Why It’s Okay To Break The Rules (Even The Expert Ones)
Because sometimes the expert path isn’t your path.
I have tried a lot of things over the years to make money online.
I have sold digital prints, print on demand products, affiliate marketing, self-publishing, and a wider variety of other things that have nothing to do with writing.
Many of these things never earned me a dollar.
I have also sought coaching, and expert knowledge to try and get some of these other things to work, but all of them have failed.
One guru’s plan was supposed to be foolproof, and I lost a lot of money and earned nothing. The reason according to the guru? I didn’t work hard enough (even though for the month that I set everything up, plus the month after following all the steps, I worked 20 hours a week on all of it plus my day job).
All of this expert advice and knowledge is good, until it isn’t.
Sometimes, their advice is absolutely worthless, or it doesn’t apply to the average person’s lifestyle and when we fail we think something is wrong with us. At least that’s how I have felt.
And yet, we can learn from these instances. We can learn from the gurus. But we don’t have to follow their advice and system as absolute truth if it doesn’t fit into our lives or into our personalities.
Digital Products as a Passion Project
I love writing books, but I also like creating helpful digital products to improve people’s lives. Digital product creation and sales have been a side hustle to my side hustle of self-publishing.
This has been an area where I have worked super hard at growing over the last two years because I know that the back-end digital product can earn more income than simply selling a bunch of books on Kindle.
And this is where I have tried a lot of guru advice only to lose money over and over again and likely lose readers/customers because they don’t fit the mold of the guru or expert that I have tried their system.
My ultimate goal with writing and digital products is to help improve people’s lives.
Yes, I want to get paid for my knowledge and time, but it’s not about making a crap-ton of money and becoming famous. Sure, a lot of money would be nice, but I don’t want to be famous by any means.
Often enough, when I dig into the guru’s systems for digital products, I get more obsessed about the promised waterfall of money than actually trying to help people which is my goal.
Digital products are my passion project.
How I’m Tossing Out the Advice of the Guru
Most gurus who make promises of helping you make $10,000 a month with digital products discuss creating one offer worth $1,000 or more and selling it only a few times. This totally makes sense.
However, the offer tends to be super time consuming and for someone like me with a young family, a day job, and a significant amount of other priorities, I cannot spend a ton of time on coaching calls or setting up backend systems that cost me hundreds of dollars a month.
I just can’t.
What I can do, is create something of lower value, that requires lower time commitments and share them more often. Sure, I won’t make $10,000 a month with a few sales. But I will have the opportunity to help more people with creating things that are shorter, more affordable, and super helpful.
That’s why I am going to start doing things really different with my digital products over the rest of this year.
Here’s how I am changing things up:
I’m moving my digital products platform. First, I am moving my digital products to another platform, Stan Store. I have had a good run with Gumroad, but the fees are starting make a bigger impact on my bottom line than I would like. With the minimum plan on Stan Store, I pay $29/month and get to take home my entire sale. This is better than losing 15% or more of my sales to Gumroad.
I’m lowering prices. Not because I think my product are worth less than their current price, but because I think my products are worth more to people who need them. And I want them to be accessible to people who need them. For example, The Minimalist Author Way [Basic] was $97 for the ebook alone, now, it’s $27. (Want it, grab it here!)
I’m going to cut out middle marketing. Instead of sending readers to my email list first in most cases, I am going to create the option to go straight to my digital products. Yes, email lists are extremely important, but I HATE signing up for an email list, to get a digital product (email sequence/course) only to find an upsell in the end. I’d rather just get that offer first and maybe pay $5 to $25 dollars on the email sequence content to get it all in one shot. That’s what I will do.
Over the next couple of months, I will be moving everything over to Stan Store. And, yes, I will leave up my Gumroad Store, but I won’t be pointing people there after I am completely set up with Stan Store. But my hope is to make it easier for people to find and buy my products than ever before.
Let’s Break Some Rules Together!
I want this to be part of the minimalist author way. I want those of us who are writing mini books and creating short, helpful digital products to be ready to go out there and break some rules.
Why should do everything the guru says we should?
Maybe you have already done this. You set up your systems and creative venture differently than the guru. I’d love to hear what you have done in the comments below. Because I think it will be helpful for me and others.
How do you break the rules? What’s worked best for you? What hasn’t?
P.S. I started a June Writing Challenge!
It’s all about writing your first draft in a month. Learn how to do it with this article.
My name is J.R. Heimbigner and I am a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon with 20 self-published books. Learn more about The Minimalist Author HQ!
Also, this post may contain sales or affiliate links, so I might get a little kickback if you purchase anything. Thank you in advance!