We freelancers and consultants find that completing the assignments we land is hard work. With experience it gets a little easier and faster, but there’s a ceiling on our income unless we put in huge numbers of hours each week or command an ever higher pay rate.
Fortunately, there’s a solution, the experts tell us. The answer is to produce information products. Create them once and then sell them into eternity. It is commonly referred to as “making money while you sleep.”
Sounds good to me. I’m a fairly sound sleeper, and even when I’m reduced to counting sheep, the thought of money flowing in all night long could make insomnia quite enjoyable.
I myself have had a PDF book on the market for a few years on how to market freelance and consulting services, and now I have rewritten and improved it considerably. Within the next month or two I will offer it for sale on Amazon in print and Kindle formats.
The problem, however, is that for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to bring the pipe dream of piling up the money while I sleep to fruition.
Creating a book or other information product is different from freelancing or consulting. You develop the product once and that’s it. But the product doesn’t sell unless creation is followed up with intense, ongoing marketing. So the work never is done.
Without substantial marketing, the creative work never pays off. The publicity effort may involve Facebook, blogging, speaking combined with back-of-the-room sales, public relations, LinkedIn groups, etc. There are hundreds, even thousands, of ways to market, but all involve wide-awake activity.
In contrast, in freelancing and consulting, the marketing is upfront and payment for the actual work is generally a sure thing, received as agreed upon when the contract is signed before work begins.
Some products are successful without promotion, but if this is the case, it is probably because the author/creator is visible in the marketplace though other activities. The producer may be getting attention for publicizing other products, speaking, coaching, prominence in his profession, etc. that carries over to the product under discussion.
That’s called “platform.” The spotlight on one element of their work casts light on their other work as well.
Originally posted 1-6-14