Selling information aka e-goods (short for electronic goods) have been around for years. Largest companies in the world make fortunes selling information or information management products. Think about Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe… Here are some key benefits for selling informational products (eBooks, software, stock photos, audio/video courses):
- You don’t have to stock or ship any inventory. Most of the time you don’t have to do anything when the product is sold. Once product is created you can sell it over and over again.
How to get started selling informational products?
Lets look at the most common types of informational products being sold on the Internet:
- E-Books/Guides/Audio/Video courses Stock Photos Software
How to make money selling Software/E-Books/Guides/Courses
In order to sell eBooks, audios, videos, software there are many things you have to learn. I am not going to fool around and imply an idea that in order to make money – “all you have to do is to create a product that solves specific problem, produce it in a form of eBook or application, video course etc and then just let people buy it”. It is much more complicated than that. Before you even think about creating your informational product I would recommend you to promote something as an affiliate to get a feel of how system works. After you check out the affiliate game for some time you should determine what niche your product should be in. Hopefully it is something you know and passionate about. Then a million dollar question is to come up with a digital product that people will actually buy. While being an affiliate, hopefully you build a list of people interested in what you have to sell so you can market your product to them. At the same time you can use network like ClickBank to recruit affiliates that will promote your product. It was extremely simplified explanation of the process. I would not recommend trying to make living on Internet by selling your informational product if you’re a newbie. But it is a great way to have substantial income and expand your business for seasoned internet marketers.
How to make money selling Stock Photos
Do you have digital camera that can take pictures of decent quality? Do you go out, travel, visit new places and take pictures or maybe you’re pretty good at Photoshop or working with 3D renders? Do you know that you can make money from those images? Stock photo/video/audio websites are always in need of new images/videos/audios to satisfy growing demand of web/graphic designers, content producers, commercials, movies, games. Prices for images, depending on license type (usage rights, exclusive rights, resale etc.), range from $0,25 to a couple hundreds of dollars per image. At the moment of writing this article my hard drive contains around 9GB (around 7000+ image files), which are nothing but pictures taken by my digital camera: of me, my friends, places I’ve visited, people I’ve seen. That means that I owe the rights, I am the author. So how do I monetize my image library? I go through and pick some good quality, original, sharp, interesting images. If there is a person in a picture area make them sign “Photo Model Release Form”. Upload pictures to as many Photo Stock Websites as you can. Give them a good description, title, tags. If your pictures are good enough to stand out of the crowd you can expect steady flow of downloads and passive revenue. Now go ahead and take new pictures. Professional stock photographers just travel around the globe capturing stunning images and make their galleries work for them.
To get started sign up as a photographer on website like 123RF . They have one of the highest payouts for photographers and easy to use platform to make money with stock photos. Rewards and higher payouts for exclusive and high volume producers. You get 50/50 split from each download. If customer downloads an Ultra High Res ($3) version of your photo, you'll receive = $3 × 50% = $1.50 from that sale. This is pretty good comparing to the rest of stock image websites. Also you can check out other stock photo websites that paying photographers here.
