How I became an author and sold digital books worth of 5 figures
I share my experience in how I created and successfully sold a course-book for a high-school course.
I created a digital platform using full-stack web development frameworks (HTML, CSS, EJS, Bootstrap, MongoDB, NodeJS and Stripe for monetization).
First the stats:
I sold to 141 teachers and 363 students
Total revenue: 176 400 Kr (Swedish Kronor). which is approximately 17.6K USD
Not really a get rich amount but definitely something that proves to you that you can make money selling digital products.
Get a look at the product that I sold
As of now I do not sell the book anymore because in Sweden the course is replaced with a new one.
Here is the pdf for you to look at:
The book is also accessible from the blog post:
Link to my teacher-blog article with book
How did I do it?
I saw that there were no books for the course Technology 2 and I saw the need for one so I wrote it. The tech-teachers that I spoke with found it hard to give the course because of lack of literature.
I learned about full-stack web-development and created a digital platform: https://www.teknik2bok.se that hosted my book. The teachers, interested in buying the book contacted me for an invoice, or paid directly through Stripe.
The tech-stack consisted of:
Front-end, HTML, CSS, EJS
Backend: NodeJs (webserver)
I used Heroku for hosting.
The teachers got the book in their signed in account and can then share the number of bought books to the students.
How you can do it
You have to identify if your product has a market. You also need to reach out to potential buyers in order to be able to sell to people in need of the product.
I reached out to all the schools of Sweden that has a high-school program in Technology. All theses students can choose the track Teknikvetenskap (Science of Technology track within that program). These students have to take the Technology 2 course, which means they, along with the teachers are my targeted prospects for the digital book.
It also helped that the book was the only one book in Sweden for the course.
I also reached out to teachers in various Facebook-groups and got people to buy.
I spent very little on ad campaigns (Facebook ads). It was around 20 bucks or something. The ads did not converge so I stopped.
Because the book was unique, it ranked first on google search for “Teknik 2 bok” (Technology 2 book).
I do not think that you need to create your own digital platform and sell the book there. It took me 2 months to create the platform and I have programming experience. The book I wrote in like 3 months (161 pages).
For you I recommend digital storefronts like: Kindle e-books and Gumroad or Apple books and Google play books. Find the platforms that fits you.
So my best tips to you is:
Write or create something that you are passionate about. It helps you finish it.
See that there is a value for the product. Will it solve problems for the potential buyers?
Figure out who the product is for.
Find ways to reach potential buyers.
Create the thing.
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Thank you for reading! See you around next time.