2020 has definitely been the year of the digital products for me and my business. I have been wanting to create more digital products for awhile now, but never finding the time to step off the treadmill of running my business to find the time to create (and market) new products.
I knew that something had to change, and the 2020 Coronavirus lockdown gave me the perfect chance to make a start.
I worked on my first ebook, 90 Days To A Profitable Blog, and then sold over 100 copies in just 3 hours after launch.
Here is everything I did and used to create, launch and market my ebook.
Writing my ebook
Really simple, I wrote my ebook in Google Docs so that I could access it from any device I was using.
Proofreading
Once the book was written, I used a proofreader, Rebecca Smith, to proofread the book.
Formatting my ebook
I used Canva to format my ebook.
Canva have both free and paid account options. I have the paid version already, which meant that I had access to stock photos for my ebook cover.
Canva have plenty of templates to choose from, or you can create your own design from scratch.
Alternatively you can use Creative Market or Design Bundles to purchase templates to use.
Once created, I downloaded it as a PDF and printed it off to make sure it looked how I wanted it to.
Now the book was ready to sell!
Writing my sales page
Knowing my strengths and weaknesses has been really helpful when planning my launch.
I can take fairly complicated topics, like matched betting, and write about them easily – in an easy to understand way.
However writing to sell isn't something that I am good at.
In the past I have outsourced this, but I didn't have the budget or the time to find someone and wait for them to produce the work.
This time I wanted to tackle writing the sales page myself.
I purchased Amanda Genther's Slay Your Sales Page course and I was absolutely blown away.
The course cost me just $37 and told me how to write my sales page in a way that would get me sales.
It definitely delivered!
Formatting my sales page
MyBlogMyBusiness.Com uses WordPress, and I was on the lookout for something to create my sales page.
The Bluchic Landing Pages bundle was recommended to me and I was a little nervous about buying then bundle – especially because there were no refunds.
Once I saw what was included I decided to go for it, and I am so glad I did.
The templates have been really easy to use, despite not using a Bluchic WordPress theme.
I have used lots of the page templates now and find them really useful.
Accountability/knowledge/mentoring
I regularly purchase courses and work with coaches and mentors to help me to grow my business.
I am currently working with two people right now.
The first is one to one support from Amy Johnson who I actually hired to help me with a completely different product. However in the current climate that product didn't feel like the right one. Instead Amy has been helping me with various digital products.
The second is a monthly membership to The Six Figure Chick's Digital Product Society. Costing $30 per month (at the moment) this has been absolutely invaluable. I haven't even touched upon 10% of the information already available to me to help me learn, and the feedback from the Facebook group is amazing. Even if it is just to say ‘help, does this look okay?'.
My first few sales actually came from posting my sales page on the Facebook group for feedback, which was completely unexpected.
Checkout & payment processing
Once my ebook was created I had to go about finding somewhere to host it for sale as well as processing payments.
I looked at a few options.
SamCart – too expensive.
Gumroad – cheap but then changed the price to dollars from pounds, which I didn't like.
WooCommerce – free but it had too many clicks and page loads to actually purchase the product.
In the end I found a workaround for WooCommerce.
I installed the WooCommerce plugin and purchased two additional extensions.
The first one (WooCommerce One Page Checkout) allowed me to pop the checkout all onto one page which you can see in action here, and the second (WooCommerce URL Coupons) allowed me to ensure that anyone visiting a certain page would get a discount code automatically applied to the checkout – which was fantastic for launch day.
I am processing payments through Paypal and Stripe. Both of them charge a small merchant fee per transaction, which is a cost that I swallow from my sales.
WooCommerce also handle the delivery of the digital product, in the order confirmation screen and via email to the buyer.
I am really happy with this set up, and that the only fees I pay are the merchant fees when I sell a book.
Accounting
As a business we use Xero for our accounting.
Xero hooks up to the business bank account and Paypal, so I just have to go in and manually reconcile transactions once in awhile.
Our accountant then uses this information for our company accounts, our personal tax and our VAT returns.
Marketing my ebook (plus how I got 100 sales in 3 hours)
I am absolutely not a genius marketer so I am thrilled at how well the launch and sales have gone.
I brought my Instagram followers on the journey of creating my ebook, through Instagram stories.
I started by asking if they actually wanted the ebook, and from there I shared updates as I wrote it (for example, my word count) and the book cover.
I also told my followers when I would launch the book and told them that I would be launching with a discount code for the first 100 buyers.
Once the ebook was launched I did a story and then did an Instagram live to show a physical print out of the ebook.
A few days later I also did a grid post.
Mailing list
My mailing list is hosted with Mailerlite, and I sent two emails to my subscribers about the book.
I had originally only planned to send one email, however I didn't anticipate that the 100 use coupon code would be used up within 3 hours, and I had a lot of people emailing me about their disappointment at missing the code, so I sent another code a few days later just for my list.
Now what?
I have now gone back and created a sales funnel for the ebook.
This means that I have an opt in freebie and then when someone signs up they will automatically be sent helpful emails, with a chance to buy the book at the end.
I plan to promote this on my social media and using Facebook ads, to create a more passive income from this ebook without having to constantly promote it (like during the launch).
Summary
This has all been a massive learning curve for me, and challenged me in ways I didn't think possible.
It also made me excited to work on my business again, as well as launching this blog – MyBlogMyBusiness.
Hi, I have been following you for a number of years now, and I have still not done anything that is even remotely profitable.
I would like to be in that position. I would like to have an email list to tell about my ebooks and blog.
I am stuck and have really low motivation. Its driving me a little crazy.
I would love to achieve something like this in my life. I’m thinking there are actually lots of less teccy middle aged, single women, with kids and cats, who need leading by the hand, step by step and shown the way.
I guess that’s my niche.
I have Samcart, yep very expensive, I did it because I was desperate and late at night and he said I could do it through PayPal credit, it worked… But I gained instant debt and had no money to begin with.
I also have Designrr which helps to create an ebooks.
I have very little money to survive with my kids and cats at the moment let alone pay for the service of help.
I don’t know, I feel like I have a few pieces of the jigsaw missing to enable me to start.
Any words of wisdom?
Andi Tointon.
This is such a helpful post and has given me a lot to think about. I’m currently writing my own ebook so I’ll be referring back to this post to help keep me on track.
Thank you so much!