How I Make Passive Income Selling Digital Products?

imageHow you can too in 2024?
Digital Products are literally one of the best ways to make money online.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy offering consulting sessions and services, but nothing compares to my love for digital products.

I can’t even explain how I feel every time I scroll through my daily income email notifications.


Screenshot by Author of Gumroad Email Notification
But It feels like heaven.

Now, I know I’ve told this story countless times but I used to make a lot of money freelancing on Fiverr.

But was I happy?

No, No and No.

I was always

worked out
Chasing deadlines
And thinking about what would happen if I stopped getting clients
It didn’t make me feel any better when awful clients would leave bad reviews even after I put all my energy into making them happy.


Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash
But digital products changed everything.

The thought of being able to create something once but sell it over and over again was a dream come true.

At that moment, I knew I had to transition from where I was as a freelance digital marketer to something much more sustaining and fulfilling.

I went on to try so many digital product side hustles like

Selling ebooks on Amazon KDP and Draft2Digital
Selling Courses on Udemy and skillshare
and Selling Canva templates on Marketplaces like Etsy and Creative Fabrica
But if you notice, I played it way too safe at first.

I stuck with only selling my digital products on Marketplaces
And was scared to drive traffic myself

Photo by Melanie Wasser on Unsplash
I mean, you can’t blame me.

I really loved the idea of being able to

do the work once,
and have it make me money from free traffic.
But after being kicked out of huge marketplaces like Amazon and Udemy, I quickly realized there was a smarter way to build my passive income digital product business.

Now What did I do?
I really had to take laws into my own hands.

So I sketched out a plan.

I was going to

build my personal brand
create high quality digital products
create my free store on Gumroad
and drive traffic to my store actively.
So for this story, I’m going to skip the basics of

Creating high quality digital products (because I trust your potential)
and setting up your Gumroad store (because that’s super easy)
Today we’re going to focus on driving traffic once your store is set and ready to launch.

So for me, these were the 5 steps I followed.

Step 1: Choose the Perfect Platform for my Product
First, I needed to pick a platform to post content on, for traffic.


Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
I loved this step

And depending on what I wanted to sell, the world was simply my oyster.

This best part is, even with the way new platforms are being launched every other day, they all seem to bring something unique to the table.

And just in case you need help picking what platform to post on, here a quick list.

TikTok: if you need to sell to the Gen Z demographic
YouTube: for almost every niche , theme and demographic
LinkedIn: for business Related digital products like Resume templates
Medium: for almost any niche with a pinch of storytelling
Now here’s a quick advice, I really don’t know what platform tickles your fancy but make sure it houses your potential buyers.


Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash
I mean, you don’t want to be on TikTok when you’re trying a product to an audience that’s clearly on LinkedIn.

But just in case you need a little nudge and push, I’d say it anywhere, any day that Medium has to be the best platform to market digital products in almost any niche.

And I have so many reasons why I’m so convinced:

First, there are over 151.6 million visitors on Medium every single month.

Y’all, that’s a lot of people.


Medium traffic insights by SimilarWeb
Plus there’s a place on the platform for almost any genre or story niche.

There’s

Fitness
Finance
Self care
Book worms
Food Lovers
Tech and AI geeks
You name it.

Plus the growth potential here on Medium is super insane.

Take my page for instance, I published my very first story on the 3rd of August 2023.

It’s been 5 months and I don’t regret my decision to start on Medium.

Because I’ve grown over 28k followers


Screenshot by Author
And get over 273,462 views to my stories every single month.


Screenshot by Author
Step 2: Create a Content strategy
So let’s say to take my advice to start writing on Medium, you’re going to need to create a content strategy.

And you better not skip this step.

Because people don’t get this.

Sure while quality stories are super important on Medium, the quantity matters equally.

To make my clients understand why, I always use the marketplace analogy.

Now, I need you to see Medium as a Marketplace.

A marketplace with dozens of sellers in competition for the same amount of buyers.

We, the writers, are the sellers.


Photo by Jodie Cook on Unsplash
While the buyers are the amazing readers on Medium.

Now think about this for a minute,

Why in the world would Medium even show your story to readers as a new writer when they have other writers they can trust?

For them, it’s a gamble.

