How To Make Money Woodworking

If you are someone who loves working with wood and/or are interested in learning how to make money woodworking, this post is for you. Perhaps you have considered supplementing your current income with a business making and selling your wooden creations. You may also be considering other ways of earning an income based on your interest in woodworking. Either way, there are several ways you can accomplish those desires.

Making and/or marketing woodworking products or woodworking plans can be a great side hustle, or it can even generate a full time income for you. This is because the demand for high-quality wood products is in full bloom. We are in an age when many of the wood products, like furniture are made from particleboard, plywood or plastic. People really do appreciate products made from real wood. It adds value and looks much better in one’s home, office or any other domain. Overall, people appreciate high quality wood products.

That being said, I have laid out a few different ways for a person interested in woodworking to generate extra income.

How To Make Money Woodworking

Making Money From Woodworking

Making money from woodworking typically falls into two different categories. Earning extra income from woodworking from the off-line world and earning income from woodworking from the online world. There are advantage for both, but the real difference lies in one’s own interest.

If you are the type of individual who loves to work with their hands or in a shop environment, then making money woodworking offline might be the way to go for you. You could follow one or more of the suggestions in that particular section mentioned below. There are many ways to sell your wooden creations off-line. But, you are not limited to that of course. There are also many places to sell your creations on-line as well.

Either way there are many opportunities these days to earn either a supplemental income or even a full time income from your woodworking passion. It only takes desire combined with action.

How to Make Money Woodworking Online

How to Make Money Woodworking Online

Before the internet, different types of craft makers, such as woodworkers, were very limited in the number of potential customers they could reach. Often times after someone has completed their first set woodworking projects they start to look into the idea of selling their creations online. They have heard or have seen evidence of a single post or photo go viral and get seen by millions of people within a very short period. This gives them the option of making woodworking a full time endevour.

In order to realistically earn a full time income from woodworking online you need to understand the options that are available for you to reach this potential audience. We have listed 5 places to promote your woodworking products online. Each of them have advantages and disadvantages, but with proper execution, each can work quite well. You need to see which is the best option for you so that you can learn exactly how to make money woodworking online. So, now let’s take a look at the 3 best places to advertise these projects online.

1) Etsy

Etsy has been around since 2005 and has started to become a very popular source for hobbyists to sell their own creations. Buyers are able to find certain crafts made from just about any material they can think of. Since 2005 the site does continue to grow year after year in popularity for both buyers and sellers. Since 2019, more than 2 and a half million sellers sold goods through the Etsy Platform.

When using Etsy, don’t expect to sell a huge amount of products in the beginning. It may take a couple of months before getting your first sale. It is also important to understand that there is a learning curve on how to create a good product listing. There are many training videos available on YouTube on this subject, but you may want to gain an understanding of the importance of using keywords and search engine optimization or SEO.

As mentioned above, there are advantages and disadvantages for using these methods. Below are both the advantages and disadvantages of using the Etsy platform for selling your products.

Advantages:

  • Etsy is a very user-friendly platform for both sellers and buyers
  • The most popular craft selling platform on the internet
  • Potential buyers of more than 30 million people

Disadvantages:

  • Fierce competition,
  • Undercut pricing,
  • Fees,
  • Starting out can be difficult,
  • Need to understand keyword and SEO tactics

2) Facebook

Unless you have been living under a rock, you most likely realize that Facebook is a social media giant and it has been for a number of years now. It is estimated that over 2 BILLION people have active Facebook accounts. That means that almost a third of the worlds population signs in into their Facebook profile at least once a month. This fact should help you understand the potential of advertising your woodworking products to a huge audience. Not to mention that advertising with Facebook allows you to pinpoint peoples interests so that you can advertise exclusively to people who would have an interest in your products.

There is mixed opinions on using Facebook ads to advertise their woodworking projects. Again there are advantages to using any platform. Below are the advantages and disadvantage of using Facebook for your advertising campaigns.

