I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettiness, without being either good businessmen or fine judges of literature. All that is necessary in the production of a book is an author and a bookseller, without the intermediate parasite.
— George Bernard Shaw
Digital Goods
31
Oct 10
Preach It, George Bernard
27
Oct 10
Join Our Free Infoproduct Show & Tell
Infoproducts! Are! Awesome!
You know I already think so, which is why I’ve written about what infoproducts are, how to sell them, the reason they’re awesome for the future of, well, everyone, and of course, the math behind slowly freeing yourself from freelancing… all through the transformative beauty of the infoproduct.
But you know what they say about writing: Show, don’t tell.
That’s a challenge the ineffable Kelly Parkinson and I just couldn’t resist. So we’re getting together to show and tell.
Yes, we’re holding a little fireside chat, all about infoproducts, and you’re invited. (Gratis. For free. De nada. Etc.)
Did I mention it’s free?
Infoproducts Show & Tell, Dance & Song
What do we mean, “show & tell”?
Well, first we’ll do a little tellin’. Kelly and I both love infoproducts, not just individual ones, but the whole idea. (It’s no surprise that we’re both bookworms.) So we’ll jam a little on such topics as: why infoproducts, how we come up with ideas, and what really makes a runaway best seller.
Then we’ll do a lot more showin’. You would not believe the range of infoproducts out there, from bigass corps down to the tiniest soloist, on every topic and in every format for every problem you can imagine.
We’ll show you around this wild, whacky, wonderful world — focusing on some of the sparkly infoproducts that we’ve found, admired, and even bought.
Yep, that’s right, we’ll actually show you little snippets of infoproducts we’ve actually bought. That’s the best way to get the feel for what an infoproduct can be.
Add to that our running commentary on ideating, marketing, positioning, pricing, format-choosing, purposing, and more, and you have the complete package.
The Show & Tell Deets
WHERE? On the internet, sillyhead.
WHEN? October 29 (this Friday), at
- 9am – 10am Pacific (PT)
- 12pm – 1pm Eastern (ET)
- 5pm – 6pm London (GMT)
- 6pm – 7pm Vienna (CET)
(Sorry, accidentally had it listed as 2 hours – but it’s just one!)
HOW? Through the miracle of Adobe Flash. You surely have the plugin installed already. You do not need to dial in to anything. You don’t even need a real phone. Just broadband and a computer that ain’t dog slow.
Here’s the link to click when the time comes: http://s7.gs/showntell
Obviously, the meeting link won’t be live til, well, the meeting is live.
WILL AMY AND KELLY BE ON VIDEO? You betcha!
UH… DO I HAVE TO BE ON VIDEO? Nope, feel free to show up in your jammies. Or not in your jammies, if you catch my drift.
WOULD YOU PLEASE REMIND ME BEFOREHAND? Oh yes. No problem. Just join my advanced discount list.
CAN I TELL MY FRIENDS ALL ABOUT IT? Yes, please do! Wouldn’t it be fun if we maxxed out the teleconference software?
(Don’t worry that it’s on a different site — I’m undergoing a rebrand 
See you there!
11
Oct 10
Running the Numbers: Your First Infoproduct
If you’re a freelancer, doing creative-y things, then it won’t take but a small push to get you from No Products zomg! to Hey I Gots a Product.
Let’s look at the numbers for Your First Infoproduct.
First up: Your Freelance Income
Say you typically charge $75/hr. Your rate may be higher or lower; adjust as necessary.
I bet you could make and begin to market an infoproduct in 75 hours or fewer. Dave Navarro says you can do one in a weekend. I agree.
That means your infoproduct would have a freelance opportunity cost of $5,625 (75 hours • $75 hourly billing).
Second: Launch Your Product
Price your short, sweet, punchy infoproduct at $19. Sell 75 copies at launch, that nets you $1,425.
Don’t freak. It’s not hard to sell 75 copies. If you have an audience of 200 to 400 people, and you create a product offer that speaks to them, that solves a problem for them, you’ll have no problem at all.
So, $5,625 (Hourly Potential Earnings, an opportunity cost of creating a product) minus $1,425 (Product Launch Earnings) is $4,200. Let’s call that the Wage Slave vs Freedom Gestalt. That’s still a big number, in favor of freelancing.
Or is it?