Your story could be awful
You could quit anytime soon
You could be a BS writer
You need to understand that people pay to be on Medium.

And it’s the Algorithm’s job to serve them the best of stories.

So yes, at first the algorithm on Medium won’t even look your way as a new writer.


Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash
Not until you prove yourself by

Staying consistent to an extent
and Delivering a good enough story readers love
By creating an effective content strategy with at least 50–100 content ideas that have already gone viral in your niche, you increase your chances of

Staying consistent on Medium
And proving yourself to the algorithm
Also, by sticking with already viral topics, you’ll be following the simple rule of virality.

If it’s gone viral once, it’ll most likely go viral again.


Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash
Now, finding these topics is literally so easy.

As easy as finding the top 10–20 writers in your niche and picking their best performing post ideas.

Remember the key is to take inspiration, not copy.

Step 3: Learn the Algorithm
So we’ve decided to post one story a day to

impress the algorithm
and convince it to show our stories to even more people
But what else does the algorithm want?

Well aside from Consistency, the Medium algorithm feeds on engagement.

More clicks: More Views
More claps: More Views
More Reads: More views
So it’s a viral loop.


Photo by Georgia de Lotz on Unsplash
You do something right, it feeds into the algorithm and you get even more traffic.

In essence, whatever you can do to increase your clicks, claps, comments and reads is what the algorithm wants.

Write better click worthy titles
Structure your story for more reads and comments
Leave people wanting more from you to where they follow and even subscribe to your Medium list
That’s how you go viral on Medium.

Step 4: Quality Vs Quantity
Now, I’ll most likely never see the end of this question.

Rose, do I post more stories or less with better quality?


Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash
Well, I say, we writers don’t get to choose.

Writing is serving and with serving, you do what’s best, not what’s convenient.

So I’m not going to sit here and lie about how writing quality stories everyday is easy and totally doable.

Because it’s not.

But so is every other thing worth doing.

You just need to get over it and just get to work.

You won’t regret your decision once those paychecks start rolling in every single day.

Step 5: The Law of Reciprocity
I can’t conclude a story about selling digital products on Medium without talking about this law.

Now, People don’t know this but humans are super predictable.


Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash
In fact, we’re like mirrors and psychology has found that humans tend to

Repay good with good.
Value with value
and obviously bad with bad.
So in essence, there’s no way you can write crappy stories every other day and expect those sales to pour.

Because Sales are in fact a product of value.

You show your readers how valuable your knowledge is through your stories and they’ll begin to see the worth in your digital products.

But on the other hand, if you write crappy stories, you’ll have to deal with angry readers that think they might have wasted minutes of their precious time reading your story.


Photo by Julien L on Unsplash
So It’s not just about the number of views; rather, it’s about the impact your story has and the vivid image it creates in your readers' minds.

That said, I keep the law of reciprocity close to mind whenever I write new stories.

It makes me want to spend more hours than I normally would, getting my story to be the most perfect it could be.

Because I now understand that what is worth doing is worth doing well.

The law of reciprocity is also why I’m able to make this many sales promoting my digital products on Medium.


Screenshot by Author
Conclusion
Honestly, in my years online, Medium and Digital Products make the perfect passive income combination I’ve ever experimented with.

It’s sustainable
Fulfilling
Yet so passive
And How do I even explain that all you need to do is give real value through your stories and the money follows?

Crazy right?

Now, Remember how I mentioned growing over 28k Followers, with over 273,462 views every month.

Well, I wrote an entire book sharing exactly how I did it.

It’s called the Medium Income Playbook.


The Medium Income Playbook
In this ebook, I share my exact thought process behind

Finding endless profitable content ideas related to your specific niche
Creating click-worthy titles and viral headlines to capture readers' attention.
Creating engaging stories that convert readers into loyal subscribers and even buyers.
My writing principles (Quantity vs quality, KLT principle and the MVA principle)
And I’ll also share my personal experiences on how I managed to grow to over 28k followers (as I speak) on Medium in less than 5 months.
Literally everything you need to go from zero followers to making passive income as a writer is in the Medium Income Playbook.

So If you want to start your very own profitable Medium page,

Check out the steps I personally tried out and have now shared in the Medium Income Hustle playbook.

You can click here to Grab The Medium Income Playbook.