I’m not quite sure why I am attracted to entrepreneurship. Maybe it’s because my grandpa started his own business, or maybe it’s because my dad started his own. It could also be because I do not do well with authority and the idea of being my own boss is appealing. I think ultimately though, the idea of being an entrepreneur is very exciting to me. The opposite of being a corporate drone is creating your own startup in my mind. So for the last twelve months I have attempted to be an entrepreneur in some way shape or form and learned a lot along the way.
Growing up, I always had a bevy of business ideas. Most of them were crap, but I was always thinking of ways to start my own company. After reading The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, the idea of an information product got stuck in my head. After seeing eBooks pop up all over the internet, I decided that would be a good option. One day after I had been reading about nutrition and the “Paleo” movement for about a year, things clicked in my head and I came up with the idea of creating a paleo ice cream cookbook.
Although the idea wasn’t dynamite, I didn’t think it was bad so I decided to give it a go. It seemed like a reasonable way to attempt entrepreneurialism, as there was very little financial risk and it was something seemingly anyone could accomplish. I got started by researching different ice cream recipes and before I knew it a summer had flown by and I had nearly thirty successful recipes under my belt. I made sure to photograph each one and write down the measurements for all ingredients. Some formatting work, editing, and writing was completed and then the first edition of my eBook was done.
Previous to writing the cookbook, I had decided to make personal website and blog. Nearly all business writers I read said getting one was a no-brainer so I went for it. I don’t have any coding ability, so I opted for Weebly, which is a drag and drop site-builder which worked really well for my purposes. The blog wasn’t profit-generating, but I was hoping I could use it to help others with their health and potentially use it as part of my platform in the future.
I used Weebly to create a website for my ice cream cookbook, found a company called Oronjo to sell my eBook at no charge, and self-published the eBook on Amazon through their KDP program. After the product was built, I attempted to market it. Ryan Holiday wrote an article on Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Blog about contacting newspaper and blog writers and pitching them your story. I framed myself as a 19 year old who had written their first book and emailed about fifteen local newspapers. Only the Ballard News Tribune got back to me and we ended up doing an interview at a coffee place not too far from my house. The article showed up on Google News so a few other blogs picked up the story, which was fun to see too. I did one guest blog post on Primal Toad’s website, which helped generate a bit of publicity as well.
I played around with pricing in the first month or two, pinging from $5 to $10 and then ending up in between. Sales weren’t phenomenal, but a few dozen copies in the first two months wasn’t terrible either. A lot of people say just making your first online dollar is a big step, and though I wouldn’t go quite that far, it was a fun feeling.
Somewhere along the way, my blog got a teensy bit more popular by way of a post I wrote about Bulletproof Coffee. I must have included the right keywords, because it ranked quite well on Google for a handful of related search terms. In any case, I did a post on my cookbook on my personal site in addition to creating a small ad on my blog sidebar. This helped generate some decent traffic to my ice cream site. One of the only other things I did to market the cookbook was posting a sample recipe or two on some recipe/food porn sites.
The combination of all of these things and intentional keywords on my website eventually ranked paleoicecreamrecipes.com as the number one Google result for a few terms including “paleo ice cream” and “paleo ice cream recipe.” My exact rankings always fluctuate, but at one point they were first and are generally always on the first page. That doesn’t mean a whole horde of traffic comes my way every day, but there was a time when I averaged about 150-175 unique visitors per day, which is generally more than I can say for my personal website. BenHirshberg.com had a short-lived time of averaging over 200 unique visitors per day, but it is generally in the lower to mid 100’s.
Not as much time or effort was put into my blog as I would have liked, but there is a lot for a 19 year old dude to do. I spent the last year getting different health certifications, traveling, teaching English, living with a homestay family, ski bumming, farming, and just being a youth in general. I figure that when things are really on the line when I am older, I will probably put a bit more concentration into these projects.
That’s not to say I didn’t attempt to commit to my entrepreneurial endeavors. I also penned another eBook 2/3 of the way through my year. It was a paleo chocolate cookbook, and I wanted to recreate some of the “success” I had with my ice cream book in addition to potentially creating some marketing synergy between the two eBooks.
