I Discovered Two Platforms To Sell Digital Products Online
I am going to share with you my experience creating an ebook and how I am selling it online.
If you are part of my Newsletter community, you may remember that a couple of weeks ago I did a marathon called “The Bitcoin Marathon”, where I shared with you daily introductory information about Bitcoin, easy to understand and share, as well as certain personal anecdotes related to my country, El Salvador, and how its economy is improving as a result of Bitcoin adoption.
Anyway… once the marathon was over I decided to continue talking about Bitcoin and everything related to the world of crypto on my YouTube channel, and I saw that persisted the interest in this world. Even my close friends and community members told me that they liked the marathon.
So, instead of doing another marathon, I decided to create an ebook compiling all the information that I had posted on the newsletter for a whole month.
You can do exactly the same thing.
If you have a personal blog where you talk about a specific topic or if you publish a lot of stories on this platform, or Linked, or your newsletter, about a topic that you are good at and you have a lot to talk about, you can collect all your articles related to that topic and create an ebook.
Why should you do this?
As an entrepreneur or content creator, your goal is for your products to reach as many people as possible on the internet. And the internet is a pretty wide ocean.
So, continuing the marine analogy, your goal is for your fishing nets to catch as much shellfish as possible.
Humans are unique and different beings, and not everyone entertain in the same way. Some people like to read stories on Medium, others watch videos on YouTube, others listen to podcasts, others learn from Twitter threads, and others like to read books.
So, we must learn to take advantage of every possible situation.
Think about this, if your stories turn out to be popular enough here, they will surely be popular elsewhere. So making yourself known in other places can be a good strategy to gain traffic and drive it to your digital platform, either here or elsewhere.
Let’s build your e-book!
All you need is a laptop, wifi… and a good cup of coffee!
Search all your posts related to a specific topic — In my case, it was all the stories called “Bitcoin Marathon: Day X”.
Collect, paste, add and edit. I usually use Notion to work, but you can do it in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Notes… wherever you feel more comfortable. Give order and meaning to the story, add valuable information, and edit.
Create a Canvas account to create your eBook, and a Payhip/Gumroad account to sell it. We will use the first one to create the cover, the book, and marketing. And, the second one to sell it. There are creators who also use Gumroad or Payhip. I’m going to show you how to use both.
That’s it! Start making money online and gain traffic to your platform. Of course, is not that easy. I still have to explain to you how to use Canvas, Payhip, and Gumroad. Let’s do that.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Canva is one of the most powerful platforms for all content creators, from YouTubers to writers. It has thousands of templates available for virtually any type of platform.
In this case, since we are going to create an eBook, we should use the one that says A4 Document, you can directly search for eBook or if you want, feel free to make a copy and use my own template.
Within my template, you will find available the cover, the table of contents, the introduction, the chapter template (make as many copies as necessary of this page to create the body of your book), and the about page where you will talk a little about yourself, and you will also insert the links to your social networks.
Now all you have to do is transfer your previously edited book in Notion, Word, Google Docs… (edit before, it will save you a headache and hours of work) to Canva, and structure it properly with the template.
To convert the book to PDF we will do the following:
Let’s go to the share button and a menu will be displayed.
Click where it says download.
Select file type and click where it says PNG (SUGGESTED) and change it to PDF Print (High quality, multi-page document).
Click on download and save it in the location that we want.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Done! We have made our eBook. Now we need to create a cool image for marketing. Let’s do that.
We repeat the first three previous steps. But this time we download the image as a PNG. Before hitting the download button, go to Select Pages, uncheck “All Pages” and check the cover. And download it.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
We create a new project in Canva and upload the created image.
To do this we go to the sidebar and click where it says “uploads” and then “upload media”. Here we locate the cover image and upload it. We drag it to the blank page and click on edit.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
We look for the section where it says Smartmockups and click on “See all”. We scroll down until we find the section called “Books” and click on “Book 6”.
Your cover will automatically be transformed into this beautiful image.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
To download this image in PNG, repeat exactly the same steps as above.
Done.
Now let’s make the money rain. Let’s sell it on Payhip!
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
As I mentioned before, I really like Payhip because its interface is super easy to use. I don’t have to do complicated settings, I don’t have to enter my credit or debit card. The only thing I need is a PayPal or Stripe account, which is where the money is deposited.
Let’s do it. We’re almost done!
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Once you sign up. Let’s design your website. Pretty quick. Just enter the product name, price, and a few other details, and your product will be available for sale.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Name it and give it a price.
Upload a product image — That’s going to be your cover image.
Last but not least, the description — Add a description for your product.
It should look like this.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
All you need to do know it’s to set your payment method. Let’s click on “Setup checkout”. Choose login with PayPal or Stripe, and that’s it!
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
On Payhip you can also sell courses, coaching services, and even physical products.
Time for Gumroad!
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Unlike Payhip, Gumroad requires a couple of extra steps. However, this doesn’t mean that the setup process is complicated. Once the profile is configured, let’s publish our first product.
You can sell a subscription or a one-time sale.
Let’s customize it!
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Add a Name
Write a really good Description of your digital product
Customize your own URL (write something short related to your product)
Upload a Thumbnail
Upload your PDF
The second one is in the Pricing where you can “Allow customers to pay what they want”. So, even if you choose a Minimum amount [in my case, free] you can also Suggest an amount leaving the option to customers to support your work even if you give it for free.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Even you can customize the checkout.
Here, you can add discount codes and customize the receipt where the customers will receive an email with a thank you note and a button to access your content.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
All you need to do know it’s to set your payment method. Let’s click on “Payout”, then on “Settings”. Choose Payouts or Payments. Either of them will work. If you choose the first one you need to add your bank account. If you choose the second one connect with your Paypal account.
Screenshot courtesy of the author.
Congratulations! Now start promoting your product on all your social platforms. Don’t forget to link your Twitter to Gumroad so your clients can connect with you easily.
Gumroad is a really good tool for entrepreneurs and an alternative to Payhip. I hope this story can help you to sell your digital products.
You can check out my own digital product, here. I wrote the first Salvadoran Bitcoin eBook in history. It’s a huge success.
And thanks to that book I’ve opened many doors, and I’ve being invited for the first time ever as a YouTuber to film crypto events [like ETH Barcelona, you can also check it out, here], be part of it and have the opportunity to share to people and tech companies how is the Bitcoin adoption on my homeland [El Salvador] the economical benefits and financial freedom that has experienced since the adoption in September 2021.
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