You know you need a launch plan. You’ve heard time and time again that you need to build buzz and warm up your audience before asking them to hand over their money. But you’re overwhelmed with what to do and in what order. Should you throw a launch party? Reach out to press? Should you be posting on ten different social media sites? Oh gosh, should you have started two months ago? UGH.

Take a deep breath. Don’t worry. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s a simple 5-step countdown to a great launch.

5. Assemble the minions!

Prepare the assets that are going to represent your product. Invest some time and resources to make sure these look professional because you want to make a strong first impression. Your assets will likely include:

• Landing page/website
• Trailer and/or pictures
• Synopsis/description
• Bio

For tips on preparing your assets, check out our Anatomy of an Effective Product Page post.

Ok, that was pretty self-explanatory, right? Onward!

4. Find the nerds

Instead of shouting to the masses, focus your efforts on people who geek out on what you do. For country rap (aka “hick-hop”) musicians like Lenny Cooper and Colt Ford, whose music focuses on themes such as hunting, fishing, and driving big trucks through the mud, this means that instead of going after the typical country music radio listener, they’re specifically targeting people who have an interest in off-road vehicles and attend mud bogging events (yes, this is a thing).

You also want to find the supernerd influencers in your space and reach out to them directly. Send them copies of your work to tweet or blog about if they like it. Keep it friendly and give them a way to say no. No one likes to feel pressured to do something - make them feel good about supporting you and your work.

Artist Kyle T Webster sends free brush sets to influential digital artists and designers, many of whom create artwork using his brushes and share them with their following. Kyle then reposts their illustrations on his own social media - what could be a better endorsement?

3. Build momentum with content

Focusing on one or two main content channels (which should be dictated by where your core fans tend to hang out online), drip out free content such as songs, tutorials, sketches, or a sample chapter. Try to build to a cadence, releasing progressively more special content over time (i.e. first a single, then a music video).

Note: Its a good idea to start an email list no matter what, as its the most personal way to send followers updates on your project.

Filmmaker Emily Diana Ruth focused the marketing of her film, The Water’s Fine, on YouTube. She made a 14-episode video series on the making of her film, where she talked about everything from screen writing and casting to location scouting and budgeting. The content was not only educational but it also told high a highly personal and entertaining story of Emily’s journey to produce the film, making the viewer feel invested in her project.

The cadence built naturally as she moved from prep work through to shooting and editing. The 13th episode revealed the film’s trailer, and the final episode announced that the film was ready for purchase on Gumroad with a YouTube annotation linking to the product page.

Nathan Barry recently wrote about a 5 week sequence that you could use to deliver educational content via email:

• Week 1: Educational email, mention the product so they know it exists.
• Week 2: Educational email, with a quick update on the product.
• Week 3: Educational email, with more details on the product launch date.
• Week 4: Short educational email, lots of product details including price and what is included. Reminder of the launch date.
• Week 5, Monday: Provide every detail the customer needs in order to make a decision of whether or not to buy.
• Week 5, Tuesday: A short email with link to purchase the product and a couple testimonials.

Both examples focus on providing valuable content rather than being purely promotional.

2. Incentivize

Encourage people to buy by providing some sort of limited time bonus for doing so. This could be a discount for the first week of sales, extra content for early buyers, or limiting the quantity of one tier of your product.

The Eminem team did this extremely well for Eminem’s MMLP2 launch. They released limited bundles of signed merchandise such as lithographs and deluxe albums that created a sense of urgency amongst fans and sold out within minutes.

1. Announce!

Coordinate across all your channels on launch day, including any testimonials from your outreach. Its a good idea to make a list of all your channels and the exact copy/images/videos you’ll be using for each, so that all you have to do is pull the trigger on launch day.

That’s it. Five simple steps. Now get out there and prepare for launch!

One of our most-requested features of late has been percentage-based offer codes. Well, we’re with you 100% and are excited to announce that feature today.

When setting up a new offer, you can now toggle between dollars off and percentage off by clicking the $ or % symbol.

Save your changes and you’re ready to go.

Click the Share button to copy the link to your clipboard and dispense it to your intended discounted crew. Otherwise, make sure the box for “Add offer field to purchase form” is checked so buyers can enter the codes you’ve sent out (in the above example, “buddies” or “newslettersubbers”).

In either case, your buyers will see the original price to your product and what it will cost to them with the discount. 50% off? Whattadeal.

