Happy Sunday, creators - here’s a sales recap of the past week:

13,603 creators earned something.
3,771 creators earned more than $100.
663 creators earned more than $1,000.
38 creators earned more than $10,000.
1 creator earned more than $100,000.

And in this week’s newsletter, we cover:

Kyle Prinsloo’s journey from freelancer to creator
Pre-orders for our CEO’s new book, The Minimalist Entrepreneur
What sells best on Gumroad
The Art of Editing and Publishing with Joshua Lisec

Let’s jump right in.

How Kyle Prinsloo Packaged His Skills As Digital Products

Kyle’s desire to work for himself started at 16 when he was in high school.

He started creating various online businesses and dropped out of high school to focus on them, but they all flopped, which forced him to go the traditional route taking on various jobs to pay the bills

Times were rough, but during an IT apprenticeship Kyle had, things started to change.

Here, he found his calling -- marketing.

Specifically, he fell in love with the physiology of marketing and started obsessing over conversion rate optimization, like Amazon’s $300,000,000 button.

So, The Self-Education Began

Kyle knew if he wanted a future in marketing, he needed to start learning the ins and outs of it all.

And so, he enrolled in various digital marketing and business courses and spent the next 12 months sharpening his skills.

Here’s where things started to change.

Kyle was introduced to an e-commerce company actively looking for a marketer to help scale their business.

He interviewed for a Marketing Manager position and got the job shortly after.

But even then, the income wasn’t enough to support him and his wife.

So, in 2015 with his newly developed marketing skills, Kyle turned back the clock and decided to take a swing at building an online business again.

But this time, things were different.

This Was The Beginning of Kyle’s Freelancing Journey

This time around, Kyle knew if he packaged his skills, he could offer them as a service for businesses in need of marketing and web development services.

And in just a year, his side income from freelancing exceeded his full-time income.

The incredible part was that it started by offering a $5 service on Fiverr where Kyle would analyze a customer’s website and suggest improvements.

But the magic happened in the upsells.

From the $5 analysis report, Kyle would upsell a wireframe for $100 that visually displayed everything the client could do to improve their website.

From here, he would offer to code the website for $1,000.

And then, he would upsell the client to a monthly marketing retainer.

With this upsell strategy and other strategies of getting more clients, it turned into a 6-figure freelancing business.

Then He Packaged These Skills Into Digital Products

Because Kyle has developed a wide range of skills from freelancing, he packaged these skills as digital products.

Sales started out slow, but after a few years, he’s generated almost $400,000 in revenue.

This is what worked for him:

SEO
Ads on social media
Podcast sponsorships
Building his brand online
Paid influencer marketing

Kyle’s advice to creators is:

Build a loyal following, add value, launch before you’re “ready” and don’t try creating the “perfect” product. Start small, launch, and improve. And more importantly, have fun! :)
You can follow him here or view his Gumroad products here.

Here’s What We Shipped For Gumroad Creators

We’ve redesigned your product dashboard:

You can now add links as files which allows you to add external resources as part of your Gumroad product.

What’s Happening In The Creator Economy

The Art Of Persuasive Writing

In this episode of The Gumroad Podcast, Justin Mikolay chatted with Joshua Lisec to break down his writing process.

Joshua is a world-renowned writer who has ghostwritten 62 books for some of the most famous authors.

In this episode, he breaks down:

How to enter your flow state
How to write emotionally driven content
How to write compelling headlines
How to become an effective ghostwriter
How Joshua develops his products

This episode is jam-packed with valuable insights to help you become a better writer.
You can listen to the full episode here or watch the conversation here.

You Can Now Pre-Order The Minimalist Entrepreneur On Gumroad

Behind every great book is a great story.

After Penguin Random House editor Merry Sun read our CEO Sahil’s article, Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company, she suggested expanding the article into a nonfiction book.

One that taught entrepreneurs how to create value in a sustainable way. And it all begins with being a creator.

Nearly two years later and three title changes, The Minimalist Entrepreneur is live on Gumroad for pre-orders.
You can pre-order your signed copy here. You can read the introduction and chapter 1 here.

What Sells Best On Gumroad

We constantly get asked, “What sells on Gumroad?”

And we get it, the answer will help fuel your product development decisions.

So, you can view what sells by the numbers on Gumroad.

As you continue to create your products, use these 102 tips from top Gumroad creators who have generated over six figures on Gumroad.

New Community Space: Getting Started

From adding your first product to your own customer experience with Gumroad, learn how to create, improve, automate and grow your product sales with these 9 video lessons.

That’s it for this Sunday issue.

Until next week,

The Gumroad Team