It’ 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.

How I Made My First Dollar On Gumroad

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 –

1. Create an ebook or any type of digital product I want.
2. Create a Thumbnail and a wallpaper of the product.
3. 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.
4. Upload my ebook. I prefer the PDF version here. Google Docs will do that for you.
5. Publish. Now time to get back to work!

Recession-Proofing as a Creator: Why You Should Sell Digital Products in 2024

Why are digital products ideal for making passive income?

Have you ever done a dropshipping business?

Well, I have. On my Instagram Music store. And believe me, it’s not easy. I used to get frustrated whenever the package got lost or a customer mailed me that the package had not arrived even after 2 weeks!

Now it has changed. But managing inventories and delivering is definitely not easy. I won’t advise if you are doing this just as a side hustle. Not worth it! Now I let someone else do all this for me.

This is the number one reason why I love digital products so much. Not only me, but many content creators out there often sell or recommend digital products. Not many you’ll see selling $200 worth of physical products. I bet you won’t do much.

Having multiple small businesses of digital products helps me to make money while I am sleeping. I make multiple sales each day across all my platforms. Whether it’s my blog, my self-publishing accounts, my Instagram or my YouTube channel.

It’s nice to see multiple sales notifications when you wake up, right?

And this saves me a lot of time and helps me to focus on things that I truly love like creating content for my blogs. Or handle my Music store!

Now if you ask me why I consider digital products more powerful than my physical store business (music in this case) then I’ll tell you here. These are some of the reasons why I consider digital product business to be the best of all.

So, why exactly are digital products such a powerful source of passive income? Well, there are many reasons. Let’s count them up.

What Types of Products You Can Sell on Gumroad

Low-effort production

Reading habit tracker made with free Google sheet during the weekend.

I sell two types of products right now –

1. Ebooks
2. Spreadsheets. In case you need a Complete Budget Planner to manage your finances then do check out this one.

All the digital products out there are nothing but downloadable files. So when customers purchase any of my digital products, after the purchase they will be able to download my products. Only one copy at a time.

So this also tells you that I created the products only once. But they get sold multiple times. Easy for me.

Can you imagine how much time I have saved?

If someone buys products for my music store, I used to order a new set of the same products.

But here, I don’t have to see or restock my products. They are available forever!

Build Once. Sell Forever, right? You can even buy this ebook here…:)

So the time I spend is less and also the margins are high. And yes, as I have total control over my business, I can increase the price as well. Totally up to me! For now, they are pretty cheap in case you are looking for my Gumroad Tutorial ebooks.

Low-cost production

Production cost is so so low!

Some people use premium software to write. But I simply use Google Docs.

I use Google Docs for my writing. Why?

1. It’s easy to use
2. It’s free. No one likes to pay when you can get the same product for free
3. I have been using Google Docs for ages!

All my digital products are really low-effort to produce. Also because I have been already doing it for 10 years now. But here is one more catch.

Compared to my music store, the investment in my digital product business is really low but the income is really high. I cannot say the same for others. But for me, it’s really working well!

There are so many options for us (creators) to sell our digital products online. I came across various options for my digital products like —

1. Storefront
2. Marketplaces
3. Own website

So many options with various prices.

Some have monthly fees while many out there are absolutely free. I mostly choose the one that I can start for free. I don’t want to put my money before knowing my return on it.

First earn then invest is my motto.

Because of this, I chose Gumroad. But you can also go for LemonSqueezy or Payhip as well. All are free to use.

No shipping logistics

There is no shipping when it comes to digital products.

When a customer buys my digital products from one of my stores, they are in reality only downloading a copy of the product. That’s the reason why I say there is actually no maintenance when it comes to digital products.

With my music store, this is not possible. If someone buys one of my products then I have to restock my inventories and also update my store as well. I don’t want my music audience to buy my product when I am out of it, right? This is one thing I never liked about physical stores.

And above that, my customer doesn’t have to even wait for their products to arrive! Just one click and the product is completely theirs!

For me, a digital product is the easiest business out there because, to be honest — I never have to deal with logistics. No shipping of the products for me. No lost packages.

I’ll save my time and my energy. And of course my money as well.

I am trying my best to build the businesses that give me less…headaches.

How I Earned Money Self-Publishing 11 Ebooks

Simple scalability

A mix of digital products on my store

Now I hope this must be the last question you are having in your mind.

Is the digital business scalable?

Yes! My answer is yes!

I would say you have infinite possibilities when it comes to the digital product business.

My music store is not easy to scale. I would be honest here that I have to hire people to scale it more.

But with digital products? I can do it all alone. I can do it without anyone’s help.

Global sales

I get sales from — all around the world!

Is that possible with physical products? Maybe.

With this much ease? Nope!

Only my digital product store has that kind of capability!

5 Steps On How To Make Passive Income Selling Digital Products

Step #1: Figure Out Your Ideal Audience.

you don’t have an audience, who is going to buy your products? No one ever buys products from random sellers. Keep this in mind.

The first thing I did was to find my audience.

Whether Pinterest users will be interested in my products?

Or maybe an Instagram audience?

Or maybe Facebook already has a community in my chosen niche?

This is very important because I know that my audience won’t be everywhere.

Every platform out there has an audience of a particular kind. I mean to say you will find certain similarities in their likings and interests.