Offer codes are a great way to promote a launch, rejuvenate interest in an existing product, or give reviewers and influencers access. How have they worked for you?

Learn more about offer codes here.

This post is part one of Getting to Know Your Audience, where we focus on three free Google tools to kickstart your research. Stay tuned for more tools and tactics!

Who cares?

No really, its a serious question. Who are the people you’re making your product for? What do they talk about? Where do they hang out? What matters to them?

Luckily we have a plethora of tools at our disposal these days to uncover this information and test our assumptions with real data.

When and where do you use this information?

Knowing your audience helps you validate your idea and determine if you’ll be able to achieve your goals before you even create your product. Do you want to write the definitive how-to guide to making ukuleles out of cardboard? While a super cool idea, this might not be the best move if your goal is to actually make some cash. Sadly, there are just not enough people who care about making their own ukulele for this to be a hugely profitable business idea. Also, good luck getting people who want to make instruments out of cardboard to pay for your book.

Knowing your audience also keeps you in check throughout the creation process. With each decision you should refer back to your research and ask if this is something that people want, need, and are going to get excited about. Say you’re creating a fitness course for pregnant women. Each segment should be informed by the most pressing concerns expecting mothers have - is it safety, nutrition, weight management, relieving joint pain, or none of the above?

Finally, knowing your audience will help you - big time - with marketing and selling your product. The vocabulary you unearth during your research should get recycled back into your sales copy for your landing page and emails to potential buyers. Knowledge of where your target market hangs out online should guide your outreach strategy and help you decide how to target ads.

Basically, knowing your customers is the foundation of everything else that you do.

So now, let’s get creepin…er…researching!

1. Google AdWords Keyword Planner

Questions to ask:

Which keywords are more relevant to my content? What is the popularity and competition score for each of my potential keywords? What would be the cost of running an ad campaign for these terms? What websites already rank for my keywords? What related keywords might be a better fit for me?

How to use it:

To access the Google AdWords Keyword Planner, you’ll have to have a Google account and sign up for AdWords, but its a completely free tool.

From the Keyword Planner home page, click “Search for new keyword and ad group ideas.”

Enter your product or service idea into the top box. You can also adjust the targeting filters for location, language, etc., in the fields below.

Click “Get Ideas”. Once on the results page, click on the “Keyword ideas” tab. You’ll see results for average monthly searches, relative competition for ad placement (low, medium, or high), and suggested bids for your exact search team as well as related keywords.

As you can see, things aren’t looking too good for “make a ukulele,” with only 50 average monthly searches. Some similar keywords are more relevant, such as “how to make a ukulele”, and “how to build a ukulele”, but these are still quite low.

“Cigar box ukulele” is a surprising search term, but unfortunately ad placement is highly competitive.

I ran another few searches about ukuleles, and came across one that seemed a lot more promising: 

“How to play the ukulele” has 3,600 average monthly searches, and relatively low competition. This might be a better topic to write about than building a ukulele from scratch.

A quick Google search for this same phrase reveals the major competition in this area.

Takeaways:

• Making a ukulele from scratch is not a common thing people are looking for. :(

• A much more popular interest (with 3,600 monthly searches), is in learning to play the ukulele - might this be better entry point for a product?

• There is still relatively low competition in all the keywords pertaining to learning the ukulele, which bodes well for this type of content.

• With the top search result being from Wikihow and the second from YouTube, no one website is really dominating the search for learning to play the ukulele.

2. Google Trends

Questions to ask:

Is my topic increasing or decreasing in popularity over time? How does interest in my topic compare to related topics? What key news pieces have come up over the last few years? Where in the world are the people that are most interested in my topic? What are some related search terms that are trending upwards?

How to use it:

Google Trends allows you to see stats for your keywords over time. Below is the interest over time for the search term “ukulele.” The letters indicate large press pieces on this topic. Here we see that interest in ukuleles spiked due to  stories about Warren Buffet giving ukulele lessons, a world-record attempt for most ukuleles playing simultaneously in Oregon, and musical prodigy Jake Shimabukuro playing a show in San Francisco.

The interest in ukuleles is rising over time, which bodes well for our product idea. We can also compare the popularity of ukuleles to other small stringed instruments, such as the mandolin and the banjo. 

Interest in both the mandolin and the banjo is declining, so it definitely looks like ukuleles are the place to be when it comes to small stringed instruments.

In the Regional Interest section we can see which cities have the highest search volume for ukuleles. The place with the highest search volume is always 100, and the other cities are ranked relative to that.

