How many times have you heard this online?

“The best way to monetize what you know on the internet is to create a digital product.”

We think this is only 50% correct and is leading too many people down a hard path to monetization. But, before we explain why this is wrong, it’s worth saying that we’re a big believers on writing about what you know online, building an audience around your knowledge, and becoming known for a niche you own so you can eventually create a digital product. After all, it’s what our 30-day writing program, Ship 30 for 30 is all about.

But if you want to monetize your existing knowledge FAST, you should COMBINE writing online with a service before diving into creating your first digital product.

Here are 3 reasons why:

Reason 1: Low ticket, high volume.

Digital products are typically priced lower than services so for you to make the same amount with a product vs service, you need to sell more.

Let’s say you have a $150 product. If you want to make an extra $5,000 every month, you need to get 34 sales. But if you’re focused on services, all you need to do is make 1 sale for $5,000 to earn the same amount. Plus, all the knowledge and experience you’ll get by providing a service will become the foundation of your first digital product.

This is why we recommend focusing on services first, digital products second.

How do we know?

Because services is how both of us first monetized online. Before Ship 30 for 30:

• Dickie earned his first $10,000 online as a ghostwriter
• Cole created a 7-figure ghostwriting agency for CEOs, startup founders, and thought leaders

Only after we’d mastered a certain set of skills (which we could package into something people wanted to buy) did we make the leap across to digital products.

Reason 2: The Creator game takes time.

Let’s say you decide to go down the digital products route.

How do you make 34 sales a month?

You will need to:

• Create daily content to build your audience online
• Promote a free asset and/or your newsletter sign up with your content
• Nurture those new subscribers with value-packed emails every week
• “Squeeze” your list every once and a while to sell them on your product

And that’s only once you have a decent product up and running.

It can take months (or even years) to perfect a digital product. What your audience wants is always shifting and there are always new ways to deliver what you know in digital form. You will only find a winning formula by iterating dozens (if not hundreds!) of times. Trust us, we know, because we’ve done exactly that with both of our flagship writing programs, Ship 30 for 30 and the Premium Ghostwriting Academy.

Sure, finding your ideal target client and honing an irresistible ghostwriting offer takes time too, but not as much as creating a digital product.

This leads us to our third reason.

Reason 3: It’s easier to find 1 person to pay you $5,000.

There has never been a better time in history to monetize your skills as a writer.

The internet has made it easy to:

• Find your dream client
• Accept global payments
• And build a network of people in your niche

And while it’s true it’s also never been easier to build an audience online and sell digital products, it’s a lot easier to make $5k, $10k, $20k, etc per month by selling services. You only need 1 or 2 clients to replace the income from your full-time job (or scale your income as a freelance writer).

But there’s a catch:

You can only command these Premium Prices if you have Premium Positioning. Part of Premium Positioning comes from what you know (or your “Information Advantage”).

How to niche down as a ghostwriter (and start charging $$$ for what you know).

Before we go any further, a quick story.

Let's say you have a stained glass window in your home. And one day, your neighbor's idiot teenager accidentally throws a rock through it. So you go on TaskRabbit to find someone to help you fix it. And what you find are hundreds and hundreds of people who all call themselves "window repair specialists". And they all have five-star reviews, and they all have tons of testimonials.

But this isn't any old window, right? This is a stained glass window.

And you want to make sure that you hire the right person for the job. So after a lot of scrolling, you eventually find one person who doesn't have that many reviews and doesn't have a ton of testimonials. But in their bio, they call themselves a "stained glass window repair specialist".

So out of the hundreds and hundreds of TaskRabbits, which person are you going to call?

• Are you going to call the generalist who says they can do anything for anyone?
• Or are you going to call the specialist who says all I do, all day long, is solve the exact problem that you have?

You're going to call the specialist every single time.

And this is why you should always niche down as a ghostwriter. Because if you try to appeal to everyone (by writing “anything” for “anyone”) you’ll never stand out. But by niching down and focusing on:

• Solving 1 specific problem
• For 1 specific person
• In 1 specific way

You stand apart from all the other competition.

This is called the “1:1:1” Framework:

Niching down is how you uncover your Information Advantage.

What you know can be used in any part of the Niching Down Framework.

To find your Information Advantage, grab yourself a pen and paper and ask yourself the following 3 questions. But a word of warning: don’t censor yourself! All your experience is valuable so get it all out on the page, no matter how “insignificant” it might seem.

Let’s dive in!

Question 1: “What specific problem have I solved over the last 5 years?”

Over the last 5 years, you will have solved a ton of different problems—either in your personal life or at work. Get it all out. It’s all valuable!

Then ask, what specific knowledge can you bring to a particular person to solve a specific problem and get a specific outcome?

Let’s say you’ve worked at an EdTech startup for the last 5 years as a developer. And you’ve seen how, no matter how good the product is, you need to communicate how the product works and the benefits it generates to the users otherwise they will unsubscribe. You’ve seen this problem firsthand, and you know how to solve it (hint: with more education).

You could use this experience to ghostwrite for CTOs, CEOs, CROs, in the EdTech space because you know exactly what problems they’re facing.

This leads us to the next question.

Question 2: “Who (or what industry) have I worked in (or been interested in) over the last 5 years?”

List out every place you’ve worked and list all the topics you’ve been interested in over the last 5 years.

By being in those spaces, you will have picked up the specific language used in that niche. You’ll know about the problems people face in that industry. And this is your unique advantage as a ghostwriter. Because when you start to write online about your services and your niche, you’ll attract people in the same niche (after all, social algorithms are designed to connect people with similar interests). This means that potential clients are more likely to find you.

And when they discover you, they’ll think “Ah-ha! This ghostwriter is for me!” (just like the stained glass windows specialist above!)

Question 3: “How have I solved problems for people in the last 5 years?”

This is where you think about the hard skills you’ve developed over the last 5 years, specifically related to ghostwriting.

What you’re looking for is your “unique mechanism.” This is a skill you have that can be used to solve any of the problems you’ve outlined (or any other problem you can think of!). For example:

• You know how to build an audience by writing viral X threads
• You know how to nurture email subscribers into buying products with email funnels
• You know how to position people as experts in their niche by writing eBooks

The list could go on.

Focus on what you know you can already do.

Remember: you don’t need to have an Information Advantage in all of these areas.

Most ghostwriters start by finding their specific Information Advantage from Question 2.

If they’re able to talk the talk of a particular niche, they’re more likely to be able to monetize that knowledge and create a service that solves a specific problem for a person in that niche or industry. So don’t feel like you have to have an answer for all three. This is just a simple exercise to get your creative juices flowing.

And here’s the mega takeaway here:

These questions are designed to get you thinking about what you know because we often dismiss this because we believe it’s “obvious.” But to other people, this knowledge is a gold mine—and will pay you well for it.

This is why we firmly believe everyone has knowledge locked up inside their heads that can be used to create a lucrative ghostwriting service. All you have to do is find it.

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