I’m probably not wrong thinking you could do with a little extra money, whether it’s some pocket money for extra purchases (books and coffee, right?) or something that will actually keep your cats fed through winter. But how can you turn your love of books into making extra money online?
This is not an MLM or any other kind of pyramid scheme and nor is it a get rich quick tactic. I’m simply going to share my journey selling digital products and giving you some ideas for how you can turn your hobbies and interests into extra money with educational digital products. Why? Because I want the best for you, dummy.
What are digital products and how do you make money with them?
A digital product is anything that you can sell as a download or that can be accessed online after a purchase. Ebooks, Google Docs templates, video workshops, printable worksheets and digital planners are all examples of digital products but you could dream up almost anything that your customers can use online, use with their tablets or print out to use.
I sell my products on Etsy but I also have a PayHip store and I use ThriveCart. (TC was supposed to replace PH for me so that I wouldn’t have to pay their fees, but people are still stumbling upon my PH store and I don’t want to leave money on the table.) You could also use something like SendOwl or Shopify if you have your own website.
Most of my income comes from Etsy, however, because it is a marketplace and they get huge amounts of people coming to the website every day. People also trust Etsy more than they would trust some random website, but if you’ve got big social media following, you could funnel all that to your own website without the danger of losing your business to some other shop on Etsy and without having to pay their fees.
How I make money with digital products
I’ve got my Etsy shop Writer Lifestyle, but Etsy only brings about half of my traffic and I bring the other half. I talk about my products a lot in my blog because they’re relevant to my content and I create Pinterest pins about my blog posts. I do post about my products on Pinterest as well, but those don’t seem to do as well as getting people into my blog first.
I also have digital courses and a few other digital products on ThriveCart because it gives me more autonomy than selling on Etsy, plus selling a full course on Etsy is not as practical. TC also allows me to collect people’s emails unlike selling on Etsy and I like being able to email updates and other important things to my customers.
Some of my digital products are very small and inexpensive and some are more complex and therefore cost more. I like to offer products at different price points, but also because I sell products about writing, I want to offer something for different experience levels from newbie writers to more advanced ones.
Almost all of my products are about writing fiction, but I do have some products for readers and book clubs and a couple of business ones that tbh don’t really fit in. I create new products regularly and either retire or update older ones.
When I’m writing this in October 2024, I’m going through a bit of a slow month, but I’m expecting things to pick up again soon. Last February was my best month and I made almost as much as I would have done in my terrible nursing job, which was a huge win because I have no intention on going back, thanks.
“If you were actually making money from digital products, you wouldn’t be teaching them and you would just reap all the money yourself.”
This is a common argument I see mainly on Reddit, and strangely it never seems to apply to teachers in business schools, only people who teach online.
I’m well aware there are all kinds of scam artists out there and I am especially digusted by people shilling courses about using AI to create cheap POD products to “make tons of money”. First of all, don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have a SUCCESSFUL Etsy shop that is CURRENTLY doing well. Secondly, you can’t use shortcuts to create products that people will love. You need to get repeat buyers to make as much money as you can, and you can’t do that by selling crap and cheating your customers. They won’t be coming back to you.
With that out of the way, if you’re good at something, why wouldn’t you want to make money by teaching others how to be good at it, too? That just means more money, but also, some of us just like teaching. Being stuck in a situation where I was making no money sucked all the joy out of my life, and if I can help at least one person out of that situation, I’m pleased.
I’m not worried about competition, because a) I already have competition, b) nobody else is me, and c) most people won’t do what it takes to genuinely compete with other sellers. This isn’t about jumping into trends so I’m not worried about sharing my “secrets” at all.
Now let’s be clear: if you want to sell earrings, for example, don’t come to me for advice. I’ve tried it and I wasn’t very good at it, so you shouldn’t be asking me how to do it. Likewise, if you want to sell digital art, I’m not the best person to go to because my speciality is educational digital products. Always make sure the person you go to has the kind of results you want.
