Hi Monique,
 
Well, for me I know that it is very unlikely that any single artist will 'make a living' selling cards at GCU.  I don't know about you, but if I do the math I'd have to sell over 2000 cards a month (at the full artist quota) just to make a dent in my mortgage.   However, I NEVER think that I am wasting my time being creative here.  
 
First of all, GCU should not be the only POD you have your work if you are hoping to make a living at selling it.  I have 3 Zazzle stores, a Cafepress shop, and an Imagekind store for my fine art.  
 
Secondly, have to draw traffic to your store by marketing your work elsewhere to compliment the customers GCU brings in.  I have an online monthly newsletter and ping all of my stores and websites once a month to the search engines, which also helps.
 
I opened my GCU store mid-April this year and as of today have sold 250 cards.  That is better than some artists and well below many who have been at this much, much longer.  But, my sales for all of my sites steadily increases and I am now receiving sales pretty much every day, some days multiple sales.  If I keep at this, keep my stores fresh with new work and keep marketing my work, I am confident that I can build a business that will provide a reasonable living in a few years.
 
Good luck to you and I sure hope you don't find your creativity a waste of time!

Perhaps wrong choice of word.  Submit your URL's to search engines is what I am referring to.  Some of them say "thanks for the ping".  

Well, you gave me an excuse to make a new graph that I hope will be helpful to all.
 
Before I get into it, keep in mind that GCU is only a little over 2 years old, so this whole venture is in its infancy and no artist is doing any more than a few dollars per day of income at this point.  In time this will change and the chart below should help us gauge our own growth and income expectations near term.
 
Clearly if our personal monthly sales are flat, our income will be flat.  So to grow our income we have to grow our offerings, and if our cards are competitive, our sales will grow.  This is also helped along with the general growth of GCU, but remember, more cards and artists are also being added each day which is a "headwind" for all of us artists.
 
The graph below shows a 5-year picture of monthly income based on how our monthly sales are increasing.  I overlaid my own data to help illustrate what the graph is showing.  It shows that I have lumpy monthly sales (and income) over 19 months since starting but on average my sales are increasing at almost 15 more cards each subsequent month, so, as you'd expect, my income is growing by $0.56 x 15 or so (~$8.40) each month, month after month.  
 
So what does this tell us?  It tells us the improvement in income over time that we can expect if we are successful making more cards, and better cards, and are able to increase our monthly card sales growth rate over time.  It is a challenge for sure, but it also shows that it still will be a while before any of us will satisfy our life-long dream of being true Greeting Card tycoons.  
 
That said, who knows what other opportunities it will bring for us!  
 
 

 
THIS NEXT CHART ILLUSTRATES THE TOTAL CARDS SOLD FOR AN ARTIST AT THE VARIOUS GROWTH RATES.
 
IT WILL BE NICE TO HAVE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF OUR OWN CARDS OUT THERE ONE DAY!!
 

 

I am blown away every day by how well my sister and I are doing on this site, we just reached our 5,000 card mark a few ays ago in 14 months. I'm not saying that to brag, I really cannot believe it. We sell from 0-50 cards per day, with the average being about 20. Is it worth it? Oh yeah. Is it enought to stop everything else and just sell on GCU? Nope. I agree with some of the other responses, you have to have your eggs in more than one basket. Right now we are averaging about 30.00 per month on Zazzle, but I'm hoping that will change as Christmas gets closer.

Good for you Ang (and sis)!  I think there are about 10 artists with over 5000 cards sold now and several of them with over 10000 cards sold to date.  
 
You are running at a +55 growth rate (vs. my +14.7 rate per chart one) and will hit $1000/m income in month 32 at that rate, and add another $1000/m every 2.5 years or so.  AWESOME!!!
 
Are either of you single?  

Quote from Angela_134247 on Sep 8^th, 2009, 4:09pm:

That's a little older than I'm used to, but workable.  

The most I've ever sold in 1 day is 130 cards and that was 1 large order. I don't neccessarily have daily sales - Usually I can count on selling something weekly. Some weeks are really slow for me (like this week) some are crazy with sales and make me cocky. Tom's right- it get's better all the time.  I've just had my 2nd GCU anniversary and I've gone from am I nuts for doing this? to I think this can become a nice $$ stream. As a freelance artist I do a variety of things (traditional & POD) and do not expect 1 source to do it all for me. Should note that even before there were POD's - creatives have always made their living thru many sources. POD's have just given us a few more avenues to explore.
 
Angela - all I can say is WOW to you & your sis. Very inspiring.
 
Wish I was better at marketing - but even with my poor marketing skills I'm sellling on a regular basis and my sales are improving. GCU is also totally FREE for artists - so this site is the best in my book. IMHO  -Definitely not a waste of time! -Di