From Zero Sales to 48 Copies in 3 Weeks — My Journey to Digital Product Success

By week three, it had sold over 48 copies!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve been writing online for over 3 years now.

I started out just writing my articles on Medium, trying to build my skills and audience. But after 3 years, I’ve been thinking it’s time to diversify my income streams beyond just Medium.

Don’t get me wrong — I still love writing on Medium! However, as a creator, I don’t want all my eggs in one basket.

So I’ve started ramping up activity on other platforms like launching a YouTube channel, creating an email newsletter, and posting regularly on LinkedIn.

It’s been a steep learning curve!

I’m teaching myself video editing to make compelling YouTube videos. I’m figuring out email marketing and list building. And learning how to create content that resonates on LinkedIn.

On top of all that, I finally took the plunge and published my first digital product — an ebook called “The Art of Writing- How to Make a Living Doing What You Love”.

After spending over 3 years honing my writing craft and guiding other aspiring authors, I compiled all my best tips into an ebook and launched it on Gumroad.

Here’s how.

The Origin Story

Let’s be honest, I never set out to write a book.

It all started 3 years ago when I realized I loved writing but had no clue how to actually make a living from it.

Also, I was tired of following expensive guru courses that made big promises but didn’t actually help me get better at writing or finding an audience.

So instead, I took matters into my own hands.

I started studying the top Medium writers in my niche to figure out what made them so popular. I analyzed everything from their writing style to their content strategy.

From there, I committed to writing every single day for 3 years straight in order to improve my craft.

Some days I only cranked out 500 words before calling it quits. Other days I was in the zone and wrote 3,000-word epic posts. But I never gave up, even when I only had a handful of views.

Eventually, the hard work paid off.

My articles started making it into the Medium Top 100 and I was getting hundreds of thousands of views. Even cooler, other aspiring writers were asking me for advice!

That’s when the lightbulb went off — I could take everything I learned and create an online course or ebook to help others build their writing careers.

For sure, I didn’t want to scam people with hype and false promises though. Also, my product would need to be authentic and offer real value.

Because of that, for a couple of months, I outlined content, drafted chapters, and refined my strategies based on my experience and feedback from my audience.

It was a ton of work, but seeing the final product come together made it all worth it.

The result was “The Art of Writing- How to Make a Living Doing What You Love” — packed with my best tips for becoming a great writer and finding success.

After all that effort, it was time to get it out into the world. I decided to launch it on Gumroad, where I could deliver it instantly to buyers.

Launching on Gumroad

When it came time to actually put my book out into the world, I’ll admit I was clueless.

I had zero experience with launches, pricing, marketing, or anything business-related. But I knew I wanted to keep things simple and just get my book out there.

So I went ahead with Gumroad since it seemed like the easiest platform for selling digital products.

The setup process was surprisingly smooth — I just had to upload my book file, add a cover image and description, and configure my pricing.

And the pricing was way harder than I expected!

I stared at that box for days trying to decide. I knew my blood, sweat, and tears were worth more than 99 cents. But $50 felt too arrogant for my first book. In the end, I settled on $10 — affordable but still valuable.

And to be honest, as for marketing, I didn’t do anything fancy.

No giveaways, no ads. I simply announced the book launch to my email list and posted about it on my social media channels.

Also, the week after launch, I published a blog post recapping the process of creating the book and my journey up to that point. I hoped it would resonate with aspiring writers and convince more people to give the book a shot.

In the end, I just tried to spread the word organically as best I could.

The Unexpected Results

I have to be honest, I never imagined my book would sell right away.

Who was going to buy a tutorial from some no-name first-time author? But immediately after publishing, the sales started trickling in.

At first, it was just a couple of copies a day.

By the end of that first week though, nearly 20 people had purchased my book! I was amazed. With no advertising or launches, my followers were spending their hard-earned money on my writing.

It gave me a glimmer of hope. Maybe I had created something worthwhile after all. Still, I figured it was beginner’s luck and sales would dry up.

But the next week, they kept steadily climbing. I refreshed my sales dashboard obsessively, bracing for the drop-off. Yet people kept buying, day after day.

By week three, it had sold over 48 copies!

I was flabbergasted. All those late nights crafting content had paid off. My goal was simply to provide value, but now my advice was resonating around the world.

This whole journey taught me so much.

As a new author, I assumed nobody would care about my work without a huge platform or marketing budget.

Turns out, if you create authentic value, the ideal audience finds you. It restored my faith in putting yourself out there as a creator.

Of course, $440 in revenue was just the beginning but it validated the hard work I put into this book.

Now, I am hoping to reach a new milestone, aiming for a total of 100 copies. And, by the way, if you want to buy it right now, you can grab the book at a 30% discount through this link.

Hope you like it.

That’s it — thanks.