Hi, this is Grace. Each month, I talk about what I've tried and stumbled upon as a creator. I share exciting findings and honest learning along the way.
⏰ Before I start, just wanted to let you know, it is November! That means you can get any of my products with a 50% discount using the code BLACKFRIDAY2023.
In the past month, I tried many things and will now share the thoughts and execution details I didn't post on Twitter. I hope they are insightful and entertaining.
The Book Launch
Last month, I published my first personal finance book, titled “Optimizing the 4% Rule”. It provides detailed steps for planning for Financial Independence (FI). FI stands for Financial Independence. This book is not an inspirational work but a how-to book that incorporates much of my research from the past many years.
Prelaunch: Crafting a plan
I understood my position:
I don’t have a large audience in personal finance, which makes it harder to market compared to my other tech books.
I did not have public credibility in the field of personal finance.
But the findings documented in this book are so valuable and have helped me tremendously.
(It's funny that, as someone who only has credibility in tech, this book is the one I love the most and have the most confidence in, even more than any tech book I've written.)
I also understood the cultural background around personal finance
It is awkward to discuss how everyone manages money within their social circles.
Then I decided to do the following:
Offer at the lowest price ($1.99), but not free.
Do a 48-hour promotion across all my social platforms.
My goal was to increase visibility and, hopefully, achieve sales that could earn the label of "#1 New Release" to build better credibility.
At Launch: A Sudden Mentality Change
I did what I planned above, but I noticed a very interesting mentality shift during the execution.
As I was posting on the social platforms, suddenly a strong self-disbelief popped up: I never published a book about personal finance, so what if people I know would look at me differently? What if no one on LinkedIn liked my post?
Then, I recognized the same pattern when my daughter felt before her gymnastics competition. We all have fears in nervous situations where our reputations and outcomes are at stake. It is that moment that requires you to lose yourself, not overthinking about the outcome. If you fail, you’ve just fulfilled a self fulfilling prophecy.
Do you know what I did? I turned on Eminem’s song “8 Mile” 🤣 . He wrote this song to boost his confidence when competing in rap competitions as the only White rapper. It killed all the self doubt, and pumped me up. It was a huge dopamine shot!
If you feel short of courage when launching something, try “8 Mile”. 😁
(Also, an unrelated plug, my daughter just became the State Champion in Gymnastics 🤸 this past weekend. Mentality played a huge role. Her dopamine song is Demi Lovato's “Confident” 🙂)
Results
I sold 66 copies.
I didn't receive the "#1 New Release" badge, but I'm glad I did everything I could to achieve it.
Learnings
One Stone, Two Birds: Tracking Distribution Channels with Amazon Affiliate Code
I wanted to know the most effective channel during the launch blast. So creating different affiliate codes has proved to be useful.
In addition, Amazon will provide kickbacks for the marketing efforts I conducted, which is a bonus.
The Importance of Your Customer Base
From the table above, you can easily see that the clicks and conversion rate appear to be higher on Gumroad. My hypothesis is that people who have purchased from me have a certain level of trust in the products I create in the future. I appreciate that!
As always, direct emails are more effective than social network algorithms.
Future Plan for this Book
I will continue to expand the distribution of this book. I also have ideas to further expand this research; we can learn fascinating insights through the study of historical data. This is how we build our conviction: by understanding.
All in all, I don't care what the future holds for this book, but it needed to be written. If someday someone discovers it randomly and find it helpful, it will all be worth it. I still remember stumbling upon a book called How to Make Money with Global Macro with a humble author and book cover while browsing Reddit, and it provided me with unexpected valuable insights. I hope my book could be that for someone someday.
If you have purchased Optimizing the 4% Rule, please let me know what you think about it. Any feedback would mean a lot to me. 🙏
TallyCoin
TallyCoin is a free iOS app that helps parents and kids track chores and rewards. I created this app for my kids last year.
It is very useful for my family. Over the years, I have observed my kids becoming more financially savvy, forming better financial habits, and having opportunities to practice their freedom to make financial decisions.
Monetization
However, to motivate me to continue keeping it available on the App Store, I would like to see this app monetized in some way.
I tried making it a paid app, and downloads suddenly stopped. The results clearly told me that no one wanted to pay for an app like this.
I'm giving ads a try. I used to work in Ads at Twitter, so I understand the intricacies of the relationship between advertisers and consumers. There are a lot of trade-offs: you can't serve too many ads, and you can't serve inappropriate ads...
With my experiences in ads, I designed a user experience that can maximize ad impressions while minimizing the impact on the user experience.
Since I turned on ads, I have started to see some earnings flowing in.
I used to hate ads, believe me. But now I understand the dilemma that many developers face: for some products, they provide value, but people are unwilling to pay for them. To keep the app from languishing, it needs ads.
Translating to Japanese 🇯🇵
Besides the United States, the most downloads come from China 🇨🇳. I used to believe that my best friend was promoting TallyCoin through word-of-mouth marketing in her company. However, I recently realized that the high downloads are due to the fact that I translated the app into Chinese. Language availability makes a significant difference. This is why I've decided to translate it into Japanese.
Why Japanese? Well, I simply love Japan and its people. 😁 Additionally, I can understand some Japanese characters and can review the translation myself.
This is just a test to see if translation can lead to more downloads. I will report the results if additional translations help increase downloads.
Earnings
This month, I added a new income stream - AdMob, and we will see if it makes a difference over time.
Will November be better? I have no expectations. Let it be a surprise as always.
That’s all! Thanks for reading. Questions? Just reply to this newsletter. 🙂
God willing, talk to you next time. ✌️