Creators talk about the Digital Market

Davin’s sales:

My path to the permies digital market might feel familiar...
I took my sweet time, but I now have seven items listed. I believe the digital market has doubled in seller activity since I started creating items.

Regarding the digital market as a whole, I have trusted in Paul’s word and continue to do so. I was in the room several times when Paul announced the opportunity to sell digital items on the permies digital market. I had the potential to produce a PDF plan set of a construction project, but I hadn’t a specific item to zero down on. I didn’t believe my interests would align with buyers.

I visited Wheaton Labs for the first time in late summer 2015. Paul thought I could design a better berm shed from the existing one. Brian was the interim land manager at the time. Fred was there already. The point being, I downloaded sketch up for the first time, and began communicating with the 3D models. I learned Sketch Up quickly, but it took several months to make a wofati prototype and present it on YouTube.

I visited Wheaton Labs for the second time in the summer of 2017. Prior to this meeting with Paul, he asked me to produce a plan for the solar dehydrator that was to be built during the 2017 ATC. He showed me Mark Vander Meer’s solar dehydrator in the YouTube video.

By the time of the ATC start, I came up with a model, that then got hashed out by the class, instructor Tim Barker, and Paul. As the class built the large solar dehydrator, I altered my computer model to the exact measurements and materials. This took a lot of time, and I could have been more useful to the Class, but I felt the documentation was important - what if Paul wanted to talk about it after I left back to Texas. Also, I wanted to gift the Class a plan set as a souvenir. (davinhoyt at gmail)

Note: Design work with Paul is not easy. I have done it a few times. He has ideas that cause a person to stretch their perspective(s). You definitely need to meet him where he is. If you were to make a digital product, he would probably guide you to a professional looking product - one that he would like to sell himself. If you left it up to him to knock on your door and ask if you will make a digital product, it ain’t gonna happen.

I returned to Texas with three solar dehydrator models in my computer.

I modeled the Mark Vander Meer solar dehydrator, the 2017 ATC Class solar dehydrator, and the simple tray 2016 ATC Class solar dehydrator.

At that time, the ATC 2017 Class solar dehydrator did not have many test runs. As a documenter, I thought it was appropriate to produce a full set of plans for Mark’s design (proven to work), just as much, if not more, than the importance of producing a full set for the 2017 ATC Class design. The pressure was on.

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It took six months for me to make the two solar dehydrator plan sets. It wasn’t the only thing I was working on, but it took many hours that went uncounted.

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I told Paul in an email once: “FYI- It takes me a day to make a SKETCH, a few days to make a MODEL, and a few months to make a PLAN SET.”

Note: If you're still lacking the drive to make a digital item, go visit Diego Footer's podcast "Do the Work", donate to his organization, then catch up on all the things you've been meaning to do.
Note: The first time I posted an item to the digital market it was incomplete. I realized some more information was needed in the plans, and the plans were easily replaced with a newer edited version. All of the people who have access to the digital item, then, have access to the latest version.

When I thought the plans were done, I sent them to Paul for a quality review. He advised I create a few graphical explanations to assist in sales - to increase the presence of the item in the digital market. He advised I create a letter size summary package, and a shrunken representation of the plan set. Both of these show an overview and prove a quality.

Note: Permies staff may edit your didgital market posts to read more clearly, and better serve the permies community.
Note: The first image in your digital market post will be the thumbnail image that stands beside the title in the digital market listing. Prepare in advance, or request a staff member change the thumbnail to another image found inside your post. Also, the images you use should be placed online prior to your post, because you are referencing the images. I have been using Facebook, and I don’t advise it, because I’ve had to re-link twice. I have my own web space and will use it going forward.