Ongoing Sales: Not Spectacular
You’ve done a little bit of other marketing: put a banner in your sidebar, blogged about your launch, posted on forums with it in your signature, basically made sure you didn’t commit the criminal mistake of Not Tellin’ Nobody.
So you keep selling copies. Slowly, of course, since you’re no marketing genius. Let’s say you sell another 15 copies per month for the first 2 months. That’s $285 x 2 = $570.
Your total product earnings are now up to $1,995 (hurry, act now!). Gestalt is still big.
Ehhhn: The Sound of a Mild Additional Effort
Now, you’re a smart cookie. You know a product won’t coast forever just on one push. (That’d defy physics, for one thing.)
So you gird your loins and do you a little bit of extra marketing. Take two hours of your time ($150 opportunity cost) and write 3 more blog posts that appeal to the audience for your book, create an infographic, release a bit of open source code, post more on forums, and so on. Update your sales page with some customer quotes. Send a couple review copies out. Your Gestalt increases slightly.
The Magic Formula: Earnings = Reward x Effort
Hey, what’s this you find? That tiny bit of effort was almost like another launch!
Sell 30 copies. $1995 + $570 (30 copies) = $2,565.
You now rest on your well-padded laurels. Your monthly sales are up to 20 copies a month on average, though, because of your extra bit of marketing. For the rest of the year (10 months), you earn an average of $380 a month in sales — $3,800 in total.
$3,800 (10 months’ coasting) plus $2,565 (launch, relaunch, first 2 months’ sales) = $6,365.
Your original Hourly Potential Earnings was $5,625 plus two extra hours of marketing at $150 = $5,775.
Congratulations. You did better than break-even on on the opportunity cost, by 10.2%.
Your Wage Slave vs Freedom Gestalt is a negative number: doing a single freelance job, for the same amount of time, would have been 10.2% less profitable.
The Numbers Again: In Short
You charge $75/hr. You spent 75 hours (+ 2 later) creating and marketing your product.
$75 x 75 hours = $5,625
$75 x 2 hours = $150
Total Hourly Potential Earnings (freelancing): $5,775
You priced your infoproduct at $19, and sold 75 copies at launch. You then sold 15 copies a month for two months (average). You did another mini-launch and sold 30 copies. Your extra marketing paid off with an increase to 20 copies per month for the next 10 months (average).
$19 x 75 copies = $1,425
$19 x 15 copies x 2 months = $570
$19 x 30 copies = $570
$19 x 20 copies x 10 months = $3,800
Total Income from Sales: $6,365
That math is a no-brainer, if you ask me.
Whaddaya say?
Have you been running the numbers?
Oh yeah. Kelly and I are doing a free 90-minute online class on infoproducts on Oct 29th. In preparation for making a full-day workshop on making and selling your very first infoproduct. Interested? Subscribe to my Advanced Discount List for the heads’ up & discounts. Or follow me on Twitter for the heads’ up, but no discounts. Your choice!
2
Oct 10
Developers, Designers: Make an Infoproduct
Why is there a baby in this package? You'll just have to read to find out. (cc Mark Sebastian)
A few days ago, I got all inspired by an idea and immediately decided to tweet it for quick & dirty market research – Would anyone be interested in a course on how to make & sell infoproducts?
The answer kinda blew my mind:
@amyhoy: What’s an info product?
This. We cannot have this. Grab yourself a nice cup of cocoa, and settle in, because infoproducts are beautiful, wonderful, and wealth-giving.
And it’s time for a story.
Birds, Bees, & Info-P’s
When a mommy Info and a daddy Product love each other very much, they snuggle closer and closer! Then, magical sparkles happen between their bumpy bits! 9 months later, a baby infoproduct is born.
Now, Baby Infoproduct has the best of both his mommy and daddy. Mommy’s Info is stuck without a vehicle for delivery. Pure info can’t get anywhere on its own. But Daddy’s Product is only form — and form alone doesn’t sell.
But, thanks to the genius of sexual selection, Baby Infoproduct is the total package! Awww, ain’t love grand?
This time, without vomiting… What’s an infoproduct?
Strictly speaking, an infoproduct is a product that conveys info. But they’re oooooh so much more than that. A good infoproduct doesn’t just deliver info, it delivers results.
