How to Make Passive Income by Selling Information Products - ThinkMaverick (2024)

If you want to learn how to make a passive income and start your own business, then this blog post is for you. Learning how to create and selling information products completely changed my life for the best.

In fact, it’s my favorite all-time business model. I was able to quit my job as an optometrist to pursue my passion, spend more time with my family and travel the world!

Related: How I build A 6-figure book empire with my partner

Did you know that selling information products digitally is one of the most profitable ways to make money online? Many freelancers, bloggers andhome business owners make a full-time living by selling digital products on their websites, blogs, apps and other digital retailer platforms. It’s a billion dollar industry.

So what’s stopping you from creating your own digital products?

Before you dive in, let’s understand the fundamental in creating information products and how it actually works.

What is Passive Income?

Wouldn’t it be nice to make money while you sleep?

If you’re in a regular 9-to5-office job or selling your freelance gigs online, you’re earning active income. You get paid for the works or services that you’ve done and that’s the end of it. Our time is limited, so stop trading your valuable time to someone’s money.

The idea of creating passive income is to make money 24/7 without you actively involved in the business. Rather than trading your time, work and experience for money, you generate income by selling some kind of content that you’ve created over and over again.

But in the beginning, you have to invest time and effortsto put out your best content. Yes, this requires some active upfront works to keep this income stream running smoothly. Once they’re in place, you can run completely on autopilot.

Should YouCreate Information Products?

If you’re just started out, creating information products is one of the easiest ways to make money online. Here arethe top 5 advantages ofhaving an information business:

• Easy to get started: Compared to a traditional business model of selling physical products, you don’t have to manage inventory and store any physical products. No need to hire any staffs or dealing with manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, shippers, and salesmen. With just a laptop, you can start working on your expertise and choose a digital product type to work on.

• Easy to create: You can save your word document as PDF and start selling it as an ebook on your website, Amazon, Apple iBookand other ebook retailers. There are many platforms online that offer “print on demand” service for book, CD, and DVD such as Createspace. Have something to teach? Head to Udemy and start creating your teaching eCourses.

• Little (or zero) cost:It’s a very low-risk business model. It costs little to nothing to create an information product. What if no one buys your product? The worst could happen – you lose your time but not necessarily much money.

• Sell internationally:You’re no longer limited to just selling in your local market. You can reach your targeted audience worldwide. Start selling your products to the entire world!

• Great passive income sources:Once you’ve created a product, you can earn passive income by selling it over and over again. You can choose to market it and keep the content up to date but you don’t have to work in the selling process.

Like other business models, selling information products does have some drawbacks:

• It requires a huge amount of upfront active work:It takes time to create good quality information products.

• Low selling price- It’s especially for the case of ebooks. The good old days are gone where you can sell your eBooks at $39, $79 and even $199! Now readers can get the same quality information from $2.99 to $9.99. If you decided to join the Amazon Kindle Unlimited program, you’ll get paid for every page read and it’s less than $0.005 per page. You’ll have to do the math.

What Kinds of Information Products Can I Create?

With the advancement of technology, many people start to monetize their knowledge and expertise online. There is so much information available onthe Internet. People can buy what they want easily with a click of a button.

Selling information products is my bread and butter for the past 5 years online. I find this information business to be the most profitable and easy to manage.

There are a wide variety of products that you can sell online. Let’s get started.

1. eBooks

Personally, I think eBook is the best digital product to sell online. Start with your passion, an idea, specific expertise or daily observation. If you haven’t read this, click here to learn how to write and publish an eBook.

You can sell your ebooks on Amazon and other ebook retailers like Barnes and Nobles, Apple Ibooks, Google Play and Kobo.

If you already have a website or blog with loyal followers, you can save your doc as PDF file and sell it on your site. Even though the selling price for eBook is low, it’s a great entry-level product in your sale funnel. Don’t underestimate the power of compound interest, this is how I get started online and created my successful online publishing business.

If you’re looking to generate passive income by selling ebooks, but don’t know where to start? I’d suggest joining this Ebook Bestseller Bootcamp video course.

In this course, there are 3 modules, over 25 video lessons, bonuses, and more, and they will teach you everything you need to know about self-publishing, such as:

• How to write, format and design your Ebook

• How you can get paid to write an eBook before you actually do it, while validating your eBook idea in the process

• How to publish, launch & sell your Ebook on Amazon

• How to publish, launch & sell Your Ebook on your own blog/ website

• How to price your eBook
• How to increase your book sales
• Passive income strategies
• and much, much more!

Click here to see whether this eCourse is still available
2. Books

Since you’ve already put so much effort and time in writing an ebook, why not sellit as a physical book?

While I don’t recommend you to release and stockpilean actual physical book unless you have a list of subscribers. But you can publish your book using print-on-demand servicessuch as Amazon and Createspace. What you have to do is upload your book file and a book cover. They will do all the printing and shipping works. It’s very simple.

3. Magazines

You can do a lot more with digital magazines. Before you get started, you’ve to decide to launch the magazines on website browser or mobile apps. I have my ThinkMaverick digital magazines developed on both itunes store and Google Play.

It will definitely take more time to create a digital magazine. You have to plan ahead and come out with unique content every month for your magazine subscribers.

With digital magazines, you can share your favorite articles to create discussions and get more attention on social media. Indirectly, it willincreasereader engagement, building a mass of loyal followers and generate some recurring income. It’s a great way to position yourself or business as an authority in your niche too.

I feature experts in their fields to teach the audience how to grow and differentiate their businesses from the crowd in my small Magazine Apps.Click here to check out the Magazine

Other Digital Products to Consider

• Reports
• Magazines
• Stock photos
• Audio recordings
• Video tutorials
• eCourses
• Webinars
• Seminars
• Membership sites

1. Get into the zone.

“You don’t have to be a genius to create a hit product, but you do need to have the right mindset.” ~Seth Godin

It’s never easy to come up with a product idea for your new information business. I’ve been through the process, even now and then I still keep searching and looking for new ideas. The next step will get more difficultwhen you have to build the confidence and jump inthe production process. You might wonder would anyone even care to buy it?

The truth is, you’ll never know –with 100% certainty- how will the market react until you launch your product officially. Slowly but surely you’ll improve and get better by each product launch. My advice- start somewhere and improve along the way.

2. Stop appealing to the masses

“The riches are in the niches”

There’s a misconception that if you want to be successful in information business, you’ve to create a product that caters to the masses. Truth be told, the big money is in the small niche markets.

Instead of trying to sell to the masses, grab the attention of customers on a small profitable niche.

3. Don’t be a one-hit wonder.

Don’t just stop once you have a small success with your product. You’re in for long-term business, you’ve to continue to create and replicate the success model.

Seriously, I think it’s more of a number game. Every product has its own life cycle. Don’t get obsessed with your product.

Checklist for selling information products

1. Research market and validate your product idea
2. Decide what type of information you’re going to create
3. Make an outline of your product
4. Start creating your product
5. Revise, Edit and Proof the content
6. Create a website
7. Add an email list
8. Submit your product to your distribution platforms (third-party websites)
9. Promote and market your product
10. Ask for feedback
11. Analyze and improve conversion rate
12. Analyze most successful and least successful marketing channels
13. Plan your next product

There are many different ways that you can start making a living online from the comfort of your home. Of all the options available, creating and selling information products is the easiest to start, offers huge flexibility and a great passive income source.

Have you thought of creating your own information products?

Are you ready to join me onSelf-Publishing? Enter your email below and get the Daily publishing e-course for Free!

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