My profession is Architecture. At the time of release, I charged $300 per sheet of construction document in a PLAN SET. If I was to extrapolate into this work, the 2017 ATC Class Solar Dehydrator Plan Set was a project I would normally charge $1,200 for ownership. The same goes for Mark’s design as it has the same number of sheets. (Maybe my rate needs some more exploration: the difference between replicate-able-item-plans with ownership, verses custom-non-replicate-able-item-plans.) Also, please note the travel and communication that was needed for this to come together. I am a consultant when I work. The final designs always surpass what the owner, or designer, could have done alone. Paul fills the “owner” position  for the 2018 Rocket Oven plan set project, and "part-owner” position when sitting around the table at the 2017 ATC Class construction site.

And now let’s break down the money more...
My sales have not exceeded my expectations, but they are hearty. My expectations would be hitting “my costs” by year two. I posted both solar dehydrators at the same time, then, Paul advised me to make a combination package for a discount. This is the best seller of my items on the digital market.


Note: To make more than $500 in one year on the digital market, a person must supply their tax identification (social security number) to permies dot com.

You can make almost as much as the seller by being the affiliate on permies dot com digital market place. I wish I were the affiliate on all my sales. I would make a lot more money. Paul makes the most money out of my affiliates. Because I haven’t made as much money as I would have liked, I have been releasing my newest items in the digital market with a lower affiliate percentage than 40%, which is Paul’s recommendation. I believe the digital market is new and growing, and there will be more money supporting creators like myself going forward, but I want more money now. A fear lingers in my mind about a digital item becoming obsolete before making a profit. I have been placing my latest plan sets at an affiliate percentage of 25%, and 10% for my combination plan sets. This pays an affiliate 3-5$, instead of 8-10$ like the initial solar dehydrator offers.

Note: I have not found a way to protect my digital items (PDF) from counterfeit. I can imagine a teacher sharing their PDF with students, but no mass dilution of my goods has ever come to my attention.
Note: A seller cannot change the affiliate percentage once an affiliate sale has been made.
Note: In my latest plan sets I have advertised other drawings in the title block area. I placed an image of the DIY object along with an affiliate hyper-link.

I have made more money from Paul’s kickstarters, than the digital market sales. Paul has paid me a lump sum twice for allowing the 2017 ATC Class solar dehydrator Plan Set to be a stretch goal; thus, it was released to thousands of people. The permies membership organizes these people, via the digital market, so I continue to be hands-off when it comes to customer portal.

This is an attempt to entertain the money bug in you...
Every month, I receive PayPal money from Paul Wheaton’s digital market. It has averaged $70 for the last year. It is a smooth transaction and I have never been troubled by the process.

From all the money my seven digital products have generated, I estimate affiliates have made 28% from the digital market, and I have made 46% from the digital market, and Paul's kickstarter payouts have accounted for the remaining 26%.

As for the digital market sales percentages alone, I estimate that affiliates have made no less than 35% of total sales; Therefore, I'm making 65% of the sale price at best.

-The net value producing my seven current digital market items is $7,500 ($300x25sheets). Let's say this is my value calculation for the moment.

-Two thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven people have access to the 2017 ATC Class Solar Dehydrator plans.

-No one has access to the Wheaton Rolly Shelves plan set right now. It may seem like a silly thing to model, but the plans will be there for Paul and other permies to refer.

-Nineteen people ave access to the Rocket Oven 2018 sales: affiliates on those: 15 to Paul, 2 to me, 1 to a permies member, and 1 more non-affiiliated link forfieted to me, the seller.

-Sixty-three people have access to the Solar Dehydrator Combo Package (best seller).

Note: I can foresee opportunities of collaboration around items sold on the permies digital market. For example, I would like for someone to supply me a materials take-off list for  projects.

Good luck and thank you...
I am very glad to have produced digital items and placed them on the permies digital market place that is open 24 hours a day. I have been able to create documents that the permies community appreciate, and this digital sale becomes another thread of our interaction. I have gotten nice messages via forums, private message, and postal mail. Also, thanks to the wide reach of permies dot com, I have gotten international phone calls from large scale farmers, and emails from university professors.