This map clearly shows Hawaii’s dominance in terms of ukulele popularity. In the contiguous US, west coast cities show more interest than other areas.

The third category displays related searches, which is interesting in validating our idea. By clicking on “Rising” in the Queries column, I get a few terms that are rapidly increasing in popularity, such as the musical instrument brand “Kala”, “uke”, the short hand for ukulele, and “youtube”, hinting that many people are searching for ukulele videos on YouTube. Perhaps these YouTube searches are for lessons, or perhaps they’re to watch prolific players.

 Takeaways:

• Ukuleles have been gaining in popularity since 2009  - yay!

• A key person on this topic is Jake Shimabukoru, whose been described as a “ukulele pioneer/prodigy.”

• Searches for ukulele songs on YouTube in particular are rising fast.

• Ukuleles are very popular internationally, especially in Southeast Asia.

• In the US, Hawaii is by far the most popular area, with west coast cities such as San Diego and Portland showing the most interest in the contiguous US.

• Ukuleles are also called “ukes” for short.

• "Over the Rainbow" is one of the most popular ukulele songs.

3. Google Alerts

Questions to ask:

What are the most current things people are talking about on my topic? How can I use this news as part of my content strategy? What types of publications contribute to my topic? What patterns are there in the words used to describe my topic?

How to use it:

Google Alerts couldn’t be easier. Simply type in your topic and click Create Alert to get emails sent to you with trending new content. You can adjust the frequency of results, and tweak other filters by clicking “Show options.”

I quickly set up an alert for “ukulele”, and got the following results:

Takeaways:

• Local news outlets come a up a few times in the results, announcing performances featuring a ukulele.

• When the ukulele appears in serious news publications, it tends to be in a playful piece, such as this one in the Washington Post about baseball player Bryce Harper surprising high school students with a renovated locker room, or this one from Air & Space Magazine about a pilot who entertains passengers by playing the ukulele.

There you have three quick and easy tools for getting you started with your audience research. Next time we’ll look at how to use some social networks and other free services to do an even deeper dive into your audience’s psyche. See you then!

Disclaimer: If you really, really, really just want to write a book about making a ukulele out of cardboard, then you should absolutely do that. Don’t give up on your dream just because some Google tools told you not to. But be realistic about the potential demand (and thus potential returns) you can expect for your project.

Or is it 360^? Or 64,800? Or 41,253 square degrees? Or maybe the question itself is conceptually flawed. Let’s move on before someone gets a nosebleed.

Depending on your source, the 3D printing market is predicted to grow to anywhere between $1.8 and $16.2 billion by 2018. That’s a lot of spatulas and toy drones.

With 3D printers getting cheaper and the costs of filament dropping all the time, it’s not unreasonable to imagine a $49 printer on every kitchen counter next to the toaster and coffee pot. Who wants waffles? I’ll start printing some plates and utensils. And waffles.

We’re excited to integrate with Sketchfab and further tap in to the amazing potential of 3D printing. If you’re selling printer files, you can now enter the URL of your design on Sketchfab as the cover for your product.

It’s as simple as that. Potential buyers can then look at your file from every angle and make a purchase from the same page.

Do you design 3D-printable tools, toys, machines, or other useful things? Let us know. We’re logging reasons to get a 3D printer for Gumroad HQ.

This week we’re dropping not just one, but two new integrations for your selling pleasure. The newest collaboration on the block is email marketing automation tool Drip, which allows you to keep track of your leads and customers and craft every email interaction like an artisan.

Want to sell a course that’s delivered over a 4 week period? Use Gumroad to accept payment and have the content automatically triggered in Drip.

How about checking in with the people who bought your book? Create a follow up sequence in Drip to automatically send an email receipt, a thank you note, and offer a discount on future products.

With a few mouse clicks, trigger any of the following actions in Drip based on a Gumroad purchase (you can even filter by your Gumroad product ID):

• Subscribe someone to a Drip campaign

• Remove someone from a campaign

• Apply or remove a tag

• Send a one-off email

• Set a custom field

• Record an event

• Record a goal conversion

• And more…

This makes it dead simple to instantly access, tag, and provide relevant emails to your Gumroad customers.

Full setup instructions for this integration (3 quick steps) are described in Drip’s knowledge base video.

What do you think of the Gumroad + Drip integration? Drop us a line and let us know.

