Creating Digital Products

Being a studio owner — a small business owner of any kind, really — is challenging. Your income is not always guaranteed month to month, and there are only so many hours in the day during which you (and your employees, if you have any) can work with students.

It didn’t take long after opening my studio doors back in 2007 to realize this. I had started a blog related to my music therapy and teaching work, so I decided to take it a step further and create a digital product to try selling.

I started simply with a children’s song I had written; I sold the mp3 and sheet music as a download for $2.00. Amazingly, I got a few customers (mostly other music therapists) and requests for more songs.

I continued to offer additional single song downloads, and then stepped it up with entire digital songbooks, teaching resources like warm-up pages and theory sheets, and even a membership site where people pay for downloads on a monthly basis.

Several years later, I am able to supplement my studio income with a steady stream of additional income from digital products. I have found my niche as far as the kind of products I create, and I really do believe that everyone has expertise to share that can be packaged digitally. Whether it is an audio podcast, video, sheet music, teaching resource, worksheet, the possibilities are endless.

Next month, I’ll share some of my favorite sites for creating and selling digital products. In the meantime, give some thought to how you might package your expertise (or if you already do, please share in the comments!).