eBooks: Good Marketing Tool?
by John Saddington
TL;DR: Yes.
I wrote a comment a while ago and have been asked so many times that I realized I should just write a canonical post!
So, eBooks... let's talk about that really quickly:
- I've created & sold nearly a dozen ebooks and even the worst "performing" product still had outsized results; financially and in general brand-building.
- The best example is writing a 10-day eBook / eCourse (delivered via MailChimp over 10 days) called "The 10 Days of Bitcoin" — I managed to secure a partnership with Highbrow and I wrote the core content in one single sitting.
Now, I was knowledgeable in the space so I felt very fluent in constructing the content but it was a bit of a crazy-insane rush — there wasn't a need to do it in a single sitting! But, I'm glad that I finished it quickly.
The results were phenomenal — people loved it:
I got hundreds of these responses and now it's entirely free via an old forum. By my unofficial count, nearly 100,000 folks have downloaded / read the material and it's still a major top-of-funnel machine.
And we did everything: Betalist, Product Hunt (we got featured — so many upvotes!), the works. And it built up a newsletter to > 17k subs in just a few months.
Totally, 100% worth it. Crazy-upside, very little work (if you know your material). Get it done and move on to the next startup activity!
Here are some of the other eBooks that I've done (that I could quickly find):
- https://john.do/ks-ebook-free/
- https://john.do/content-ebook/
- https://john.do/blogging-seo-ebook/
- https://john.do/google-adsense-ebook/
- https://john.do/making-money-blogging-ebook/
- https://john.do/blogging-starter-kit-ebook/
Bottom-line is still the same as when I wrote this 6 years ago:
Selling eBooks has been a great place for me to experiment with digital goods, getting a feel for what matters in the market and how the market responds. The low-cost and limited requirements makes it a great beachhead to attack. And, to be honest, it’s something that you could, quite literally, pull together in one single weekend.
Why the hell not?
Indeed... why the hell not.
💯 USERS 💯 DAYS
How I made $10k teaching vim online in one month
How to fight back against Google FLoC
How Leave Me Alone App Got It's First 100 Customers
I plan to write some ebook in the first half of 2021
"How to be a better colleague"
Not sure if it has high demand like the bitcoin one you wrote. This is something that I want to write for myself.
I would be free to contact you once I'm (nearly) done, so we can have a chat regarding potential distribution and improvements.
YES! PLEASE! you know where to find me.
... but, can i challenge you to move faster? why not finish it in january?
because of... reasons :D
but I like your spirit, and the challenge.
The thing is, at the end of this year I got promoted, and I don't know how my next year will even look like. Totally new role. That's why I put at least some deadline, because I would really like to finish it.
ah. congrats!!!