Note: I modeled the 2018 Rocket Oven purely from video. (I don’t know anyone else who would do this.) Paul gave me access as the video was being compiled. In return, I provided Paul with images to supplement his video documentary. Shout out to Tyler for his skills in that project and documentation.

For lack of better terms, having produced a digital item for the permies digital market makes me “feel like I fertilized a system that betters us.” It requires a pay-it-forward mindset. For me, the first two solar dehydrators made me sink to my core, and get serious. If I hadn’t experienced the planning and building of the large solar dehydrator, I may never have conjured the confidence to make a plan set. I would probably still be an observer making notes, instead of an author making a product.

In closing, I suggest you become involved with the community at permies dot com and maybe even visit Paul Wheaton for a week. Get to know something, then, apply your special hand to it.

PS: A special thank you to my friends Scott and Paul for pushing me toward sketchup modeling.

I know that for the combo, we made banner ads here on permies, ran tiny ads at the bottom of threads and in emails, we also have some ads at richsoil - and maybe a few other places.  And I think there may have been some sales to people in the PIE program.  

I know that there are a few other "thread boost" things we have given to that.  

I know that we also give your stuff a mention in the rocket ovens DVD.

I think it might be time to have "a sale".  Or maybe lower the price a bit.   Or maybe offer a package deal.  

I know we are also experimenting with ways to improve conversion.

I was hoping that there would be a lot more people selling all the stuff in the digital market to harvest that 40% (my stuff is currently set at 50% or higher).  I thought that with a few people harvesting the fat affiliate stuff, we would see ten times more sales in the digital market as a whole.  I still have lots of ideas and plans to do much, much more.

The important thing is that if you do zero, you get zero.   And with passive income, then you try stuff and you never can tell which thing is gonna pay off huge.  But the idea is to look to how much did you earn, overall, per hour, over ten years?  And beyond ten years?


Good info Davin!  Thanks for taking the time to share all of this!

I sell a very different product on the digital market, so I thought I'd share my experience as well.

About Me and My Sales
I needle felt dragons and fairies and a miniature Paul and Jocelyn figure. I haven't really advertised, though I know Paul and Jocelyn plugged my creations of them on facebook and on the permies page. I suspect that I might get more buyers if I advertised more, or if I raised my affiliate fee higher--right now it's low to nonexistent keep prices low. Right now I'm a bit busy, so I'm not in a hurry to get more sales--though I'm always happy to take on orders!

Physical Objects and Shipping
Selling a physical object isn't exactly what permies was set up to do, as there's no "cart" and no way to change shipping based on where one is shipping in the US. If there were a cart, it would be easier for people to, say, pick up 4 fairies and a dragon and some swords. But, there isn't, so I'd need to refund shipping to those that order more than one item. This kind of hassle might keep people from buying. There's also just US Shipping and International Shipping, which makes things rather hard for international sellers. Having said that, I've still made sales! I've made $200 in three sales--granted, one sale was to Jocelyn, and the other to Paul for their respective figures.

Support for Beginner Sellers
As a beginner seller, I really appreciate permies and the support I've gotten here.  You all helped me decide on a name for my store, and gave me feedback and encouragement on my creations, and that really really helped! The sales allowed me to buy more materials and to hone my skills. Since there's no listing fee, there's absolutely no risk in listing an item at permies. You can put up whatever you want, and if no one buys it, all you've lost is a few hours. There's no risk. I really, really like that. If I were to list on etsy, I would have listing fees for each thing I put up for sale, even if no one ever bought it. And I'd have to keep paying that fee to keep it listed. That's a risk I didn't want to take as someone who didn't know if their product was actually good enough to sell.

Permies has, literally, allowed me to vastly improve my felting skills. Here's some pictures of my early creations, compared to recent ones.







Without permies support, I would not have improved so much! You can also see that my photography skills have improved a ton, too, just by taking pictures of things I've made as gifts so I can post the pictures of examples of my creations.

