-Competition Digital Assets

Have you ever wondered how digital artists make money selling clip art online? In this article, I’ll walk you through how I launched a lucrative side business on Etsy by creating and selling AI-generated clip art.
We strongly recommend that you check out our guide on how to take advantage of AI in today’s passive income economy.

Finding a Profitable Niche

The first step was identifying a niche with high buyer demand but low competition. I used a free keyword research tool called Allura to analyze search volume and competition for relevant clipart keywords.
After some digging, I uncovered “watercolor flower clipart” as a particularly lucrative niche — over 9,000 sales for similar listings despite minimal competition. Bingo! Doing a bit more scrolling revealed related high-value keywords like “botanical clipart” and “floral bouquet clipart”.

Creating Gorgeous AI Artwork

Next up was actually creating beautiful floral artwork to sell. While I dabbled in watercolor painting as a hobby, I lacked the skill to produce quality pieces fast enough to build a business.
That’s when I discovered AI art generation platforms like Nightcafe and Wombo. These sites allowed me to instantly generate professional-grade art by simply entering a text prompt.
After testing different prompts, I landed on “detailed watercolor flowers painted by a famous artist” as my go-to for creating vibrant, complex bouquets and arrangements. The AI would churn out multiple unique pieces with each click.

Turning Art Into Clip Art

Now it was time to turn the AI paintings into clip art. After downloading my creations, I brought them into Photopea — a free browser-based Photoshop alternative.
Using the lasso tool, I carefully extracted each individual flower from the arrangements. I then turned these into separate layers, cropped them, and exported the isolated elements as transparent PNGs.
Just like that, I had high-quality clip art flowers ready to package up and sell!

Bundling Products & Building Listings

Rather than sell individual clip art files, I learned it was smarter to bundle them into sets. Buyers perceived greater value in a suite of 15–20 graphics versus a single image.
After creating a few bundles centered around themes like “Watercolor Wedding Flowers” and “Spring Botanicals”, it was go time.
I signed up for an Etsy shop and began constructing product listings optimized for search discovery. I gave each set a descriptive, SEO-friendly title incorporating my target keywords.
The description clearly outlined what was included — number of elements, file types, artistic style, etc. I also added relevant search tags to improve visibility.

Generating $200k in Passive Sales

And just like that, my floral clip art started racking up sales! Between Etsy’s built-in traffic and my search-focused listing optimization, I quickly began averaging $300–400 in daily revenue.
In just over a year, my AI art side hustle has brought in over $200,000 with very little effort required to keep things running. Now that’s what I call passive income!

Lessons Learned Turning AI Art Into a Business

This experience taught me so much about identifying and capitalizing on online business opportunities. Here are my top lessons learned:

Find underserved niche markets: Don’t just sell what’s popular. Research to uncover consumer demand going unmet.
Leverage emerging tech: New innovations like AI art generation open the door for creative money-making ideas.
Focus on digital products: Selling downloads cuts overhead and maximizes profit margins.
Optimize for search traffic: Well-optimized Etsy listings and SEO attract buyers without paid ads.
Think passively scalable: Structure your business so it can run and scale itself over time.

Ready to Launch Your Own AI Side Hustle?

If this case study got you excited to leverage AI tools to make extra money online, I have good news — it’s easier than ever to replicate this success!
Here are a few tips to get up and running:

Find an underserved niche using keyword research (try Erank or Helium10)
Generate quality artwork with AI platforms like Nightcafe, Midjourney, or StarryAI
Turn it into clip art using Photopea or GIMP
Bundle into themed sets and create optimized Etsy listings
Scale up by adding new bundles and expanding to other platforms

With a bit of creativity and strategic planning, you too can turn AI-generated art into a tidy profit. The opportunity is out there just waiting to be seized!
Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions. I love helping fellow entrepreneurs build their own online businesses. And be sure to let me know once your new Etsy shop takes off!
We strongly recommend that you check out our guide on how to take advantage of AI in today’s passive income economy.

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Written by Money Tent

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Money Tent offers cutting-edge online money-making strategies for beginners to leverage before they lose their appeal. 🤑 https://highticketaisystem.gr8.com/