#AD Back in October last year, I created and released by very first blogging resource, my Beginner’s Guide to Blogging eBook. I worked incredibly hard on this for a month but I didn’t realise quite how much I’d have to do and consider when it came to creating it. I knew I’d have to write it, obviously. I had a vague grasp of how much I’d have to proofread and edit it (although that took 10x as long as what I’d expected!) but after that, I had to consider everything else too. How would I sell it? How much? How will I get it to people’s computers? What format should I sell it in? Is it good enough to sell in the first place?

Endless questions were going around my head and it can be really overwhelming at first but everything turned out alright in the end and now, at the time of writing this, I’ve had over 60 sales and earned over £300 from sales of my eBook alone and I’m knuckling down to brainstorm other things I can release in the near future. It’s a exciting prospect, releasing your own products and resources for others but there’s definitely plenty to consider…

Is there a gap in the market? Do you have the knowledge and something to offer?

This is probably the key thing to think about before you even start typing away on your keyboard. In an industry that’s brimming with people all offering something and information by the bucket load, you need to know that whatever it is you’re thinking about creating and offering is something that people are going to want and buy. Yes, someone else probably sells something similar but what will make yours special and stand out?

Do you have immense knowledge about one particular aspect of blogging that you’ve been incredibly successful in yourself? You could turn that into an eBook. Do you have a popular series of blog posts on your blog that you could expand on and turn into a book? Is your wit and humor what keeps people coming back over and over again? Use that to your benefit.

We’ve all got something. We’re all special and unique in our own way, so make sure you utilize your strengths when it comes to your blogging resource. I’ve always prided myself on helping newer bloggers and providing them with the information that I was never aware of when I was a newbie. I want new bloggers to know that there’s help and support out there and that there are people willing to guide them to make their blogs a success. And that’s where my Beginners Guide to Blogging eBook comes in!

Format, format, format

The format of your resource is so important, arguably one of these most important things to consider. I’d have loved to have been able to create mine in print, as well as an eBook but unfortunately it’s just not doable right now. Having things in print is great and if that’s a viable option for you then fantastic but a digital resource can be cheaper to create, cheaper to distribute and doesn’t involved postage costs. When you’re creating something that you’re hoping to sell, everything needs to be taken into consideration, especially cost wise.

So, a digital resource is super convenient, cheaper to manufacture and has many more benefits like being available to people all over the world (as opposed to a physical book for example, where you might not have the money to ship it to the other side of the world). But even with digital copies, you still need to provide different formats, such as PDF’s, Word Documents, ePubs and more, to cater for different people. You don’t know what each individual will be consuming your resource on, so it’s good to cover all (or at least most) options.

PDFelement is a great tool for working with PDF files for your resource. A PDF is probably the most used file format, most people will be able to open it on their laptops or tablets and with PDFelement, you can edit your PDF’s (so they look visually better because visuals are important!) and convert your PDF’s to other formats, so you can give potential customers a number of options.

PDFelement can be downloaded and they offer a handy free trial so you can download it and see what you think. It’s an incredibly easy to use programme, which gets downloaded onto your computer and set as as shortcut on your desktop, so you don’t have to access the internet every time you want to use it. The free trial is great for the basics but you can buy the full programme for $89.95 (approx. £70) where you can covert, edit and manage unlimited PDF’s of an unlimited number of pages. It allows you to create your PDF exactly how you want it to look, which is really important when it comes to creating a blogging resource.

Money makes the world go round

Cost is another thing that you’ll need to consider. Unless you’re planning on offering up a free resource (which is great), then you’ll need to consider your cost at some point. A physical resource will always be more expensive than the digital counterpart. Production and shipping costs all come into it but because I’ve never created a physical copy of anything, then I’m probably not the best person to ask for advice for about this.

But with digital resources, once it’s created, it’s done and any sales you make from it will be passive income. But of course you don’t want to sell yourself short and you need to take into account the amount of time it took you to create it in the first place and your audience and demographic of people who’ll likely be purchasing it.

Thankfully, I don’t rely on the money from my eBook sales for anything, it’s just a nice bonus so I’m free to set deals and offers occasionally (which always boosts sales). When I released it, I set it at £8.99. Then I did a couple of offers where I sold it for £3.99 and £2.99 respectively. I’m still not entirely happy about the price and want to offer it for a little as possible, without selling myself short.

Prepare for every eventuality

Which brings me nicely to my final point. If this is the first time you’ve ever created anything to sell, then prepare for everything and accept it as a learning experience rather than something that will be 100% successful in every aspect right from the get-go. It’s going to be a lot of time and work, you might wonder what you’re doing and if it’s worth it. You might hit a brick wall or get stuck with a technical element.

It’s not going to be a perfect journey from beginning to end but as long as you’re prepared for the ride, then it’ll be a great learning experience which hopefully, will result in an amazing product and a successful business by the end of it!

Would you ever consider creating something to sell? Have you done it before and how did you find the experience? What sort of blogging resources would you like to see? Let me know!

* This post is sponsored by PDFelement