05 April 2012 ~ 20 Comments

Make $2000 A Month In A Small Niche With Ebooks – FA093

Audio Interviews

How does someone make a living in a niche that most people have never heard of?

Laura-Jane the Rawtarian makes $2000 a month in a niche inside a niche that’s inside another niche.

Have you heard of being a rawtarian? It’s a subset of veganism, which is a subset of vegetarianism. I had heard of it since I’m a vegetarian, but I’ve never tried to go “raw.”

Well, Laura-Jane has built an audience in this niche and is now making $2000 a month doing what she loves.

How cool is that? Well listen in and find out.

Tim “Fooltarian” Conley


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  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

    Thanks again for having me on the show, Tim. It was an honor. 

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    It was totally my privilege to have you on the show. Thanks for sharing your story.

    I realized just now that I forgot to ask you if you are selling Rawtarian merchandise like organic cotton shopping bags and such.

  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

    I am not selling anything “tangible”  at the moment – just doing info products. I do consider selling equipment (blenders, etc.) or related food products but I am conflicted about whether I want to get involved in shipping, etc.  I am an affiliate for these products and am enjoying not having to deal with shipping. For now I like it that way!

    I may do a paper version of my ebooks – which makes sense because recipes do need to be taken into “the real world” and off your computer.  And my customers have been asking for this. However, I am even conflicted about whether I want to do a print book because it seems like the wrong direction for me somehow – like, it feels like a distraction.

    The next route I will be going is to create more robust info products – like a membership website with higher quality videos. However, we are in the middle of a kitchen reno and won’t start getting serious about doing real vids until kitchen is complete.

    Thanks for asking, Tim. You’ve got my creative juices flowing. Per usual. :)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Dropshipping should pay better than affiliate commissions on real goods such as blenders.  
    Just make sure you’re not the one mailing the book.  Maybe you can get a decent book published with Amazon’s Createspace.   If not, you may need a publisher or be willing to mail.  Not a lot of margin in a book to allow for a fulfillment center.

    The membership site’s a great idea. 

  • farmnwife

    What was/were the book you mentioned in the podcast that you quoted from?
    thanks

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    The book was The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. I also did an interview with MJ here: http://foolishadventure.com/audio/the-millionaire-fastlane-with-mj-demarco-fa084/

  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

    Thanks for your feedback, Tim. I shall investigate dropshipping further … Watch for me in FoolishU. Haven’t bit the bullet yet but thinking that I would definitely benefit from further advice from you.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    What are you waiting for? In Foolish University, you get direct consulting time with me during Office Hours and a monthly Q&A call. And then there’s all the content to study and implement.

    I hope to see you in there soon.

  • http://fitdeskjockey.com/ Matt

    Hi there Tim and Laura,

    Laura, I just wanted to thank you for sharing your story. Congratulations on all the fruits of success that following your passion has helped you harvest! :)

    I’m active in a niche that’s similar to yours, though it’s probably not as well defined. I’ve been had my website for about a year and a half now, and though the experience is wildly different than I expected, I’m certainly learning a lot. 

    A quick question for you. What is the first successful product you launched? I feel failure on my part to create an info product up to this point is a major road block for me. A lot of issues, many that you two discussed like fear, have really contributed to this failure for me. 

    In my own humble opinion I think that the biggest contributor to my apparent inability to create a product is that I blow up the scope of the project until I feel overwhelmed, and then proceed to use that as an excuse not to make the jump.

    Do you have any advice on how to “just do it”? <-Hello Nike. When good is good enough?

    Tim – I think I've been a fan of The Foolish Adventure about as long as Laura, and I just wanted to say that I really appreciate what you do. I loved you on Learning With Leslie by the way.

    Hope to get foolish soon before the "real" world destroys all my foolishness.

    Thanks again,

    -Matt

  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

     Hi Matt,

    I hear you about feeling overwhelmed. I have a strong tendency to procrastinate the hard stuff – especially when it requires actual brain-hurting work,  like creating a product. Also, it is absolutely scary putting up something for sale. Initially I was plagued with, “Will anyone buy it?” worries. And I constantly had thoughts of, “Is it good enough?” (and I still have those worries). I take comfort in Tim’s concept of minimum viable product, and knowing that customers really do find value in the information that I have, which would be similar in your case I am sure. My products are not perfect – far from it – but they are valuable to the people who buy them.

