Here’s What I Learned from Creating My First Paid Product…
Don’t make the same mistakes I did!
It all started here. I wanted to experiment with creating a paid product for a few reasons:
- To prove to myself that I could. (And trust me…if I can do it, anyone can.)
- To have the experience of doing it so I could document it and help others do the same.
- To buy new basement floors.
The first thing I did was set a deadline.
I made a tough but doable deadline. I did this due to Parkison’s Law:
Parkison’s law is the concept that work expands to fill the time given to complete it.
If I gave myself a longer deadline, I would just dilly-dally until the due date. Why not make a shorter deadline and get things done faster?
Money loves speed.
I started working on my digital product on Wednesday, January 24, and I set a deadline to have it ready for sale on Gumroad by Monday, January 29.
And I did it!
The biggest takeaway
If no one bought the product, it would have been a win for me.
I always have grand ideas that I never follow through on. For once, I did. That’s the biggest win I could have given myself.
Now that I know I can set goals (and accomplish them!) I feel comfortable creating even more goals.
That’s my biggest takeaway for you:
Make a tough but doable goal, then follow through on it. You will feel good about yourself!
The process
The process was pretty easy, but I made some mistakes that cost me time. Learn from my mistakes!
I didn’t know where to write the ebook. I started in Google Docs. Then I switched to writing it in Medium, knowing I’d have to copy it elsewhere to change it to a PDF.
Then I settled on doing it in Canva docs. I love Canva, and the docs program is great, except…
There are no line breaks!
When I downloaded my document as a PDF, the pages were a jumbled mess:
The breaks that automatically went into Canva created too much white space:
If Canva ever fixes this issue, this would be my preferred place to create an ebook. It’s very smooth besides the line break issue!
So…
I ended up copying everything from Canva and pasting it back into Google Docs. But the images didn’t copy over, so I had to do them all again. Ugh!
I finally got it done, but then I had another issue…
Bonus content
I wanted to add bonus content, but with all the problems with my document, I was running out of time!
I thought about only including the ebook and not worrying about the bonus.
But I just wasn’t satisfied doing that.
With much determination, I quickly got my fingers tapping away again, and I was able to get a mini ebook together for my bonus content.
(Now I need to go back in and make a couple of updates to it, but I’m happy I got something out!)
Results
I was originally going to price the book at $11 but decided to double it to $22. I added more to the book than I first thought I would, and I felt this was a fair price.
It’s only been up a few days, but I’ve made 8 sales so far for a gross amount of $176. A few of the sales came from my very first affiliate ever — Evan Kelly! (Thanks, Evan!!) We’ll split the revenue on his sales.
If you would like to be an affiliate, I’d love to have you. You can sign up using this link.
Gumroad takes a 10% cut, so that will lessen the total amount I’ll receive.
I have a long way to go to get those basement floors, but I’m OK with it. I’m having a good time learning some new things, and I’m not in any rush.
Mountain bike grease and cat hair, be damned! I’ll just make sure no one goes down there for now.
What’s next?
Writing on Medium is the first step of my simple 2-step system, and newsletters are the second step.
So I’ll be working on an ebook about newsletters next.
My thought is to also price that one at $22, and also set up a bundle where you can get both books for $33.
At least, that’s my plan for now, but let’s see how it ends up.
I will let you know!
I used to make $8 per month on Medium, and now I make over $500 (and counting).
I’ll show you what I finally figured out to become profitable.
Click here to check out Medium Money: The Simple Guide to Writing Articles That Pay You.
About the Author
Hey! I’m Christina, an introverted book nerd on the outside, and a raging metalhead on the inside. 🤘 I’m a married mom to two teenagers (and 3 cats and a dog). I love Vegas 🎰, the band Chevelle 🎸, and murder mysteries 📖.
I also love creating short, daily lists of resources and ideas to help you boost your online income. 👈 Click that astonishingly long link to sign up for free.