How to Make Money Online in Other Ways
a company that uses content marketing
This section focuses on how to build an internet company using content marketing to generate several sources of revenue.
What other sources of revenue from your work are there if the books are taken out of the picture?
Here is a brief summary of them; in the next chapters, we’ll delve into greater depth.
Sales of digital products, such as books and online courses. Physical items like t-shirts and other goods
Sales of consulting, coaching, public speaking, and freelance writing/copywriting services
Advertising and sponsorship may be based on traffic, such as YouTube videos, or on a specific specialty, such as a pet food manufacturer sponsoring a blog with a pet-related focus.
Affiliate revenue is earned by reselling other people’s goods or services and keeping a cut of the proceeds.
Content marketing: What is it?
Consumers must purchase your goods or services in order for your firm to be profitable and deliver value to its customers. However, how can you draw clients to you?
You merely need to increase your chances of getting noticed since buyers are already purchasing books through retail sites like Amazon, Kobo, and iBooks. Your content marketing approach IS to create a lot of books.
The substance of your books is what draws readers to your other works. However, if you don’t write many books and want to diversify your sources of revenue, you’ll need to find another approach to get clients.
Many internet companies rely on paid advertising to drive client acquisition, yet content marketing is the main driver of my own company.
This is the primary premise of the author platform:
it gives you a method to connect with readers, whether via an email list, a blog, a podcast, or social network followers.
[Note: Watch this free video instruction I prepared on how to create your own site in under 30 minutes if you need to create your own author website.
The main goal of content marketing is to draw in a certain target demographic by producing high-quality material that is inspiring, instructive, or amusing. This may be done through textual content like articles or blog posts, podcasts or other audio or visual media, or both.
Keep in mind: If you want to generate money, your material must have a purpose.
Without having a clear idea of what should come next, too many authors just post stuff online. The goal is to draw readers to your material so they will sign up for your email list, follow you on social media, subscribe to your blog, or purchase your books or other goods and services.
It’s known as the freemium model; you provide high-quality material for no charge so that people can get to know, like, and trust you before maybe purchasing your goods or services in the future.
Open your website if you have one right now and browse it as if it were your first visit. Is it possible to join your email list? Is there an obvious inducement to do so utilizing a valuable product the consumer truly wants? Is there a Buy button, a Store, a Shop, or a Books link?
What action do you want the client to do next?
Building your authority and brand online, which opens up other options like speaking engagements, podcast appearances, and recognition as a thought leader in your field, is a secondary advantage of having an online platform.
My website specializes in content marketing for writers and authors. It has:
articles in texts
transcripts of podcast interviews in audio format
Videos
These cover certain subjects and are often valuable, instructive, and inspiring. They use headlines with keyword-focused optimization to make it apparent what the content is about.
Since I began the podcast in March 2009 and the blog in December 2008, I have consistently offered knowledge and inspiration every two to three days.
Without it, there is no way I could have quit my work in 2011. It has been the motor that has pushed my company.
I do have something much more compact for JFPenn.com, my fiction website. I do interviews with other thriller writers about their works in addition to writing articles and making films on my research methodology. The goal is to network with other writers while also giving my audience useful information and engaging stuff.
Not everything is about the money. Your life may be altered by it!
These days, a blog or podcast is more akin to a worldwide publishing platform.
It gives you a direct channel to interact with others who share your passion for what you do and are curious about how you see the world. This might also be a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a YouTube channel, or any other means of reaching out to people.
But since we’re writers, let’s concentrate on writing!
You get power from blogging because it provides you a platform for spreading your message, making a difference in people’s lives, forming connections with others, and maybe even making money.
I am certain that TheCreativePenn.com, where I blog, changed my life.
This is how:
It helped me refine my writing voice, moving away from the formal, impersonal business writing to a much more informal, open manner of communicating through text, video, and audio.
My decision to quit my work was influenced by the fact that I began making money from the site by offering my online courses and professional speaking services. At initially, my book sales made up a little portion of my revenue, but they have since increased. The blog has given me the opportunity to talk all over the globe, including Bali, Sweden, the USA, New Zealand, and the whole UK, thanks to my online reputation in the self-publishing industry.
Even before self-publishing became popular, my material drew readers who were curious in it, and I was able to build a network of new friends who have been helpful along the way. I was able to go into the world of fiction thanks to these connections, which also helped me get an agent and reach the bestseller lists of the New York Times and USA Today as a member of an author collective.
When you provide valuable information about your niche online, you inevitably reap these intangible rewards.
My status as a thought leader in the independent author community has grown thanks to my blog. By including other people’s voices in the mix, podcasting added a new dimension.
In other words, content is the fuel that propels visitors to your website. But what do they purchase there?
2.2 Sales of goods
You should have product pages with links to all the outlets where your books can be bought, whether you have books available via a conventional publisher or have self-published them. These several connections are crucial since, if you don’t link through to their buy pages, it will be incredibly difficult to purchase anything from websites like Apple or Kobo.