    Also, it’s wise to perform some type of test/experiment to gauge interest in a product before spending months on it. In fact, I will give an example below of what I ended up doing, which was an an unorthodox strategy but it gave me the motivation I needed to push through my fear and procrastination:

    EXAMPLE:

    I can’t remember if I spoke about this on the podcast, but this was how I created my first product:

    1. Wrote a sales letter for the product BEFORE THE PRODUCT EXISTED. This helped me to get focused, this helped me to figure out WTH the product should contain.
    2. Then, I put the sales letter up on my website even though product didn’t exist. 
    3. Once people hit “buy” button they couldn’t buy. Instead, they got a note that said, “Sorry, volume 1 of this product is no longer available. I am currently working on volume 2. Send me an email to be notified..”
    4. Remember: product didn’t exist yet (there was no volume 1).  (I hadn’t created any product yet.) It was a fib but I figured it wouldn’t hurt anybody and I didn’t take money from anyone. But I knew that this would be a good way to overcome procrastination and also to see whether anybody would even want to buy anything. I had no idea what I was doing, lol.
    5. One night I got an email in my inbox from somebody who wrote, “I would like to buy volume 1. Are you sure you don’t have any left?”
    6. That was a monumental moment, as you can imagine. So.. then… I wrote the product … because I knew somebody wanted it! That was a motivating factor, I tell ya. :) Plus, the time crunch was on because I wanted to be able to provide that customer with something to buy ASAP before she lost interest in waiting for me.

    Not sure if that helps.  But that was how I did it. :)

  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

     Thanks TIm. Keep an eye out for me :)

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    Awesome response Laura-Jane.  

    For fast product creation, check out the Product30 tab up in the navigation. It’s a 30 day program to guide you through making an infoproduct fast.

    The worst thing that can happen to you if you make a product that no one buys is that you’ve lost the time that went into making it.  But…

    That time is going to pass anyways so you might as well make a product to see if your audience is willing to buy from you.

    Good luck, Matt.

  • http://fitdeskjockey.com/ Matt

    Thanks a bunch Laura! I really appreciate the tip.

    I think Tim Ferriss mentioned doing something similar with his sales letter in The 4 Hour Work Week. Such a great idea.

    I’m meeting with my partner this Saturday to get the ball rolling on product 1.

    Thanks again,

    Matt

  • Matt

    Thanks for the resource Tim! 

    I know you’ve always said that you don’t have a business until you have a customer. It’s something that rings in my ears quite often. I think I’m at the point in my site where I need to make my first product my single point of focus until it’s done. JIT!

    I need to know if I have a business or a blog. Here’s to biting the bullet.

    -Matt

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    You definitely need to know if you have a business or a blog. Too many (almost all) blogging advice givers say to not worry about making money for a long time.

    That advice isn’t testable. The blogging guru will take credit if the blogger succeeds after 2 years, but blame the blogger if they never make a dime by saying their content just wasn’t epic enough or something else untestable.

    Bite the bullet over and over by testing and testing until you have found the winning formula for you.

  • http://www.therawtarian.com/ Laura-Jane The Rawtarian

     Awesome Matt. Come back here and post when it’s done :)

  • http://twitter.com/mrhedberg Henrik Hedberg

    Laura, thanks for the inspiration. I’m in a similar situation having “jumped ship” and moved out to the countryside, and supporting myself with my web-design and marketing skills, and now moving on to business models without “dollars for hours”. It was so nice getting reassurance, hearing about someone who “made it”!

    Tim, thanks for continuing to create these awesome podcasts!

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    I’m glad you like the show. And L-J is definitely an inspiration!

  • http://www.funkandweber.com/ JenFW

    Gee, I feel like there was a message specifically for me here. Thanks, both of you.

  • http://FoolishAdventure.com Tim Conley

    I can’t wait to see you come into your own. I know you’ve got it in you.