How I create and sell digital products on Gumroad
If you have 24 hours internet connection. If you have a product in your mind. I would suggest starting working on it. You’ll be surprised, I promise!
It’s been 2 years now I started this small side hustle after getting burned out.
I have been selling my ebooks on various self-publishing platforms. And a time comes when you need something better than that.
Marketplaces are always good. I have no doubt about that. My monthly sales from all these self-publishing platforms prove this enough. But… here’s a catch.
Marketplaces can kick you out anytime, right?
One day you are making $10k per month and the very next day it would be absolutely ZERO. This scares me a lot.
I make a full-time income from ebooks. I write my own work and market it on various platforms. My life is fully dependent on it. And this got me thinking.. how can I make more income stream that isn’t marketplace?
Most of my sales from Amazon KDP and other self-publishing platforms are purely due to SEO. And of course, copyrighting plays an important role in the conversion as well.
from selling exclusively to Amazon KDP to selling on multiple self-publishing platforms like Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks, Hoopla, and so on. Now I sell ebooks directly to my audience using Gumroad.
If you haven’t heard about Gumroad yet then do read this article — Gumroad Review (2024): How I Make Money Selling Ebooks.
I have to tell you that Gumroad is just a platform where I upload my ebooks (also my spreadsheet that I make during my free time!) and then the rest of Gumroad handles it. Yes, I do have to send traffic to my ebooks. But I don’t worry about payment processing and even delivering the file.
There are many options out there like Pyahip, LemonSqueezy, etc. But I decided to stick to Gumroad. I already had an account there and I was somewhat familiar with it.
But again, the choice is yours. You are the creator. You are free to choose as per your needs.
So fast forward, I now not only sell my ebooks on self-publishing platforms but also on Gumroad. I do sell other types of digital products which I find useful for my audience. I also have an active newsletter where I share my insights into writing and the digital business world.
The best part is that everything is in one place. I don’t need any other platforms as well. Gumroad handles everything for me now.
What are digital products?
I know you are tired of hearing and reading this question but in case you are a total newbie I’ll put this definition in simpler terms for you.
A digital product is anything you can sell online as a downloadable file.
I create ebooks. I upload it to Gumroad. Whoever wants to buy they pay and the ebook is available to them instantly.
No waiting for 2–3 days for shipping and so on.
The audience hardly likes to wait! That’s the reason why my ebooks sell better than my physical books.
So this is what I simply do –
- Create an ebook or any type of digital product I want.
- Create a Thumbnail and a wallpaper of the product.
- Write a simple description and give it a good title. Make sure you don’t go for any long titles as they are usually boring.
- Upload my ebook. I prefer the PDF version here. Google Docs will do that for you.
- Publish. Now time to get back to work!