Being Part of a Community
And, it's given me a way to give back to permies. It was delightfully fun to make the Paul Wheaton Voodoo Action Figure, and the Jocelyn Action Figure. And, it was great having so many people enjoy the pages, and to be able to send them to Paul and Jocelyn and have them enjoy them. I know that the sales i made here on permies would not have happened if I had not been a part of this community. By being here and contributing and helping others, I have been helped in turn. There's a LOT to be said for the value of community and it's emotional, economical, and intellectual support. I love giving back to the community that has given so much to me.



And, I really want to stress how much the community goes above and beyond just the digital market. I have HUGE thanks to give to Judith Browning who what my very first customer, and has supported me SO MUCH, gifting me with felt and roving and even a pair of wool cards. Thank you, so much Judith. I would never have met such a lovely person without permies, and I only hope that I can give back as she--and so many others--have given to me.


In Summary:

The digital market--even for physical items--requires no risk. You can list it, and if it never sells, it costs you nothing. If it does sell, you get money on the day of the month Jocelyn sends out the funds. No risks. Lots of potential rewards. In the words of Paul, "try 100 things, 2 will work out and you never know in advance which 2." Paul makes it pretty easy to do that here on permies!

It's a really wonderful to contribute to permies community, and potentially get paid to do it!

It's not really set up for physical items, or international orders, but you can make it work

It's a great place for a beginner to put out feelers about their product, without any risk, especially if that product is something permies might want. It's a great place to get feedback and encouragement about your product, as well as for your business. It's just plain a great place to be, and I am so thankful to be part of such an awesome community!

I listed my eBook up on the Permies digital marketplace here: https://permies.com/t/111481/Backyard-Dairy-Goats-ebook

The setup process was much quicker and easier than I'd expected. I've made three sales, and the money minus the small amount of fees was transferred to me when it was meant to be (start of the month I think).

It's a good service, the fees are way less than for eBay, etsy, Amazon etc. The affiliate amount can be set to anything, so it's nice to be able to set it fairly high, as I'd rather be giving a percentage to permaculture people than to Amazon.

Davin Hoyt wrote:
This is an attempt to entertain the money bug in you...
Every month, I receive PayPal money from Paul Wheaton’s digital market. It has averaged $70 for the last year. It is a smooth transaction and I have never been troubled by the process.

This is a screenshot from my PayPal app on phone.

Davin Hoyt wrote:This is an attempt to entertain the money bug in you...

This last Kickstarter campaign (the Greenhouse Build movie), I think, has brought eyes to my drawings for sale. It probably helped that my Rocket Oven (2018) Plan set were a highlighted stretch goal for the campaign. I don't remember getting an exciting influx in sales from a Kickstarter of Paul's before, but that's a possibility. Whatever the case, one of the bonuses to being a part of the Kickstarter is the "set in stone" factor - After the campaign is over, your campaign page is frozen, and permanently advertises your product's existence.

Now some juice:
The lowest month's earnings since I started selling on Permies: January 2019 ($24.64).
My current average monthly earnings since December 2017 ($81.00).
My best month yet: July 2020 ($180.08).

Update: My largest month in 2020 brought in $191USD, and the smallest month was $27USD. Total 2020 earnings were $1331USD.

I've sold in a few other digital marketplaces for software and 3D products. If you don't have a massive advertising budget the best way to go is to gradually build a brand with a catalog of products. Think of each product as a new stream of income. Ideally get paid to design and create something you can keep the rights to and then resell.

Unless you make a unicorn product that fills a specific need at just the right time/demand that it blows up. This is typically what new creators think will happen but then get discouraged when sales don't meet expectations.

A way to think of it is how long would it take you to make a product and how much revenue will it create over its lifetime, does it need maintenance/updates?

If the product took a day to make and you can sell $100 of that one product in a month then you made $100 that day and future sales are just extra cashflow, thus if you can create a product every day and see a return that pays for the day of work each month you will be doing pretty good.

