Here’s how I navigated selling Notion Templates online.
For the longest time, I made Notion templates for people and gave them away for FREE without wanting anything in return.
I met all kinds of people from doing this little experiment. I met kind people, freeloaders, spoilt people who expect you to make your paid products free instantly because they want them, and a few good people who donated when they saw that I was giving away my premium templates for free.
After being active in this space for the past six months, my experience shows that people do not want to pay for my Notion templates.
But all in all, it broke my heart.
Here’s WHY
At least, I’m sure they are looking down on me because I made so many good Notion templates and gave them all away for free because I wanted people to be happy while using my products and going on their day.
The moment I launched some paid products, I got so much backlash. A lot of it was comments on my posts and entitled behaviour in my DMs.
At the beginning of launching my first few paid products, I wrote it off, thinking about how everyone goes through this.
People are just mad that now they have to pay for something they are getting for free. And the fact that they loved my free products and did not want to pay for them.
They still love those free templates.
I don’t even promote my most loved products on my store since these templates generate downloads on their own, and it is unlike anything I have ever seen.
This made me mad
But after seeing someone taking my free templates and selling them away for money in another paid templates group, I was unbelievably hurt and decided it was enough.
I kept telling myself that I have to make changes. I need to change the way I do things.
I decided that enough is enough.
Maybe something has to change.
I will not give away my good products for free.
Then I saw people copying my free templates and changing them minimally while calling my templates their own and then distributing them as their templates on other paid platforms.
The whole world felt like it was crashing down, but I continued making new things.
But on the inside, it made me sad.
It affected my mental health.
So much so that I stopped creating new templates because I knew that not only people would not pay for them, but they also would look down on a creator who loved making things for free.
I felt burnt out . . .
A creator who felt burnt when she tried to give back to the community.
I felt burnt by other people when they took my hard work and started reselling it so they could make money on things I had built for free.
I felt hurt that they were building castles based on the foundation of my hard work and effort without giving me any credit.
Since I have made no friends in this competitive space, I have no one to share my feelings with or guidance on how to go about my situation.
I had felt this intense urge to give up for this past month or so, but I was powering through anyway.
I told myself I enjoyed making these templates and that I shouldn’t give up something I love because of other people since it makes little sense to do that.
But other people have sucked out the joy I felt from making Notion templates because, to me, it’s not just a productivity tool but something that inspires clever design and art and a way to express my creative spirit.
And I didn’t want to give up.
But I have to . . . for now
But I guess I’m burnt out, and I don’t have it in me to keep creating cool templates, even if it results in sales.
I’m tired of getting entitled messages like, “I thought it was free because you made it,” “Stop posting paid templates. No one is going to buy them,” or “Give me a free link unless you want to get a review,” or “I’ll only give you a review if your product is free.”
I’m tired of putting up with such people.
I’m tired of feeling like my art is worthless because other people cannot see the beauty I create through my templates.
I’m tired of people expecting so much from me.
I need a break.
Read more about my experience selling Notion templates here.
Thank you for reading!