This post is part two in the “Tools for Getting to Know Your Audience” series, where we look at how to access and interpret data on your customers (and potential customers).  In part one we dove into keywords and search trends, and today we turn towards the information gold mine that is social media. 

1. Facebook

Questions to ask:

What is the approximate overall market size for my area? What is the demographic makeup of my target market? What other things do they like? Who are the predominant groups, brands, and individuals in the space?

How to use it:

Facebook’s graph search is a powerful tool that lives right within your Facebook search bar. A quick search for “ukulele” on Facebook validates that its a good niche interest, with 283,122 likes and growing.

Facebook also shows related pages and groups as part of its graph search. Joining and participating in these groups is a great way to continue getting to know your audience. For brands, Ukulele Underground has one of the most popular ukulele pages, with 21,759 likes. With 12,833 members, the public Ukulele Tabs group is one of the largest communities of ukulele players, and so is a must-join. 

Looking at the content of posts reveals a lot about what people are interested in and what types of content do well. In addition to this guy playing death metal (below), I saw pictures of ukuleles decorated in weird and wonderful ways, individuals posting videos of their journey to learn the tiny instrument, kids playing the ukulele (aww), people playing cats like ukuleles (wha?), and tough punk bands showing their soft side with uke songs.  

You can go deeper with Facebook Graph Search to see related interests of people in your target market. For instance, by searching “Pages liked by people who like Ukulele”, I can see that they’re also fans of Humans of New York, Photography, and NPR.

Get even more specific by searching for movies or music liked by people who like the ukulele. These two searches generate some great ideas for potential tabs/songs to teach!

If you’re thinking of holding live events as part of your marketing strategy, Facebook can help you with its location filter. For example, you could search for:

• “Posts about “Ukulele” from San Francisco, California”

• “People who like “Ukulele” and live in San Francisco, California”

You can also see which of your friends are already interested in your topic. They would be great people to give you feedback on your project and help you spread the word. Search for things like:

• “Posts about “Ukulele” by my friends”

• “Pages about “Ukulele” that are liked by my friends.”

Finally, if you want to get even more fancy you can dive into Facebook ads. Select “Clicks to Website” and enter any URL (we’re not going to actually create an ad). Under the Audience section, play around with different demographic filters to see how that affects the potential reach of your audience.

You’ll notice that if you just search for “ukulele” as an interest, the potential reach is much greater than the number of people who have ukulele as an interest in their profiles. This is because it also includes people who like related pages.

After conducting a few different searches, I noticed some interesting facts about the American ukulele target market on Facebook:

• Potential reach for various age ranges:

• 13-20 years old: 72,000

• 20-30 years old: 100,000

• 30-40 years old: 50,000

• 40-50 years old: 46,000

• 50-60 years old: 44,000

• 60+: 34,000

Interest in Ukulele by gender:

• Female: 150,000

• Male: 160,000

20-30 year olds are the biggest age group interested in the uke, and there seems to be about equal interest between men and women.

Takeaways:

• Pages and groups related to your area are great places to start listening to and engaging with your target market.

• Most posts about ukuleles are fun and lighthearted, and many contain videos. An extremely popular post features a musician playing death metal on a Ukulele.

• Related interests/music/movies include NPR, photography, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Radiohead.

• Location filters are a big help if you’re looking to host live events or meetups.

• Your friends who have similar interests to you are good first people to tell about your project.

• Key demographics for ukulele-lovers is 20-30 years old, both male and female.

2. Twitter (+ Followerwonk)

Questions to ask:

Who are the most influential people/brands in my field? What are they talking about? What vocabulary do they use to describe themselves and what they’re interested in? Who are your competitors?

How to use it:

Twitter contains a wealth of information, but because its not as pervasive as Facebook, it can better for some niches rather than others.

Following hashtags is probably the easiest way to see what people are talking about right now. By searching for #ukulele in Twitter’s search, I can see all the latest posts about the instrument, from people learning how to play, to people attending ukulele festivals, to people sharing cool music. I found out that the Grammy Museum was hosting a ukulele event the night I wrote this! 