However, you are not limited to selling books to clients. Here are some other product selling alternatives.
distributing digital goods
In essence, digital items are those that may be downloaded by the consumer from a website, viewed or consumed online, or provided to the client through email. Because they don’t need physical transportation or storage, the profit margins are often significantly bigger than with actual items.
Resources or guides are two examples. Your nonfiction book’s price will be determined by the market if you sell it on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, and the other platforms; the market often has a cap of $20 or less.
You may observe that this limit applies to all recent works by renowned authors by looking at any of their new releases. However, you can put your expertise into a PDF and sell it directly from your website, charging considerably more for it than you would be able to in shops.
Many companies offer knowledge in this fashion, referring to these items as resources or guides rather than books. The material is the same as in a book, but when you sell directly, you can more precisely target your market, and customers will be willing to pay more. Chris Guillebeau, whose Unconventional Guides fetch hundreds of dollars, is a prime illustration of this.
Interactive classes. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have significantly increased during the last several years. Examples may be found at Udemy, Coursera, CreativeLive, and Masterclass;
I just took James Patterson’s tale course there. When LinkedIn acquired Lynda.com in April 2015 with the intention of incorporating mature, just-in-time career learning into the most potent professional social network in the world, it was a sign of the popularity and expansion of this “learning on demand.”
You may design your own courses and either put them on your own website or on other sites. Nick Stephenson’s Your First 10k Readers, which is about creating an email list and selling books, is an example of a self-hosted course. Plan & Outline with Scrivener by Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt is an illustration of an Udemy course.
Several pointers for multimedia classes
Over the last several years, I’ve conducted a number of online classes. Here are some ideas to consider if you’re thinking about doing it:
Investigate what consumers genuinely want and will purchase. Don’t simply produce what you believe they’ll need. Make a poll and ask individuals whether you already have an audience. If not, find out what people want by using Twitter search or other social listening techniques.
The title should be carefully chosen. People will purchase it if it strikes a chord. The same rules apply for book titles as well. The phrasing should represent what your target audience is really searching for, with the emphasis on advantages rather than features.
Avoid attempting to cover everything. Limit each item of information to a brief,
manageable unit. Videos and audio files should be no longer than 20 minutes, if possible.
Before you sell, have your customer service in order. I like creating novels in part because I can express myself freely and share my work with the world.
There isn’t any customer care other than emails with content readers.
You will need to communicate with technological concerns and be more accessible to answer inquiries when you produce courses, particularly from your own website.
Before you start, make sure you know how you’ll manage everything since you may have a great launch and hundreds of people will contact you for assistance.
Check out the Udemy developers guide for extra advice; it’s helpful even if you want to develop courses to market on your own website.
selling tangible goods
The existence of tangible goods should be evident. They need actual delivery, have mass, and occupy space.
The autographed print book is the most apparent tangible good for authors.
Many writers give a link to PayPal on a separate payment page for autographed books. When you wish to send them to clients, you’ll need to store a supply at home and then ship them.
Personally, I believe that the time commitment and very low-profit margin make this more of a marketing activity than a source of income, but some writers still like doing it.
Many writers sell swag and other goods on their websites as well. Keeping stock and sending it yourself is an option, as is using on-demand services.
At his online shop, comic book creator XKCD sells books, t-shirts, stickers, and much more. David from ThePassiveVoice.com, a fantastic site that covers the publishing sector, would be a simpler illustration. David sells t-shirts from Zazzle, which makes the t-shirts as needed, with witty independent sayings on his sidebar.
Do your study and due diligence if selling physical goods online intrigues you since it is a very broad issue. Since I don’t now offer physical goods, my book focuses more on internet sales.
Options for processing payments
Nowadays, accepting payments online is fairly simple and doesn’t need a particular bank account setup. Options consist of:
PayPal buttons: the most straightforward remedy
Gumroad, Selz, Payhip, or e-Junkie are examples of websites with integrated product delivery, social media sharing, and possibilities for bank card payments in addition to PayPal.
Woocommerce and Shopify are more robust shopping carts that may be used with larger inventories.
More information about these payment processors may be found here: How to offer books and courses to consumers directly.
A quick summary of the new European VAT regulations that took effect on December 31, 2014:
VAT used to be applied in the seller’s country. Now, you must pay VAT in the country where the consumer lives if you offer digital items directly to customers who are citizens of EU nations.
Many individuals stopped making direct sales as a result of the administrative burden, as I did with my own courses. However, a lot of businesses now take care of the VAT element for you, so be sure this is supported by the payment processing option you are considering.
Check read this essay by accountant and co-founder of EU VAT Action Rosie Slosek for additional details.
Rather than selling straight from my website, I am once again generating courses and utilizing hosted providers that deal with EU VAT concerns. Check out the Fedora-hosted Creative Freedom Course.
How To Self-Publish An Audiobook