Thread by @_jake_i_am

1/ Sell Your Content or Give It Away?

A lot of you are trying to sell digital products on GR / Amazon, etc.

Let's take a look at some KPIs & the math behind what makes sense for you.

19 piece thread 👇👇👇

2/ Your numbers will vary, so these are just based on my own experiences & general understanding from speaking to people, reading, etc.

#1 Almost all ebooks don't sell.

GR won't give you the data, but if you comb through it you'll see most products have ZERO sales.

3/ E-only books on Amazon also have mostly non-sellers.

The fact that a book is up for sale does not mean it has any sales.

All it means is that someone published it (almost always self-published).

4/ In fact, GR was established almost a decade ago & has processed ONLY $250M in payments, that's ~$25M a year for the tens of thousands of products listed.

Again, most products listed have zero sales.

5/ Next, think about how much you have to spend to acquire each buyer of your content.

This will be affected by your field/niche, your following & size/strength of your email list.

You can figure this out by running tests on your social, buying ads, sending out emails, etc.

6/ If you don't have a strong following you'll most likely see that the cost to acquire every customer is very high.

That might work for you if you're really good at specific ad strategies & your ebook is worth commanding a high price.

But think this through first.

7/ "But Jake, I see people posting $350 weekly payouts on GR all the time!"

Okay, let's look at the math.

GR does $25M a year, so a little over $2M a month. If you're doing $350/week that's $1500 a month that means you're one of 1400 people on Gumroad (2M/$1500 each month).

8/ So what that means is that almost no one is doing $350/week because there are tens of thousands of creators on GR.

Same thing goes for Amazon & many of the other e-product delivery systems and marketplaces.

9/ Another aspect you have to consider is how many people that you're speaking to (your audience who follows you) will get exposed to your paid content.

Conversion rates vary, but we can assume 0.1% (1/10th of 1%) for social followings and 1% for email lists.

10/ This means that most people who follow you or read your emails will never GET TO learn from the wisdom & experience you shared in your paid content.

This might make sense to you if the book is the end goal.

But if you're building bigger you might want to rethink that.

11/ So in summary:

If you've already got a sizable following (50k across 3-4 platforms) and/OR you're selling something UNIQUE of tremendous value ($100 & you pay $40 to acquire each customer) selling your content might make sense.

Otherwise you might sell less than you think.

12/ What you don't want is to be relegated to the long tail where paid content goes to die.

So what should one do if they want to get a book and a course out there?

GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE in exchange for an email address.

13/ Email marketing has MUCH, MUCH higher conversion rates than social media marketing & radically lower CAC.

You can sell tools that you've developed for yourself (!) - databases (if compliant), calendars, worksheets, calculators, etc. but give away the books & courses for free

14/ Giving away your content will radically grow your following & position you to be a subject matter expert.

Sell your tools to that audience - usually priced much higher than information.

This is exactly what @TheRealMaxwell & many others do. It works.

15/ "Sounds good man, but I need to make $$$"

I got you.

1. Build a really good course or write a great e-book
2. Reach out to 500 companies who don't compete directly w/you but want to get in front of your audience
3. Sell them ad space/sponsorship for your course & ebook

16/ If your content is about real estate investing reach out to:

- hard money lenders
- insurance companies
- GCs
- security tech co's
- etc.

and offer them ads/sponsored pieces in your courses/books

17/ Selling 5 ads (1% conversion from 500 co's you reach out to) for $2k a piece is A LOT easier than selling 400 copies of your $25 ebook or 200 $50 courses.

Your audience for your content is now also not 200 or 400 but 2000 or 40,000.

18/ The other way to make money on your free content is to be an affiliate for others.

Sometimes your partners will pay you an ad/partnership fee, but other times they'll want to be more transactional (works if their product is really good).

19/ So to conclude:

Consider trading your course or book for an email (lead magnet).

Sell tools, not education. Give education away (4 email)

Make money/cover expenses by selling ads & affiliate programs.

Grow your audience.

Email marketing converts 10x-100x over social.