In the previous tutorial I mentioned that making and selling digital products is another way to monetize your website. The process for doing this is straightforward:
- You create some digital product like an online course, an e-book, custom software, or a downloadable spreadsheet or template.
- You place a link to the product somewhere on your site.
- Customers purchase your product.
It takes active work to make a digital product, but once you’ve created it you can sell it over and over again without any additional effort.
I personally recommend using Gumroad as a platform for uploading and selling digital products and I’ll use this tutorial to explain the basics of the platform, why I think it’s great, and how I personally used it to sell my first digital product on Statology.
What is Gumroad?
Gumroad is an online platform created by Sahil Lavingia that serves as the most popular way for internet entrepreneurs to upload and sell digital products.
The process for using Gumroad is simple:
- Create an account.
- Upload a digital product.
- Generate a chunk of HTML code for your product.
- Embed the HTML code somewhere on your site.
- Customers can then purchase your product directly from your site.
- Gumroad pays out your earnings every Friday.
Best of all, Gumroad offers a free plan so you can get started without paying a dime.
Gumroad simply charges a 5% fee plus a charge fee of 3.5% + 30¢.
So, if you sell a $25 item then Gumroad would charge $25*5% + $25*3.5% + 30¢ = $2.43.
This means you’d receive $25 – $2.43 = $22.57.
If you choose to upgrade to the $10/month Creator plan, the fee drops a bit and you gain the ability to customize the appearance of your product on your site more.
How to Set up a Gumroad Account
Use the following steps to get set up on Gumroad:
- Head on over to gumroad.com.
- Click “Start Selling” in the top right corner.
- Choose an email and password, then click “Create Account.”
Once your account is set up, click on the section titled “Payout” to enter in your address and your preferred method of payment.
Gumroad offers three ways to get paid:
- Bank Account
- Debit Card
- PayPal
Once you enter this information, click “Update payout settings” and you’ll be set to start receiving payments.
How to Create Your First Digital Product
Once your Gumroad account is set up, the next step is to actually create a digital product. Depending on your niche, it could make sense to create e-books, online courses, downloadable templates, or some other product.
For example, I created a digital product called Statistics in Excel Made Easy that I currently sell on Statology. It is a zip file of 16 Excel spreadsheets that contain built-in formulas that allow people to perform certain statistical tests and functions that aren’t currently built into Excel.
This is a product that made sense for my particular niche because many people find Statology by searching for specific Excel tutorials and I know that doing certain statistical tests in Excel is a pain because I’ve had to do them myself without using any built-in formulas.
There were four major steps I took to create this product:
- I created each individual Excel spreadsheet.
- I placed each spreadsheet into a folder on my laptop and zipped the folder.
- I created a catchy name (“Statistics in Excel Made Easy”) and some simple cover art that I whipped up in Excel.
- I decided on a price point of $24.99 – a fair amount for the value contained in the spreadsheets, but still affordable for most people.
This entire process took about five hours.
How to Sell Your First Digital Product
Once you create your product, the next step is to upload it to Gumroad and embed it on your site so customers can buy it.
I used the following steps to do so with Statistics in Excel Made Easy:
Step 1: Describe the product.
- I logged into my Gumroad account.
- I clicked Products, then New Product.
- I then filled in the following information:
Once I clicked “Next:Customize” I was taken to a screen where I could write a description of my product:
I then uploaded some cover art that I created in Excel:
Step 2: Upload the product.
Once I wrote the description and uploaded the cover art, I then uploaded my zipped folder that contained the 16 Excel spreadsheets:
Step 3: Generate HTML code to embed on my site.
The last step was to generate an HTML code to embed on my site. Gumroad offers two options for doing this:
- Overlay: Customers can directly purchase your product from your site.
- Embed: Customers can click on your product and be taken to a Gumroad page to checkout.
Both options are fine, but I prefer to use the Embed option because it displays your cover art and description of the product for customers to see.
Gumroad shows you a preview of exactly what the Embed will look like on your site as well:
Once you’re happy with the way the product works, you can copy and paste the code provided by Gumroad wherever you’d like on your site:
For example, I chose to place my Gumroad link in the sidebar of my site so that it would be displayed on any page a reader happens to be looking at.
Whenever a reader clicks on that Statistics in Excel Made Easy image, they’re automatically taken to the Gumroad sales page where they can complete their purchase.
Getting Paid
On your Gumroad dashboard, you have access to an Analytics section where you can track your sales for each of your products.
As mentioned earlier, Gumroad pays out earnings every Friday to whatever source you specified (bank account, debit card, or PayPal).
It’s important to note that Gumroad will complete an account review before they pay you for the first time just to verify that your sales are legit. So, if you check your account balance you’ll be met with this message:
It typically takes Gumroad 1-3 weeks to review new accounts. Once the review is complete, you will then start getting paid every Friday.
Full Disclosure: Nothing on this site should ever be considered to be advice, research or an invitation to buy or sell any securities, please see my Terms & Conditions page for a full disclaimer.