Digital markets are really a game of how can you balance development time with ROI, OR just when to throw a ton of money at ad campaigns; At least until the collective passive income of the entire product library lowers the risk enough for you to create product over a longer period of time for a higher price point.

If you can find something that doesn't take long to make and can make back your time investment consistently then your passive income will compound.

I've now had a chance to see what the digital market is like for selling physical products.

I set up some digital market threads as a way for people to pre-order books.

It seems to work well - I set the prices for both US and international shipping, and whenever someone buys a book, I get an email with their shipping address.

The payment comes through at the end of each month, so it works well for pre-orders.

My threads:

https://permies.com/t/152741/Year-Grid-Kitchen-paperback-pre
https://permies.com/t/152743/Year-Grid-Kitchen-hardcover-pre
https://permies.com/t/152744/Year-Grid-Kitchen-paperback-cooking
https://permies.com/t/152746/Year-Grid-Kitchen-hardcover-cooking

T Simpson wrote:I've sold in a few other digital marketplaces...

Can you speak about "how a task/work/product selects you", rather than knowing everything from the start.?

Can you shed some more light on "financial compensation".... If I say that a product took $3,000 worth time, what is that (quantity of time) in your opinion? And what would you price that item on the digital market?

Depends on the market and product.

For example a 3D model can be for realtime (i.e. video games) or for film or both in both those sub markets the digital product will sell differently. Game developers will look for packs or bundles of art that fit their game's art style and packs can sell for around $50 for 100 or more models. Thus the time it takes to make a pack as opposed to an individual model is generally worth it since you will sell WAY more than if you were to sell an individual model.

Where as in film the buyers likely are looking for a specific model, thus you can leverage seasonal sales. For example a new iPhone comes out, then model that item. It will sell well in the short term but not in the long term as new products come out and your competition increases. That industry comes down to who can make the highest quality asset the fastest so advertisers can use it in media, individual models for renders command a higher price but for shorter time. i.e. $50 per model instead of per pack.

With something like eBooks it comes down to competition in your niche, someone with a larger library of books for sale can afford to sell their product for less and/or bundle products. If you only have one big book with not much competition (i.e. Bill Mollison's Permaculture Design Manual sells in the hundreds of dollars). So a profitable strategy to compete with the Permaculture Design Manual may be to create content similar to that book's sections spanning multiple products and sell them individually at a lower price point (thus opening the option to bundle them to compete directly without the initial big time investment if you were to publish all the information in one big work).


Then there are things like software or Social media like making YouTube videos. These are maintained i.e. free updates & consistent uploads. These require you to constantly create content thus need different monetization schemes such as subscriptions or advertisement revenue. What you charge for these services correlates to the size of the audience you are selling to.

With software you can sell to the professional market at high price points i.e. $300 for Substance Painter or $20/mo for Adobe products or to the indie market which wants cheap prices $15-100 are aim for bulk sales. The pro market also targets university students and the indie market targets hobbyists.


You really must judge the markets ability to support the product you are making before you invest time. For software that would be identifying a need in an industry, if there is no competition there is likely a huge payoff but also an equal time investment. If you don't already have the resources to support yourself while working toward that payoff then it likely isn't worth it and you should build a library of smaller products and build a brand first. In that case it comes down to can you create the thing that fills the need faster than your competition. (I had a startup and failed to beat competition to the punch and lost big. That would not have been a problem if I had a library of smaller products to fall back on).



If the $3000 product is the ONLY product I offer and say it took a month to make I would want to price it high so for what few sales I get I can make back more of the initial investment in a shorter amount of time (new brand means fewer customers and less trust). But if I'm an established brand with a catalog I would lower the price a bit, run discounts, offer high affiliate payouts because I have passive income to compensate if sales are low.


There are many strategies you can employ, all I can really say is only take a risk that you are comfortable with; sometimes products can not sell for a year then suddenly explode. Sometimes you hit it big right away. Other times nothing will come of it unless you burn money on advertisements.