What kind of book lover products you could create to make money
So let’s get into the meat of this post. How could you use your love of books and reading to create digital products that make money? Let’s first talk about what types of educational digital products you can make.
Differet types of educational digital products
Your educational digital products should help people with one of these four things:
- learn
- improve
- remember
- organise
That would give you two types of customers: one who wants to learn your skill and one who already knows it. Not every subject or product idea lends itself to every category but you need to know who you’re marketing your product to and what they need.
When you know what you want to help people with, you need to decide the format for your product. Or formats, actually, because you can use the same idea for different products for different people and different price points! Here are some options:
- ebooks
- Google Docs/Sheets templates
- Notion templates
- video workshops
- PDFs with linked pages for Goodnotes and other PDF annotation apps
- printable or digital worksheets, trackers and logs
- printable or digital workbooks
Let’s say you want to teach a customer who wants to learn something, so you create a “how to” type of product. It could be an ebook or maybe a video tutorial. If you wanted to help someone improve a skill they already have, you could create a printable worksheet or a digital workbook for them. For remembering, you could create printable reference sheets or checklists on Google Sheets. For organising, you could create printable trackers or create a database for Notion.
Ideas for bookworm digital products
So what kind of products could you come up with about books and reading?
Let’s say you’re a literature student and you’re very familiar with different classic novels. You could create a template for taking notes about the novel, and this template could be a printable worksheet or it could be a Notion template, for example. Or maybe you could create a reference sheet for different characters in Tolstoy’s novels.
What if you just like reading? You could create different reading trackers, book review templates or reading log pages for digital planners. Think of different aesthetics and different kinds of readers when creating your products. Think of what YOU would find helpful.
Here are some product ideas I can come up with from the top of my head:
- Notion template for tracking your To Be Read list with links to the Kindle Store
- Academia aesthetic habit tracker for reading goals
- Google Docs lecture note template for a class on British poets
- Reference sheet for different poetic metres
- Printable book review template with prompts
- Post ideas for Bookstagram or Booktok accounts
- Reading challenge checklist for Excel
Can’t you make anything else besides “educational” products?
Of course you can! But like I said earlier, this is my thing so this is what I teach.
That said…. I do also have a few entertainment type of products in my shop, as in, printable games. There are so many ways you could use your bookish interests to create these types of products, so here are some ideas for that as well:
- Reading Classic Novels bingo sheet
- printable Murakami word search pages
- local library treasure hunt sheet
- fill in the blanks to iconic ACOTAR quotes printable
- printable board game for a bookish family game night
- printable diploma for finishing reading a long series
If you have artistic skills, you can make these products better and more unique than the rest of us plebs can with our Canva graphics, so that’s something to think about.
Here’s your FREE Etsy shop action plan
Maybe you’re sold on the idea of selling educational digital products. Now what? You could always DIY the process, but if you’d like to save time and get fewer headaches, you should get my free action plan.
The action plan gives you steps for starting your shop, creating products, marketing your shop and improving your shop. Once again, it’s specifically for people who want to primarily sell educational products, so if you want to get into the business of selling nursery wall art, it’s not going to be the best fit for you.
Alternatively, just get my course on selling educational digital products on Etsy
It’s no secret that I love digital courses and I’ve learned so many valuable things from them. If you’d like to jumpstart your educational digital product business, you should join Earning with Educational Etsy Products, or EEEP.
It’s a very new course but jumping in early means that YOU have a say in future content. Currently the course is only $49 but I’ll eventually raise the price to $67, so get in before that happens. With a successful shop, you could make your money back in just a day.
Yes, you can find a lot of information for free and you should definitely be reading the official Etsy seller’s guide, but there’s very little information out there about selling these types of products specifically.
For example, if you looked into how to sell videos on Etsy, you would most likely just learn that you can’t upload video files to your listings and that’s that. However, there’s a different way to do it, and it’s not the only thing I’ve learned that I’ll be sharing in the course.
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.