So, to narrow down what I mean, I’m really talking about having your own Online Store. This might seem like a lot of work, and it is, but the upsides could be huge.

My own requirements:

  1. An online story which will take care of payments, international taxes etc.
  2. Able to host e-books, audio files, and other digital products. Physical products is not an immediate concern, although if the option exists I am willing to look at it.
  3. Low costs. More on this very shortly

 

Thoughts on tire (or tyre) kicking:

I would advise investigating fairly thoroughly in advance. The field is wide and although there is usually very little penalty in jumping the gun, in this day and age, it is probably better to find out what you want rather than diving straight in. Time is money.

Also, some of the platforms don’t like lurkers,   so best to have a product ready to go so that they don’t suspend your account due to inactivity or worse block you as a suspected security scammer. Some stories indicated that this might happen anyway, but you can minimise the likelihood.

1.  Have product created and ready to sell, or at least preorder (in a week, say)

2. Find/define a niche and need

2. sign up to an  account on your platform of choice

3. upload your product

4. set your pricing and payment options

5. promote your production

6. engage with your audience

7. analyse your sales

8. repeat from step 3

more on this in a subsequent post.

The most interesting players that caught my eye so far (roughly in order of popularity, size etc). Links to my own pages as I add them:

Gumroad

LemonSqueezy

Payhip

CheckYa

Thrivecart

Paddle

 

TLDR:

Gumroad are one of the grand-daddies of the scene and had a great thing going until 2022, when they raised their charges a lot. They used to charge around 3% plus processing fees, which has jumped to 10% plus processing fees. This would still compare reasonably favourably with the charges from Amazon Kindle, except that the processing fees push “you get to keep 90% of the price” down even further.  Most of the competitors seem to have standardised on 5% plus processing fees, which seems more reasonable. If you are already on Gumroad and doing ok, it might not be worth the effort to change, but if you haven’t set up, it might not be worth the effort to set up. My own instinct is to try Payhip first, which is around almost as long, and charges 5% plus processing fees, which can be reduced by moving up to one of their charged plans.