Summary

The author shares their experience of selling a free e-book for $5 using the "Pay What You Want" pricing strategy.

Abstract

The author, from an underdeveloped country, struggled to sell their e-book due to international financial transaction challenges. After initially setting a fixed price and receiving no downloads, the author was inspired by a story from Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi to switch to a "Pay What You Want" pricing strategy. This change led to the author making $5 from their free e-book, providing them with hope and motivation to create more quality content online.

Opinions

The author had doubts and fears about writing and selling an e-book, including concerns about readership and potential negative feedback.
The author initially struggled to sell their e-book due to international financial transaction challenges and lack of flexible payment gateways.
The author tried using Gumroad to sell their e-book but encountered problems with the payment setup, leading them to switch to Payhip.
The author felt sad and frustrated after not receiving any downloads for a week, doubting their decision to write the book.
The author was inspired by Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi's story about making $100+ from a free checklist using the "Pay What You Want" pricing strategy.
The author learned that their job is to provide value, and the outcome is not in their control. They cannot expect hundreds of people to download their e-book, but they will do so if they find value.
The author expressed gratitude towards Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi for sharing her method and towards everyone who downloaded their e-book.

I Sold My FREE E-Book for $5. You Can Do It Too. Here’s How.

If you are struggling to sell your digital product, try this method.

Selling digital products like e-books, online courses, and apps is a common way to earn passive income. You can make money off them for a lifetime by doing the work once.

I have seen people earning a good income writing and selling e-books. So, I wanted to give it a try.

But I had doubts and fears:

Nobody is going to read it.
How am I going to sell it?
What if people don’t like it?

The resistance was always there. But I made up my mind and decided to go for it this time.

Writing the e-book

I had written an e-book before. It was a compilation of my old articles.

It was a free e-book, and so far, I have received 500+ downloads.

At the beginning of 2022, I wanted to do something bigger. So I decided to write another e-book that would help people make their lives better in some way.

I worked hard to find the topic and write the book. I completed my e-book in about a month.

Then came the hard part: How am I going to sell it?

Selling the e-book

I am from an underdeveloped country where international financial transactions are challenging. We don’t have flexible payment gateways here. And as you might have guessed, I cannot make money on Medium (even though I have 1K+ followers and a top writer’s badge).

Sad, I know.

But anyway, that’s a different story.

Let’s get back to my e-book story.

I researched many platforms that would allow me to sell my e-book. I found out about Gumroad through other writers on Medium.

I tried it. But I came across some problems with the payment setup. So I decided to look for alternatives.

Then, I signed up for Payhip (aff), and luckily, everything was okay there.

I uploaded my e-book on Payhip with a fixed price. I shared the book everywhere — on social media, my newsletter, and Medium.

The hard part was done (at least that’s what I thought).

Number of e-books sold = 0

Unfortunately, I did not receive any downloads for a week.

I was sad and frustrated. I started to doubt myself again, thinking I shouldn’t have written the book. I knew something like this would happen.

“What a waste,” I said to myself.

After the second week, I had given up hope.

Should I lower my price?
But people have already seen it.
What will they think after finding out that I have reduced the price?
They will know that I did not make a sale.
Maybe I should give it away for free.
I will write a better one for a higher price later.

These thoughts kept coming to my mind.

Still, I had no sales.

Hope

I was checking my Medium feed one morning, and I saw a story by Niharikaa Kaur Sodhi, “Why Is Nobody Talking About This Passive Income Method?”

I read her story and felt like she had written it for me. It was as if the universe was telling me not to give up.

I had hope.

In her story, Niharikaa wrote about how she made $100+ from her FREE Side Hustler checklist by setting its price to “Pay What You Want.”

After seeing that, I immediately checked whether Payhip had that feature.

Luckily, it did.

So I went for it.

I set the price of my e-book to “Pay What You Want.”

The $5 incident

I tried another round of e-book marketing. I shared it on LinkedIn, Twitter, and in my newsletter.

People saw it, and this time, they downloaded it.

Of course, many people downloaded it for free.

But one day, I saw that someone had paid $1 for it.

I was surprised and thrilled.

Since then, most people have paid $1 for my free e-book.

But a few days later, someone paid $5. When I checked my email, I could not believe it.

I was happy and grateful. It gave me hope and motivated me to create more quality content online.

I learned that:

My job is to provide value, which is in my control. But the outcome is not in my control. I cannot expect hundreds of people to download my e-book. They will do it if they find value. So, I must focus on the things I can control and not stress about something that is not in my control.

That is the story of how I made $5 from my free e-book.

Thanks to Niharikaa for sharing her method. And thanks to everyone who has downloaded my e-book.

Thanks for reading.

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