Example ->

It would be very easy to sell a home decor product to the Instagram or Pinterest audience compared to Twitter. The Twitter audience will rarely… I said rarely click on links from unknown audiences.

Most of them actually don’t!

Then be with them and try to find their difficulties. Like what exactly they need. What other creators are lacking? Your product should be able to guide them from where they are now: maybe they are at the ZERO level? Or maybe they have somewhere knowledge about the subject but don’t know how to execute it?

In short, I would advise you to first know what they want and then present a simple guide according to their needs. Simple.

Solving their problem should be your motto.

Now sometimes I do face problems while trying to find what my audience wants. When I am not capable of doing it, I simply reflect on my own journey. This is the best solution I can give you. This has always worked for me. This will work for you as well.

One more way is that you can also do online research. Not a better option than the previous one but it’s better to seek a solution rather than be in a loop. Waiting too long won’t help either, right?

In short, I can say find a solution based on —

1. Your own journey
2. What your audience wants (question and answer method)
3. Research — I find YouTube the best
4. similar communities — Reddit. I always always recommend Reddit.
5. Discussion — Small forums related to your niche

Step #2: Grow in your niche

Want to learn how to grow your Medium blog? Check this out.

This is important. You are trying to sell your product to your audience but you don’t have enough knowledge about the subject, who is going to buy from you?

It’s not easy to sell if you have a small audience.

I would recommend building your account first before moving ahead. You can do this in a very simple step —

1. Define Your Goals — Before going further I would advise you to have a clear goal in your mind. What’s your ultimate goal? Money? Building authority? Leads? Boost your store sales?
2. Know your audience — You are doing all this for them, right? Learn their behaviors, their demographics, their interest, etc.
3. Optimize your profile — One mistake I made with my social media platforms was that I never optimized my account. Your account is actually your brand. Make sure when people visit your profile they know exactly who you are, and what you stand for.
4. Create a Content Strategy — I don’t recommend this to starters but if you have one then it’s good. Are you good with videos? or images? Or even memes? Or maybe you like short posts? or a mix of all!
5. Post Consistently — This is the key!
6. Engage with Your Audience — Sometimes it does become difficult but still, I’ll advise you to talk to at least 10 new people each day.
7. Collaborate — In case this is possible. I love to work alone. But I have to admit that collaborating helps a lot to boost your sales.
8. If possible, buy ads or pay for a membership fee for the platform.

Step #3: Figure Out The Actual Product.

This one is the best part. I always loved to research for my digital products. There are so many that you can easily pick 2–3 options for yourself. Here is the list in case you need one — What Types of Products You Can Sell on Gumroad

I would recommend you to go through one of the following options —

1. PDFs are the best. In the writing world, consider them as ebooks. This was the first non-fiction book I wrote when I wanted to test my market — My Mistakes In Self-Publishing
2. I have been using Google Sheets for a very long time. So started selling this to my audience as well. My Ultimate Budget Tracker is the best seller.
3. You can also go for newsletters in case you have no idea currently.
4. Or very simple. Sell Canva templates in your niche. Make sure you create new ones and not resell someone else’.

Or a better option.

Mix them all!

Step #4: Create The Product.

The image is of the Ultimate Reading Tracker.

For my products, I use only a few tools. I will list them down here —

1. Google Docs — I am very traditional!
2. Canva for my covers
3. Google sheet — of course for making a tracker.
4. Calibre — I use it to convert my ebooks into various formats

Just go ahead with these tools if you are into ebooks. They all are free to use and if you have an idea for a ebook in your mind then there is a wide range of audience waiting for your next hit. Believe me, don’t miss this out.

Step #5: Sell That Product.

You have now the audience.

The product is ready as well.

Time to move on to the next step. That is to sell your product.

When I wanted to sell my non-fiction work, I had a few questions in my mind —

1. where to sell my ebooks
2. what marketing strategies should I use to promote my ebooks (I used to depend completely on Marketplaces SEO before)
3. how to get my ebooks in front of the audience — as much as possible

I knew one thing just putting my ebooks on my website won’t automatically get people to buy it.

There were many places where I could sell my product, but I needed to find the best option. Because no one likes to keep changing the platform right? Links are going to be everywhere.

These are a few options I had —

1. setting up your own website using something like the WooCommerce plugin. I personally don’t use it now because I find it a bit complicated, to be honest. It’s more work for me which I want to avoid. But it’s something you can consider.
2. For digital products, Amazon KDP, Etsy, and Shopify seemed to be the best options as well. But I was already using marketplaces so I don’t need to add more here.
3. Platforms like Gumroad, and Payhip where I don’t have to pay anything upfront. In case you want a detailed review, check my article — Gumroad Review (2024): How I Make Money Selling Ebooks

At last I went with Gumroad. I have answered the reason why in my blog many times. So I’ll leave this for now.

Now I was using blog already. But my promotion shouldn’t be limited to this. I would recommend you to —

1. Make a video about your product on YouTube
2. Write a thread on Twitter about the product
3. Write a long blog
4. Share the images on Instagram and Pinterest
5. Share the links on your groups and communities as well.

Don’t stick to one place. Make sure your products are promoted as much as possible. This is the no.1 secret of making passive income from selling digital products.

I hope you won’t ignore this little secret I shared with you.

Good luck!