I tried to break the digital market as best I could, and this is what my experience has been like.

My product is a calculator I developed for myself to determine how much I'd have to grow to provide 100% of my calories. I had to make things difficult by deciding to make it available according to a "pay what you want/can" model on a platform that was very clearly not designed for it. I set up posts at several different payment levels and then created a megathread to consolidate all of the payment levels in one place. That has mostly worked, except that Permies doesn't allow you to sell things for $0 (because why would it?), so my megathread is listed as $0.01. I've tried to make it clear that this is a limit of the forum software, but I still end up with occasional $0.01 payments... that obviously get lost to fees. And no doubt the whole thing confuses would-be customers that just up and disappear... either before or after making their $0.01 payment.

Where people read and understand my post, it works great. When I first released my calculator I made a number of sales and was paid out about $40 that first month. After that, nothing. Not until I had a very public mental breakdown and people bought it out of pity and so that I could afford to get dog food. That payout was about $170. That's the most income I've had in 13 months, and very much a big weight off of my shoulders. And that's only possible because of the platform that the digital market provides.

Even with the little hiccups, I much prefer this pricing model. My product is very much in a beta state and I have a laundry list of additions and improvements that I want to make. I definitely gave it enough polish to be comfortable putting it in front of people, but I don't think it's quite to the value that some people have been willing to pay. Just getting people to use it, even for free, and provide feedback is massively helpful. But for people that see its potential and buy in now, the cash flow is very much appreciated. I give people the option to add their name as a contributor if they make a payment, and I allow them to add a website if they pay $10 or more. That seemed like a fair way to compensate people that buy in early and have to wait for all of the features it will one day have, though so far only one person has taken advantage of that option.

I have prices set from $1 all the way up to $35, and I've had sales across that entire range. Which, I suspect, means I've gotten more sales (and higher value sales) precisely because people can pay what they think it's worth in its current state. And because they can even access it for free, there's no surprise about what they're getting. They can get it and use it, and if they find value they can make a payment. And as someone without an established brand, it means that people can use my product risk free before I've established that trust with them. Perhaps I lose sales by making it available for free, but I suspect that those people never would have paid for it to begin with, and I'd much rather people use it than not, if money is the only issue.

I would love to get affiliate sales and I have my commission set at the recommended 40%, which I'd gladly part with to get more traffic to my calculator. I think it's kind of a weird thing to get people to buy into since I'm basically asking people to be affiliates for something I've giving away for free. And I just realized that I'm not sure if Permie's affiliate tracking will follow people from the megathread to the individual payment levels, which is certainly what my intent is. It may not even be effective for people to be an affiliate of my calculator, unless they want to exclusively refer people to a specific payment level. I'm not sure how exactly that sort of thing is handled on the back end.

Ultimately, I think a pay what you want model has driven more sales than a set price point would have. I'd love to see that added as an officially sanctioned option in the digital market. It would make setting up the thread(s) significantly less complicated, and provide a better experience to the end user. Until then, this technically works.

On the technical side of things, the payment widget breaks if you try to add more than 9 or 10 options (however many I added in there), so if you want to set something up with multiple payment levels like I did, that's the limit. You can make text links all day long, but the widget maxes out.

I'm seriously considering starting a marketing firm that focuses on the permaculture/regenerative agriculture niche.

I can provide the following services at a very high quality:

Promotion of your social media channels, product or website on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter

Creation of graphics & 3D product renders

Creation and hosting of sales funnels

Targeted advertising of your product, PDC or Kickstarter in magazines, emails & blogs

Animated 2D, 3D ads & Videos

I'm also planning to create a platform for people to host their PDCs; although that may be a few months away still.

