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Throughout my years of experience creating and selling resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, I have learned a thing or two. Many of those, I’ve learned through trial and error and by making a whole lot of mistakes along the way. As teacherpreneurs, we want to make sure we are creating quality resources that teachers truly want and need. What makes them want to purchase your resource instead of the other ones that pop up under the same category? Here are 5 tips for creating quality resources to sell on TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers).

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TPT Tip #1-Use Fonts that Are Easy to Read

Photo of a child's hands holding colorful plastic letters

Alright, this is one of my biggest mistakes that I am still working on fixing. haha When I first started my TPT journey, I wanted everything to have ‘cutesy’ letters. I mean, who doesn’t love a cute font?

However, we have to remember that our resources are serving thousands (if not millions) of students around the world! Many of which are special education students struggling with reading and writing. Fonts that are hard to read are confusing for these students and can make them feel frustrated or overly stimulated.

I quickly learned that many teachers didn’t want to purchase resources with these fonts because they knew it wouldn’t benefit their learners. I’ve slowly worked on updating some of my resource to accommodate all learners.

Use simple, easy-to-read fonts for the content that is serving the students. You can save the fancy fonts for product covers and previews!

The best fonts to use for students are San Serif fonts such as Verdana, Century Gothic, Tahoma, and Ariel. KG Fonts also has some really nice fonts that are great for resource creation! The one linked below is one of my favorites! The link will take you to its commercial license.

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TPT Tip #2-Include Enough Content

Make sure to include enough content to keep students busy! Teachers purchase resources from TPT to make their lives easier. They want activities that are engaging, practical, and serve a purpose. For example, maybe you are creating a set of task cards that students can use during math centers. A set of 5 addition task cards is not going to keep students busy for very long. Therefore, teachers are not likely to purchase them– especially if you’re charging $7.00 for this resource!

Teachers are inclined to purchase resources that contain more questions and practice opportunities for students. A set of 24-32 task cards is a lot more promising!

TPT Tip #3-Provide an Answer Key

Teachers don’t want to sit at their desk and solve 45 long division problems before starting to grade a stack of papers. Once again, as TPT sellers, our goal is to make teachers’ lives easier. Make sure to include an answer key for your resource. Simply make a copy of the file on Powerpoint, mark the answers using a colored font, and save as a separate PDF. You can zip your file to include the regular resource PDF and the answer key PDF.

Write ‘Answer Key Included!’ within your TPT description and indicate it at the bottom of your product listing as well. This will play a big role on whether they choose to buy your resource or someone else’s.

A screenshot of the TPT dashboard the section where you mention that an answer key is included. Tips for creating a TPT resource

If you want to make the activity ‘self-checking’ for students, you can create an answer key with QR codes. Students can scan the QR codes using their devices to check their answers.

QR codes are actually reallyyyy easy to create! Click here to make one.

TPT Tip #4- Make Your Resource Printer-Friendly

This step is directed to those of you that create colorful printables for teachers. For example, center task cards, games, posters, etc. Although we all love a beautiful, colorful printable… many teachers cannot afford to print everything in color! That is something to keep in mind when creating your TPT resources.

If you are creating a set of posters with colored clipart and fonts, I encourage you to also include a black & white version. Some teachers rather print the posters on colored paper to save a few bucks or because they simply don’t have access to a colored printer.

By providing a printer-friendly option as well, you are targeting the needs of different types of customers.

Poster with a pink background next to the same posters featured in a black and white version

TPT Tip #5- Print Your Resource before Uploading!

We all make silly mistakes during product creation. Like writing ‘rite’ instead of ‘write’. Been there, done that– lots of times. It’s completely normal. Our minds are super focused on creation and design, so we tend to overlook those little things.

Printing your resource will give you an exact understanding of what your product will look like once it’s in the hands of other teachers and students. You will be able to see if your images are aligned, if your font is large enough for students to read, and if there are any other details that just don’t look right. Then, you can do back and make those changes before uploading your final resource onto TPT.

I hope these tips for creating a quality TPT resource come in handy! Which one was the most helpful? Let me know in the comments below!