How To Make (And Sell) Your First Digital Product
After publishing YouTube videos for almost two years, we were still broke. So we decided to create a revenue stream we could control by creating and selling a digital product.
This is part four of a series of extended posts updating my no-longer-available YouTube Book. For the first installment, click here.
At this stage in the story, we’ve been making Hilah Cooking videos for a year and a half, but we weren’t making any money. We decided to create and sell an e-book.
We weren’t sure it would work.
June 2011
We had been up almost all night working, but when I woke up, I was immediately alert and invigorated.
It was launch day.
This was the morning that the Learn To Cook e-book would finally go on sale. This was our first product and the moment we’d worked towards for months. I still had a day job, and for once, I couldn’t wait to get to the office. Everything was set, and I needed to sit at a computer and not leave. My day job was the perfect place for this.
We ate a quick breakfast, and I warned Hilah to be prepared that EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG WOULD GO WRONG. But that we would deal with it.
We had about an hour until the launch emails started sending out. I hurried out the front door to my car to find my passenger’s side window had been completely smashed. A paving stone sat in a pile of broken glass on the seat. Nothing was stolen; it was just a pointless hate smash.
Instead of being upset about it, I was elated. I took this as another sign of resistance from the Universe, got in the car, and drove to work. I had an e-book to launch!
Note: Don’t do this. If your car window gets broken, have your car professionally cleaned before driving it.
I parked my car in the parking garage, ran up eight flights of stairs, crashed-landed in my beige, fluorescent-lit cubicle, and fired up my computer. We had set up a simple sales page and used E-Junkie to sell the PDF eBook and a series of bonus videos. I had tested it countless times, but we were about 15 minutes from sending the launch email, and I wanted to make sure everything was perfect.
As I clicked through the sales page to test everything out, I noticed my mouse was red with blood. My blood! I had cut my hand on some of the broken window glass, and the last thing I wanted to do was look for a Band-Aid. I grabbed a leftover Starbucks napkin and used it to stanch the bleeding. Another sign from the universe.
Five minutes before launch, one of my supervisors dropped by to get an update on a work project I had been neglecting. This was guaranteed to be a long, slow, painful conversation. The truth is, I had been letting my day job responsibilities slip, a lot. I had been working on the book pretty much full-time at work. (Sorry, co-workers!) But I didn’t have time for that conversation right now. I held up my bloody hand: “Do you mind if I go find a Band-Aid real quick? Somebody smashed out my car window this morning, and I can’t get this to stop bleeding.”
Conversation averted, I went downstairs, found a Band-Aid, and walked outside to the courtyard. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked my email. There was an email receipt from PayPal for $19.95.
Our first sale!
Seconds later, there was another receipt and then another. I got a notification every time we made a sale.
$19.95
$19.95
$19.95
$19.95
$19.95
And the notifications weren’t slowing down.
It was the best feeling in the world. It felt like magic. The work was done. There was no physical product to package or take to the post office. Just bits of information being delivered via email.
I went back inside and stared at the screen as orders came in.
Eventually, I used my broken window as an excuse to leave at lunchtime. I went home and kept an eye on things while a window repair guy fixed my car.
As exciting as the “Payment Received” emails were, the personal emails we got were even better. The truth is, most of our audience already knew how to cook. They weren’t buying this book because they needed it but because they loved the show and wanted to support what we were doing.
This was almost two years into the project, and we had never asked for money or sold anything. We had authentically earned the trust of our audience, and the feedback on the book was outstanding.
We hadn’t set a very ambitious financial goal for Learn To Cook, but we hit it on the first day. It wouldn’t make us rich, but we could finally get a decent computer for editing and a few other things. We re-invested all the money into the business.
The most important lesson of the best day ever: We knew how to make money online.
The Secret Weapon: E-Mail
The launch was the culmination of months of intense work.
Hilah did the bulk of it. She wrote the book, tested the recipes, starred in a photo shoot, and went on camera for the bonus videos. I came up with the idea (which you may have guessed based on the title, which sounds like something pulled straight from keyword research), designed the book, and planned the marketing.
In addition to the YouTube audience, we had a secret weapon in our back pocket: our e-mail list. Our list had been steadily growing. We promoted it on YouTube by offering access to some exclusive videos that weren’t available anywhere else. Hilah consistently wrote and sent emails every week. They not only promoted that week's YouTube video but were funny, answered viewers' questions, and provided a glimpse behind the scenes. Our open rates were strong, and readers were very engaged.
We used this to tease the upcoming book and get everybody excited. When we sent the email announcing the book's availability, our readers were primed to click the BUY button.
Across all of my businesses, email has consistently been the #1 sales driver. My rough estimate is that over 80% of our sales have been via email. Social media doesn’t even come close.
Even with a big YouTube audience, we’ve found it more effective to get people onto our email list first. When people are on YouTube, they’re not in the mood to spend money, and taking people away from the platform isn’t great for your channel.
So now, the primary call to action we use for YouTube is to ask people to subscribe to our newsletter.
Always Be Building Your List
Second Edition
Sales eventually slowed after the initial launch, but they didn’t stop. The books became a regular, consistent revenue stream. Over time, we refined it, added more products, and got even better at promoting it.
The feedback on the book was overwhelmingly positive, but there was one big request. Our readers really wanted a physical copy. The following year, we reformatted and expanded the book for a print edition and launched it just in time for Christmas. It was an even bigger hit and continues to sell well on Amazon.
It was even more work than the PDF version.
I Love Digital Products
Even though we have since expanded into print books and other physical products, digital products are still the foundation of our businesses.
A significant upside is that once they’re created and out in the world, your work is pretty much done. You don’t have to store, pack, or ship anything.
They’re like little money-making machines with a profit margin that is tough to beat.
If you’re considering selling a digital product, here’s my advice.
Email will be a big sales driver, so keep building your list. If you don’t have an email list, start today.
Choose a simple idea and get it out into the world quickly. Don’t overthink it. If you already have an audience, what do they ask you about a lot? Use that.
Please don’t get hung up on the technology you’ll use to deliver it. Use Gumroad or something similar. Don’t spend money until you know what the demand is.
Use your email list and social channels to build anticipation so your audience is primed for the launch.
Customer feedback is precious. Ask for feedback and use it to improve your product and generate ideas for the next one.
The Learn to Cook launch may seem insignificant compared to some of the things that happened later. But it changed the trajectory of my life and opened my eyes to what was possible.
So, if this has inspired you to launch your own product—whether it’s an e-book, an online course, or something entirely new—I’d love to hear about it. Tell me your story, share your wins (and lessons learned), and let’s keep building together.
Until next time, keep creating,
Chris
PS: As a bonus for reading to the end, here’s a free copy of the first edition of Learn To Cook. If you notice any typos, ignore them. We fixed everything in subsequent editions. I just wanted you to have a chance to check out the book in all its original glory.
Thanks so much for taking time writing these posts! I love reading them, so valuable! And I enjoyed Hilah's book 13 years later!!!
This is great stuff Chris! Thanks for sharing! I'm also a content creator and working on a e-book for my channel The Pickleball Helpline. I'm curious, you launched the book in 2011. How important is building an email list today?