How I built, marketed, and sold a side-project in 3 months.
In this book, I want to share with you my personal experiences, thoughts, challenges, and key takeaways of what building, promoting and eventually selling a side-project were actually like for me.
When you self publish an e-book, you need to figure out on which platform to publish, different platforms take different cuts in your revenues but also give your potential readers a choice where to purchase from. Some may not mind buying from your personal site, but others only buy from established online stores.
At the start of things, I just published on Gumroad because I was still writing the book and looked for the simplest solution that would allow me to have pre orders, plus I wasn't even sure if anyone would be interested reading my book!
When I launched I also published on Amazon, since I it's the biggest online book store, and it gives credibility to your book, if you appear there.
After launch I got accepted into Appsumo's marketplace which was overall a nice experience and offered some exposure to the sumo community.
Sometime after launch I decided to drop Gumroad and focus only on Amazon and Appsumo, and recently decided to give KDP Select a shot, which means I had to drop my product off Appsumo.
For those who don't know what's KDP Select - it's a program where you make your book exclusive to Kindle and get access to Kindle Unlimited.
You can check out my book Start with A Side-Project on Amazon and let me know what you think of it.
Will see how this move rolls out!
Cheers
I've reached the milestone of donating 50 trees from my Gumroad earnings of my E-book Start With A Side-Project, each tree was gifted to a buyer, so they received a nice E-card with a thank you :)
For visualisation, here are 50 trees:
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I'm not an environmental activist but you just can't stay indifferent and ignore the state of our planet, here is a video about the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAZAKPUQMw0
There is obviously more to it than just "fixing up" the Amazon Rainforest, but this is a start.
We need to be more vigilant and take care of our planet better.
I've just compiled a list of countries where I sold copies of my Ebook Start With A Side-Project. I've unlocked the multi international sales achievement!
It's pretty amazing to see how much effect I had worldwide, by going through this list and realizing that my book was read in multiple countries by now.
So keep the good work and believe in yourself. Good things take time and persistence.
It took some time to get it up there, but it's finally happened. My E-Book Start With A Side-Project is live on AppSumo at a discounted price for a limited time.
Can't wait to see the power of AppSumo's marketplace, as I've seen other Indie Hackers here unleash it and reach great numbers.
You can check it out here:
https://appsumo.com/marketplace-start-with-a-side-project/
Last few days have been like a rollercoaster (in the good sense).
2 days ago I've launched my eBook Start With A Side-Project with the help of Chris Messina on Product Hunt.
1 day ago ProductHunt decided to feature me in their newsletter that was unexpected π€―
Today I noticed that someone with a familiar name has purchased a copy. A well known name from the UFC. However, there is obviously no way to know for sure who it is, but still, a pleasant surprise π€Ό
In the next week or so, I expect to launch on AppSumo. Super excited!
What a rollercoaster π
Today is a big day. Chris Messina hunted my eBook product Start With A Side-Project on Product Hunt π
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/start-with-a-side-project
I reached out to Chris a while ago in July. However there were no free slots for hunting, so we scheduled it later this month for today. I felt, like the wait was worth it. I also wanted to launch in parallel the release on AppSumo but that will come soon after.
I'm super excited and can't wait to see how it will go.
Drop by Product Hunt and show some love by leaving a comment or review.
When I first decided to write and publish a book about my experiences of building, marketing and selling a side-project, I've also decided that I would use some of the revenue for a good cause.
About a year back, I came across videos that show the destruction of the Amazon forest and its animal inhabitants.
It is in our responsibility, absolutely everybody, to take a good care for the planet we live on and make it a better place for us and for all. That's the reason why I've decided to contribute towards planting trees in the Amazon Rainforest.
A cool side effect to this - I gifted these trees, each one to each of my readers. They've received a pretty neat E-card with a thank you note π
I hope to see more indie hackers doing similar feats.
You can check out my eBook Start With A Side-Project is available on Gumroad.
Yesterday I saw the great numbers @AndrewKamphey posted which stemmed from the exposure he got from AppSumo. That's when I decided to give it a shot and submitted my ebook to AppSumo.
It was a long shot as their acceptance rate is only around 5%.
I woke up today and saw an email from AppSumo's team, saying that I got accepted and they will list me! That's some awesome news to wake up to.
I assume it's due to my marketing effort and the great feedback I got from readers:
It's almost here! Only a few final touches left. Next week it will be fully available!
I'm shipping it first in PDF format.
Check it out π Start With A Side-Project
Some of the topics I will be discussing in the book:
And many more!
I've finished the first draft of Start With A Side-Project, a serious milestone π for a first-time author.
The next phase now is the copy-editing.
So far I'm pleased to say that I've sold over 10+ of copies πΈ in pre orders.
β¨ I'm extremely excited and looking forward to release it this month.
In this book, I want to share with you my personal experiences, thoughts, challenges, and key takeaways of what building, promoting and eventually selling a side-project were actually like for me.