Types of Infoproducts
There are as many types of infoproducts as there are ways to persuade, guide, teach, and aid. Some of the most popular and successful types of infoproduct are:
- ebooks
- white papers
- screencasts
- videos
- guided audio programs
- recorded interviews
- workbooks
- self-guided courses
- cheat sheets
- diagrams
- research papers
- best practice guides
- helpful software / wizards (that teach)
- condensed notes / summaries
In short: digital goods of all stripes. The same “info” can be delivered in different forms for different purposes, audiences, and price points. That’s part of the beauty of an infoproduct.
You can even mix and match. Customers love it when they get video and a workbook, or a research paper and some interviews they can listen to on their commutes.
Why Your Strategy Needs an Infoproduct
Infoproducts are relatively easy (and dirt cheap) to create. They’re easy and cheap to sell — you don’t have to whip up your own ecommerce system. You can pick the form of a product that suits you and your audience.
And, if you get your offer and your audience right, you can sell them at a pretty premium: a windfall of income at launch, and then a small but steady stream of sales after that.
Oh, and, last and best thing: infoproducts usually don’t need much by way of customer support, so they’re even easy and cheap to maintain.
Let’s review:
- cheap & easy to make
- cheap & easy to sell
- cheap & easy to maintain
- can make a lot of money
Hot dog, that’s a lot of upsides without a lot of downsides.
Even if your long-term goal isn’t to live off ebooks, videos, workshops, etc., an infoproduct can help you stuff your coffers and get the feel for researching, planning, making, marketing, shipping, and selling.
Bottomline: Yay, Infoproducts!
Infoproducts are fun and profitable. I can attest to this one personally, having written (co-created) a technical ebook, lots of live training (a semi-infoproduct), and also a semi-self-guided launch class.
That JavaScript performance ebook alone has made us $45,823.00 as of yesterday, and all we had to invest was time.
And you don’t have to write a whole ebook to make a nice little chunk of change. Quaking with fear at the thought of writing the Great American Ebook? Then make a presentation and narrate it. Or screen cap yourself doing your thing with code or Photoshop. Or create 5 podcasts and package them with a little workbook. Or, or, or. Infoproducts are the very soul of flexibility.
Also: before your excuse-making machine starts churning up, “But Amy, you’re special” — no, no I’m not. I’m not the only one making a bundle off infoproducts in a tech/design field. Check out these other peeps: Peepcode, Lynda, Create Your Own Programming Language, the Envato network of sites, Sitepoint, UIE, Before & After, and Giles Bowkett. Even 37Signals used to sell expensive white papers on design ROI, until they made their fortune elsewhere.
These are a broad selection, but definitely not everything that’s out there.
So I urge you, consider an infoproduct. In return for procreation and snuggles, they’ll pay you handsomely.
What’re you thinking? What’s stopping you?
Write me, baby.
21
Jul 10
How to Sell Your Digital Goods
The un-recommended way to sell your digital goods. (cc kozumel)
Working on your first digital good for sale? Or just thinking about it?
Don’t let the technical details of “how to actually sell the damn thing” keep you from making it — or shipping it.
In this one little blog post, I’m gonna fill you in on aaaaaall the digital goods dirt — so you can get the decision over with, and get back to doing your thing.
Oooh, and making money.
Digital goods meaning what now?
Just a note for clarity: by “digital goods,” I mean any kind of downloadable media that stands alone: PDFs, HTML, audio, video, little bits of software that don’t need licensing — like WordPress themes.
This is important, because when you need to generate license keys tied to usernames and whatnot, things get a lot more complicated. So, for today: nice, simple, self-contained digital goods.
You’ve Got 5 Basic Needs
When it comes to digital goods, you as a seller have 5 basic needs:
- collecting payment
- delivering the content to the customer
- staying in contact with customers (e.g. mailing updates, getting their contact info)
- managing refunds
- getting your money
Beyond those 5, you might want to offer an affiliate program, or upsells to other products, but let’s be honest — right now, you just have to finish your thing and get it online, and in the hands of your customers. Once it’s online, you have to be able to sell it, and talk to your customers, and get your money out.
That other stuff is cream! Worry about it when you’re rich.
And 5 Platforms to Choose From
Since you’re a sensible person, you’d assume that every platform on the market covers all of your 5 basic needs… but, sadly, you’d be wrong.