Before I do this I need to make sure that I would have customers willing to pay for top quality targeted ads in this niche. From my experience I have found paid ads to be necessary in order to scale digital income streams. I project that I can consistently get 100k eyeballs to peoples stuff by the end of the year, but it will take some time to scale to that. Who here would be willing to pay for a services such as these to build their brand and increase sales? Services would range from $50-1000 and could span from a day to several months. You could continue to sell through Permies.com as usual.

T Simpson wrote:I'm seriously considering starting a marketing firm that focuses on the permaculture/regenerative agriculture niche.

I can provide the following services at a very high quality:

Promotion of your social media channels, product or website on Instagram, Facebook & Twitter

Creation of graphics & 3D product renders

Creation and hosting of sales funnels

Targeted advertising of your product, PDC or Kickstarter in magazines, emails & blogs

Animated 2D, 3D ads & Videos

I'm also planning to create a platform for people to host their PDCs; although that may be a few months away still.

Before I do this I need to make sure that I would have customers willing to pay for top quality targeted ads in this niche. From my experience I have found paid ads to be necessary in order to scale digital income streams. I project that I can consistently get 100k eyeballs to peoples stuff by the end of the year, but it will take some time to scale to that. Who here would be willing to pay for a services such as these to build their brand and increase sales? Services would range from $50-1000 and could span from a day to several months. You could continue to sell through Permies.com as usual.

I have no need for such a service--as it is, I usually have more requests for my work than I have spare time to do. What you could do to gauge interest is to create a digital market thread (or more) explaining your service(s). it doesn't cost anything to list something for sale on the digital market, so it's a great way to gauge interest in the subject. That's actually what I did with my fairies and dragons. I wasn't sure if anyone would buy them, so I just made the thread and waited to see what happened. Come to find out, people like them!

In the past, various people have offered services (rather than items) in the digital market. I can't seem to find one of the threads, but Tracy's thread is similar (https://permies.com/t/58056/Website-Package-Dealio-Permies). You are more than welcome to make a thread like that, &/or make a digital market thread, and see what happens!

Nicole Alderman wrote:I have no need for such a service--as it is, I usually have more requests for my work than I have spare time to do.

I'm defiantly looking for interest in creators that make digital goods more so than physical since there is no need to make the product again keep up with demand.

Nicole Alderman wrote:
it doesn't cost anything to list something for sale on the digital market, so it's a great way to gauge interest in the subject.

I'm not currently licensed to sell and don't have a website up as an example so jumping straight in and creating listings would be a several hundred dollar experiment, which is why I'm asking here before I invest in infrastructure and commit to selling. It is always best practice to find clients (demand) before you create the product (supply). Getting setup for this would not take long I just worry that the Permaculture niche is still to small, at least here on Permies, but it is hard to tell without knowing any annual sales statistics of digital goods. Do you know of any other permaculture related markets I could tap into to broaden my potential client base? On the surface it seems that it would be financial suicide to build a marketing firm based on the products on just one fringe forum.

Nicole Alderman wrote:Tracy's thread is similar (https://permies.com/t/58056/Website-Package-Dealio-Permies).

That is cool, if anyone made a site with her I could then help drive traffic to the site and help people build a social media presence.

I feel like quite the buffoon when it comes to marketing.  I think I refused to learn what a "sales funnel" was for about seven years.  Last year I put a little more effort in, and I think I might understand it about 40% of the way now.

Rather than understanding all that stuff, what I have done is slap a 50% affiliate fee on all my stuff and ask smarter people to harvest that coin.  Example:

https://permies.com/t/101849/making-fancy-page-fancy-affiliate

paul wheaton wrote:
Rather than understanding all that stuff, what I have done is slap a 50% affiliate fee on all my stuff and ask smarter people to harvest that coin.

I think I'm just going to go ahead and do it. I don't think there are many (if any) social media marketing agencies in the permaculture/regenerative agriculture niche and being able to rely on affiliate marketing when not running paid promotions is definitely more viable with the generous affiliate rates.

This is a screenshot of my total sales. Red note describe each item.