Jonathan Milligan told us about "How to Create 7 Perpetual Income Streams from your Next Self-Published Book". His webinar was mainly about his practice, what he does.
He's passionate about blogging and has a blog called Blogging your Passion. In his book, 15 Success Traits of Probloggers, he teaches his audience how they can go from a passionate idea to building a profitable online business. He has a framework, which works for blogging, podcasting, video blogging or any other type of message somebody wants to transmit online. And the premise of this foundational piece is based on five aspects, each made up of different elements:
- mindset: resilience, confidence, passion, patience, consistency
- habits: create, capture, compile, connect
- systems: people, processes, plans
- leverage: learning, listening
- result: trust/authority.
- a Kindle book with a 4-step revenue engine
- a "free gifts for you" page with links that lead people to get on the mailing list, the "energy and lifeblood" of everything you do
- a KDP free promotion of the book: Jonathan offered his book for free for five days, an intentional strategy he used to introduce the readers to what he has to teach them and to get them on his mailing list
- reach out to other influencers to promote your book
- deliver more content as a way to introduce the readers to other income streams
- a physical print book: convert your e-book to a paper book (you can use Createspace.com, for example), because some people only like to read a traditional print book
- an audiobook: acx.com, owned by Amazon, allows you to record your own book or hire someone to do it; when you upload your audiobook, they'll put it in Audible, Amazon and iTunes, a triple gain for a one-time upload; and in your Amazon page, people have the option to buy the Kindle book, the paperback or the audiobook [if you're lucky, they'll buy the three versions!]
As Jonathan said, so far all you're doing is repurposing your content, your book, and earning income in additional ways. Curiously, of these three income sources, the audiobook has been the most profitable one so far.
By the way, he said that he used Audacity and a good mic to record his audiobook. When you upload the recording, acx.com gives you feedback about the level of the recording. If it doesn't meet the standards, you need to re-record. Jonathan recommends that you check out the acx guidelines in advance and record a test run of a chapter, upload it and wait for their feedback about quality.
Let's resume the income streams:
- online course or membership site: each contains additional info that can't be included in a book format; he explained that the book teaches the "what" while the online course or membership site teaches the "how", thus allowing him to go much deeper into the topic whether through video or coaching; he gets the readers to these two options through his mailing list
- individual or mastermind/group coaching: the latter is a great income stream, because you have several people at the same time in a Google Hangout, for example, and charge per individual; again, it's the email list that informs people about these events; you can host a (free) webinar and at the end let the attendees know that you're accepting people for a once a week 6 week online mastermind coaching
- give paid keynote talks
- host live online or in-person events.
Jonathan said that what brings in the most revenue is the live in-person workshop, because it's a higher ticketed event. But the online courses have also done well.
At the end Chandler talked a bit about the Self-Publishing School experience saying that
- they use the audiobook for lead capture in the front of the e-book
- they are huge proponents of audiobooks, because they drive tons of leads, which maximizes the backend
- the bonuses pay for themselves.
Thanks, Jonathan, for a very enlightening presentation followed by an interview. As usual, Chandler, you're a great MC!