I would say my chocolate book didn’t go quite as well as my ice cream book, even though I was more experienced. I was able to write it in less time and make sure the pictures were of higher quality. Unfortunately the readers felt like a chocolate cookbook should be more than just different chocolate bar flavors and recipes. I suppose they had different expectations about what the eBook would be, but in any case I hope to vary my recipes more for version 2.0 of The Paleo Chocolate Cookbook.
The promotion of my newest eBook was smaller than for my ice cream book, as I didn’t attempt to get it in a newspaper, but I did manage to get a sample recipe in two online paleo magazines. I believe that the smaller marketing effort was one reason the chocolate book didn’t sell quite as well as the ice cream book, but probably not the primary reason.
When I finished my chocolate book, I decided to try Amazon’s KDP select program, which allows you to promote your eBooks for free in exchange for making your work only available on Amazon for 90 days. Many authors had great success with the program, so I decided to give it a shot. I used a gig on Fiverr.com to connect my free eBooks on Amazon with readers looking for free Amazon eBooks. That led to about 20,000 people downloading my books over the course of six days. This lead to much greater exposure of my cookbooks on Amazon.com, so my sales were at their peak after the free promotions. Though still modest, my sales jumped to over 100 books sold per month for the period after the free promotions.
That more or less brings us to right now, where I am currently working on another book. Writing the first two was a fun learning experience, and made me feel like I could have some greater success with a similar endeavor in the future. I also hope to build on the exposure I get as a health writer, and the health blog networking contacts I make. I’m not sure what I hope to end up doing occupationally, but I really hope it does involve helping others with their health.
This year wasn’t a total flop financially either. I got a small stipend for being a regular Paleo Magazine, and writing miscellaneous articles for Natural News (which also acted as advertising for my eBooks). Another way that I have made a small bit of money this year is being an Amazon affiliate, which was easy because my cookbooks are on Amazon, so I just make the links affiliate links. One of the biggest sources of my entrepreneur income has been participating in bundles. Primal Toad had a hugely successful bundle and Bundle of the Week also included my ice cream book in their paleo group. Being a part of the bundles also helped the traffic for my websites, so the experience was very positive across the board.
All in all, I made less money over the course of the whole year than I made in one summer working a “real” job. It was a learning experience though, and I feel like there is a lot of potential to reach oodles of human beings and make a decent living through online entrepreneurialism. So the plan is to continue my adventures in entrepreneurville and see what comes of it. Though it would be a lot to expect myself to graduate college self-employed, we all need something to strive for right?
Although the idea wasn’t dynamite, I didn’t think it was bad so I decided to give it a go. It seemed like a reasonable way to attempt entrepreneurialism, as there was very little financial risk and it was something seemingly anyone could accomplish. I got started by researching different ice cream recipes and before I knew it a summer had flown by and I had nearly thirty successful recipes under my belt. I made sure to photograph each one and write down the measurements for all ingredients. Some formatting work, editing, and writing was completed and then the first edition of my eBook was done.
Previous to writing the cookbook, I had decided to make personal website and blog. Nearly all business writers I read said getting one was a no-brainer so I went for it. I don’t have any coding ability, so I opted for Weebly, which is a drag and drop site-builder which worked really well for my purposes. The blog wasn’t profit-generating, but I was hoping I could use it to help others with their health and potentially use it as part of my platform in the future.
I used Weebly to create a website for my ice cream cookbook, found a company called Oronjo to sell my eBook at no charge, and self-published the eBook on Amazon through their KDP program. After the product was built, I attempted to market it. Ryan Holiday wrote an article on Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Blog about contacting newspaper and blog writers and pitching them your story. I framed myself as a 19 year old who had written their first book and emailed about fifteen local newspapers. Only the Ballard News Tribune got back to me and we ended up doing an interview at a coffee place not too far from my house. The article showed up on Google News so a few other blogs picked up the story, which was fun to see too. I did one guest blog post on Primal Toad’s website, which helped generate a bit of publicity as well.
I played around with pricing in the first month or two, pinging from $5 to $10 and then ending up in between. Sales weren’t phenomenal, but a few dozen copies in the first two months wasn’t terrible either. A lot of people say just making your first online dollar is a big step, and though I wouldn’t go quite that far, it was a fun feeling.