Advantages:

  • The number of potential viewers to your ads is incredible, there are over 2 billion people on Facebook
  • Facebook is very easy to use and do not have a big learning curve
  • There is a huge amount of training available to using Facebook as an advertising medium
  • You can get started immediately

Disadvantages:

  • Paid advertising can be expensive
  • Facebook algorithms change often causing some things that worked before no longer work today. Especially within the free advertising space. Facebook is cracking down on free advertising methods
  • Facebook can be a bit politically motivated and a lot of strange postings are on the platform.

3) Pinterest

How to Make Money Woodworking using Pinterest

Pinterest is an amazing platform to use for really selling anything. Especially if it is craft related. It is also a very effective advertising medium if you do not have a big advertising budget. Not only can you advertise using their paid advertising methods, but you can advertise by creating boards and posting pins to these boards. Since you are interested in woodworking, you most likely have a creative side about you. Pinterest is an awesome outlet for the creative person to create images and use those images to get thousands of eyeballs on your woodworking creations.

I have had much success using Pinterest and have found this to be one of the easiest social media platforms to work with. There are certainly many advantages to to use this platform. Pinterest is a unique platform in that it is not only a social media giant, but it is really a search engine as well. People do search within Pinterest and your boards and pins can show up within these searches. Plus, the more you post the more likely your products will be seen. As with most other platforms, there are advantage and disadvantages associated with them.

Advantages:

  • Pinterest is a very easy to use and you can get started right away
  • Pinterest is the third largest social network in the US
  • Pinterest active user base has grown 26% in the past year and continues to grow
  • Active users do search for items to purchase, there are active buyers on this platform

Disadvantages:

  • 71% of the global users on Pinterest are female, men are usually the one’s who are into woodworking. This means you need to be creative and sell products that appeal to this market
  • May be somewhat of a learning curve to create good-looking images to stand out amongst the competition

How to Make Money Woodworking Offline

Before looking at selling your wood creations online, beginners may want to start to grow their network and establish themselves offline while they consider creating their own website. My recommendation is to start offline and then learn how to build a website to make money before going online.

This allows you to learn how to Interact with people and help them to learn more about you and what you have to offer. Here are a few ways you can market yourself and sell your products.

Friends and Family

Letting your friends and family know you have started your own woodworking business may seem a bit underrated, but it is a logical first step to give yourself a solid business foundation. I recommend getting business cards before this step. This helps spread your business through word of mouth. You may offer them great discounts at first so that you can easily get the word out. Positive reviews always to a long way.

If you have already built your own website, this will be a good opportunity to tell your friends and family about it and draw attention to it. I cannot emphasize creating your own website enough. There is great free training available to help you through this step. You can also learn how to promote your website as well through this step by step training.

Your Local Area and Community

Once you have shown your friends and family your business, it is time to take a broad perspective and reach out to your local area and community. If you belong to a church or a community hall of some sort, you can contribute or donate some of your creations. This works great for furniture, such as chairs or tables. This way your work gets notices and the word of mouth aspect can get you new customers. This is also where you want to have your business cards available with your website address so people can check your wooden creations out.

Furniture Shops or Galleries

Again we reach out to a broader audience with furniture shops and galleries. In this case you would have to share the profits to get exposure to your products, but this can help you generate quick sales to get the word out. There are many professional woodworkers who sell their products this way. Plus, if hobbyists can build a great relationship with these furniture shops and galleries they can get repeat business, customers and more orders.

Traditional Offline Advertising

This step may also sound obvious and underrated at time. But, if you really want to increase sales while you are considering going online, you can take advantage of traditional advertising methods like flyers and newspaper advertising. You may be surprised to find out that your local paper is not that expensive to advertise in. It just takes a little research on your part. You can browse through different woodworking magazines to see how others woodworkers are promoting their products. This is a great way to increase sales, but I do not recommend starting this way until you have done the other steps mentioned above.

What About Selling Woodworking Plans?