Coincidentally, there are 5 Platform Types that will help you sell your digital goods.
(No, I didn’t arbitrarily decide on 5 and work backwards from there. It just worked out that way. If there is a god, he’s clearly a marketer.)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the 5 Platform Types:
Roll Your Own. You don’t wanna do this. It puts you further away from making money, not closer — and that makes it a no-no. (I need a freshly shorn yak, embarrassed and baby smooth. STAT!)
Classic Ecommerce Solution + Digital Goods Add-on. Example: Shopify with Fetch. While Shopify is splendid for physical goods, this approach is glommed on with duct tape. Fetch doesn’t cover all 5 Basic Needs (no way to send updates, email your customers, no affiliate program). And you’re paying for two services at once. To which one can only say: MEH!
A Traditional Ebook Marketplace. Traditional? Ebook? Is there such a thing? Yes: Clickbank has been around for a coon’s age, if by “coon” you mean grotty old internet marketer. Upsides: works, well-tested, reliable. You can absolutely trust them and they hit 4 out of 5 Basic Needs (except email lists). You don’t need any kind of payment provider. Downsides: it has “the IM taint,” and worst of all, your customers pay ClickBank, and then ClickBank pays you later. By check. (Or direct deposit, if you qualify.)
Full-Blown Digital Goods Ecommerce. There are several pretenders to this throne, but the only true heir is 1ShoppingCart. 1SC is for the pros and people who have the time/energy/money to integrate. Pros: Covers all 5 Basic Needs very nicely, offers the highest respectability, tons of payment integration options, including many credit card processors. It never touches your money. Cons: Expensive. Digital Download versions start at $99/month. Complicated set-up. Only offers password-protected areas for your customers to download your digital goods, as opposed to unique URLs. (So it’s hard to block out old customers, or limit downloads.)
E-Junkie. Halfway between Clickbank and a full blown shopping cart lies E-Junkie, in a category of its own. Despite its sophomoric name, it’s totally on the up & up — and, offers PayPal, Checkout, and Authorize.net integration. It covers all 5 Basic Needs, although if you send out updates they charge you for bandwidth costs. (You can pay a slightly higher monthly fee to self-host your own files.) E-Junkie has a whiff of the taint, but it’s cheap ($10), your money goes straight to you, and it’s not too complicated to set up. Downsides: ugly as hell, Flash, user-unfriendly and time consuming to perform basic tasks, and, you know, “E-Junkie”?
So, as you can see, there’s no single solution that screams perfection and take-home-to-mama-ability.
5 Ways to Choose the Lukewarmest Platform for You*
The key problem with choosing your platform is that all of the solutions suck, as you might have gathered from my snarking. They all have serious downsides.
Given all of the above — as much as it pains me to say so — I recommend E-Junkie. While the user experience is Double Plus Ungood, it’s cheap, functional, and available.
If you have a PayPal account, a domain name, and hosting, you can put up a sales page, set up your digital goods listing in E-Junkie, embed the Buy button, and be selling in 30 minutes.
As far as lukewarm things go, that’s not too bad. It’s more like lukewarm milk than lukewarm beer: not your favorite thing by far, but putting it in your mouth won’t cause you to spontaneously projectile vomit.
Bottom line: Set up E-Junkie today
Thus, I’m advocating that you go ahead right now and sign up for the lesser (in every sense) of two evils: E-Junkie.
E-Junkie’s only true competitor on features is 1ShoppingCart, which will take much longer to configure and costs, oh, about 10 times more.
Let’s face it: Your problem isn’t that you’re overwhelmed with sales. If only! Your problem is that you haven’t set up a payment platform because you’re unsure, and it seems like a lot of work. Ergo you are making no money. Ergo you are losing money.
That’s where E-Junkie shines: hard-eyed pragmatism. Which is exactly what you want, as a budding digital goods provider.
* I lied. There’s only one way to choose, and I just couldn’t bear to ruin a good thing.
PS — Suffice to say, we went with E-Junkie for JavaScript Performance Rocks!.
PPS — Want the bullshit-free skinny on creating & selling info products? You better hit that Subscribe button, buddy. Or subscribe by email and get motivating kicks in the ass direct to your inbox. I guarantee they’ll earn you more than your weekly Farmville report.