Somewhere along the way, my blog got a teensy bit more popular by way of a post I wrote about Bulletproof Coffee. I must have included the right keywords, because it ranked quite well on Google for a handful of related search terms. In any case, I did a post on my cookbook on my personal site in addition to creating a small ad on my blog sidebar. This helped generate some decent traffic to my ice cream site. One of the only other things I did to market the cookbook was posting a sample recipe or two on some recipe/food porn sites.
The combination of all of these things and intentional keywords on my website eventually ranked paleoicecreamrecipes.com as the number one Google result for a few terms including “paleo ice cream” and “paleo ice cream recipe.” My exact rankings always fluctuate, but at one point they were first and are generally always on the first page. That doesn’t mean a whole horde of traffic comes my way every day, but there was a time when I averaged about 150-175 unique visitors per day, which is generally more than I can say for my personal website. BenHirshberg.com had a short-lived time of averaging over 200 unique visitors per day, but it is generally in the lower to mid 100’s.
Not as much time or effort was put into my blog as I would have liked, but there is a lot for a 19 year old dude to do. I spent the last year getting different health certifications, traveling, teaching English, living with a homestay family, ski bumming, farming, and just being a youth in general. I figure that when things are really on the line when I am older, I will probably put a bit more concentration into these projects.
That’s not to say I didn’t attempt to commit to my entrepreneurial endeavors. I also penned another eBook 2/3 of the way through my year. It was a paleo chocolate cookbook, and I wanted to recreate some of the “success” I had with my ice cream book in addition to potentially creating some marketing synergy between the two eBooks.
I would say my chocolate book didn’t go quite as well as my ice cream book, even though I was more experienced. I was able to write it in less time and make sure the pictures were of higher quality. Unfortunately the readers felt like a chocolate cookbook should be more than just different chocolate bar flavors and recipes. I suppose they had different expectations about what the eBook would be, but in any case I hope to vary my recipes more for version 2.0 of The Paleo Chocolate Cookbook.
The promotion of my newest eBook was smaller than for my ice cream book, as I didn’t attempt to get it in a newspaper, but I did manage to get a sample recipe in two online paleo magazines. I believe that the smaller marketing effort was one reason the chocolate book didn’t sell quite as well as the ice cream book, but probably not the primary reason.
When I finished my chocolate book, I decided to try Amazon’s KDP select program, which allows you to promote your eBooks for free in exchange for making your work only available on Amazon for 90 days. Many authors had great success with the program, so I decided to give it a shot. I used a gig on Fiverr.com to connect my free eBooks on Amazon with readers looking for free Amazon eBooks. That led to about 20,000 people downloading my books over the course of six days. This lead to much greater exposure of my cookbooks on Amazon.com, so my sales were at their peak after the free promotions. Though still modest, my sales jumped to over 100 books sold per month for the period after the free promotions.
That more or less brings us to right now, where I am currently working on another book. Writing the first two was a fun learning experience, and made me feel like I could have some greater success with a similar endeavor in the future. I also hope to build on the exposure I get as a health writer, and the health blog networking contacts I make. I’m not sure what I hope to end up doing occupationally, but I really hope it does involve helping others with their health.
This year wasn’t a total flop financially either. I got a small stipend for being a regular Paleo Magazine, and writing miscellaneous articles for Natural News (which also acted as advertising for my eBooks). Another way that I have made a small bit of money this year is being an Amazon affiliate, which was easy because my cookbooks are on Amazon, so I just make the links affiliate links. One of the biggest sources of my entrepreneur income has been participating in bundles. Primal Toad had a hugely successful bundle and Bundle of the Week also included my ice cream book in their paleo group. Being a part of the bundles also helped the traffic for my websites, so the experience was very positive across the board.
All in all, I made less money over the course of the whole year than I made in one summer working a “real” job. It was a learning experience though, and I feel like there is a lot of potential to reach oodles of human beings and make a decent living through online entrepreneurialism. So the plan is to continue my adventures in entrepreneurville and see what comes of it. Though it would be a lot to expect myself to graduate college self-employed, we all need something to strive for right?