How to make money woodworking plans

OK, now that we have looked at how to make money woodworking online and offline, let’s take a look at a completely different tactic. You may need to use your imagination here. But, what about selling woodworking plans online. You may have not heard of such a thing, but this is available to the woodworking enthusiast as well. These methods do not involve working with your hands, but if you have a passion for woodworking, you may be interested in looking closer to this possibility.

You see, there are woodworking affiliate programs available for people to see other peoples woodworking plans. There are many people who are interested in building different projects and would like step by step plans to use in order to build great projects, and they are available on the internet.

I recommend reading another blog article I wrote describing the best Clickbank Affiliate Programs.

Final Thoughts

As you can see there are many ways to learn how to make money woodworking. People have been selling their own woodworking creations for a very long time, however, it is much easier these days than you might think. As mentioned in the above mentioned area, affiliate marketing is a great way to earn a great side income or even a full time income from home. Not only from home, but from anywhere there is an internet connection. This gives one a huge amount of time freedom and you don’t have to rely on a company to dictate your income. You can create your very own income.

If you would like to learn how to generate a part-time or a full time income from anywhere there is an internet connection you can learn to use this simple four step formula.

10 thoughts on “How To Make Money Woodworking”

  1. Hello….nice article,well constructed and well written …I really like how you explained how we can make money through wool working it’s really a great idea…it also seems like a technical job to do but selling woodwork plans online is really an amazing idea…I really like how you planned out your site and I look forward to reading more interesting articles from you 

    Reply
    • Thank you for the feedback Otaru! Yes selling woodworking plans online is the best way to make money woodworking. Especially since the plan are already available and you do not really have to put anything together. 

      Reply
  2. This is a very helpful article on how to make money woodworking and I like the way in which you have differentiated between selling online and offline. I guess the only obstacle with selling online, could be the cost of shipping if you are making big or heavy pieces of furniture. If it is smaller items like bowls or cheese boards, it would be good. 

    It is a very good idea to start by selling locally and even better if you could sell plans for bigger items. 

    Reply
    • Thanks for the feedback Line! Yes, for selling online, it would be a good idea to sell to local folks so that you can arrange for personal delivery or customer pick up. Of course, the other option is to sell woodworking plans for any item since it is a digital download there would be no shipping to deal with. I believe the best way to make money woodworking is to sell the plans through affiliate marketing methods. 

      Reply
  3. Hello there! This is an awesome review you’ve got here, I am sure this will be of great help to anyone who comes across it. Many people enjoy woodworking as a hobby but do not know they can make a legitimate career out of it. As a professional woodworker, it is our job to make a variety of products such as furniture, cabinets, and other
    structures for businesses or homes.

    These products are made out of wood, veneers, and laminates. Thank you very much.

    Reply
    • Thanks for the feedback Evans. That is correct, many people are not aware of these opportunities. I am glad you enjoyed the article and how to make money woodworking. 

      Reply
  4. Hi Ralph, 

    I like the way you have explained how we can make money woodworking. It does seem a very technical job, but I am sure it has enough followers. Selling woodworking plans online is indeed an interesting idea. I think I can take you up on that one Ralph. It’s worth a try.

    I love the way u have planned your site and look forward to many more interesting articles in the future too. Keep writing such cool blogs and you will have loads of visitors to your website in no time.

    Regards,

    Aparna

    Reply
    • Thank you Aparna for your kind words. Yes indeed, selling woodworking plan is a great way to learn how to make money woodworking. I highly recommend it. Clickbank has some great resources as well. Also, if you utilize the free affiliate marketing training, you can easily learn how to promote those woodworking plans. 

      Reply
  5. Thanks there for bringing this to our knowledge its really nice to hear, everyone who ones to make it in life must not settle for one business u must have a side huslte , Making and/or marketing woodworking products or woodworking plans can be a great side hustle, or it can even generate a full time income for you.

    Reply
    • This is true Kelvin. Not only would it make a great side hustle, but it could generate a full time income as well Learning how to make money woodworking is worth pursuing for sure. 

      Reply

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