We kicked off tonight’s #KoAloha#Ukulele event with some #hula dancers! #hawaiipic.twitter.com/jajeIhwwIp

— The GRAMMY Museum (@TheGRAMMYMuseum)

August 29, 2014

I can also do a search for Twitter bios containing ukulele. A quick glance at these bios gives me a ton of great insight into the ukulele audience. I see words like…

• whimsical

• play

• geeky

• pop

• lover

And jobs like…

• editor in chief at Cosmopolitan Greece

• marathon runner

• youtube musician

• actor, director

• serial entrepreneur

• journalist

• singer/songwriter

• brand strategy

Because Twitter can be such a barrage of information, there are several tools out there that try to help you make sense of it. One of my favorites is Followerwonk, which lets you easily analyze your own followers or those of your competitors. Just click on the Analyze Followers tab, type in a handle, and select “analyze their followers.” Followerwork gives you a beautiful report with a map displaying where the followers are located, their most active hours, and much more.

One of the coolest features of this report is the word cloud of the most common terms in their followers’ bios. This can be extremely useful in figuring out marketing copy down the line. Here’s a word cloud from analyzing a competitor’s followers.

It can also be very helpful to create a private Twitter list of key influencers to follow so that your content is more curated. Followerwonk can help find those influencers by using the Search Twitter Bios tab. Plug in a competitor, similar brand, or keyword and you’ll get a list of Twitter users. Sort by social authority (which is based off their number of retweets), and simply add some of the top folks to your influencers list!

Takeaways:

• Follow hashtags to stay on top of current posts, trends, and events.

• Look at Twitter bios to understand your customers vocabulary, jobs, interests, etc. For example, many Ukulele lovers on Twitter work in creative industries.

• A follower analysis (your own or your competitor’s) on Followerwonk can reveal location, active hours, common vocabulary, and more.

• Creating private Twitter lists can be extremely useful for listening to and engaging with influencers.

3. Buzzsumo

Questions to ask:

What is the most shared content for your industry? What content is working really well for my competitors? What networks have the most traction? What format is most successful - infographics, how-to posts, videos, etc.? Who are the influencers in my industry?

How to use it:

Buzzsumo is incredibly straightforward platform that manages to deliver a ton of insight about social content and influencers.

Type a term or website into the search box, and take a look at the type of content. Let’s start with “ukulele.”

Of the 10 most shared things about ukuleles, 8 were videos. This isn’t surprising, as music lends itself well to video content. As you can see, Facebook gets the most shares by far, with Google+ a close second. You can also filter out certain types of content. Its interesting to note that if we remove videos, Google+ gets nearly no shares at all.

Again, we see a lot of lighthearted content (such as “Ukuleles make everything awesome”), and people playing unexpected songs (like Slayer).

You can also use Buzzsumo to analyze competitors by plugging in their domain or the search parameter “author:name”. This is a great way to see at a glance what type of content your competitor is putting out there and which posts are getting the most shares.

Now lets head over to the “Influencers” tab to see who the big players in this space are. The results are based off of Twitter, and including rankings for Page Authority (taken from MOZ), Followers, Retweet Ratio, etc.

Buzzsumo conveniently tags your results as companies, bloggers, influencers journalists, or regular people. You can filter by any of these tags as well.

From this dashboard you can follow or add influencers to a list, so that you can stat engaging with them more regularly.

To get an idea of the common themes and sources of links shared by these influencers, click on “View Links Shared”. Buzzsumo gives you a nice list of common words, and a pie chart displaying the percentage of shares from different domains.

Takeaways:

• Video is the most popular medium for content about ukuleles

• The top videos are people playing unique, novel songs.

• Around 20% of the top content were tutorials.

• Facebook gets by far the most shares for ukulele content. Google+ is also quite popular, but only for video. If you’re going to be sharing a lot of video tutorials, you might want to consider Google+ as one of your main channels.

• Don’t waste your time on Pinterest or LinkedIn for this particular niche.

• Use a search of your competitor to see their most shared social content.

A couple concluding points on the tools and tactics mentioned here.

• The purpose of these exercises is to get you out of your own head and into your audience’s, and to challenge your assumptions about who your customers are. However, these are only strategies for conducting secondary research. You should also take some time to actually chat, first hand, with your potential customers.

• There is a lot of information to be found using each of these tools, and its easy to get lost in a black hole of online research. I encourage you to give yourself a time limit of a couple hours for doing this work. Take a look at a few of the tools mentioned here, write down your key takeaways, and move on to actually building your thing.

• Its important to actually implement what you’ve learned with this research. Use it to keep on track with creating a product that there’s demonstrated interest in, use the vocabulary in your marketing copy, engage with the influencers you discovered, and focus your content on the channels and formats that you’ve seen work best.

Thanks for reading! Let us know what you thought of this article, and request more tips and tricks at support@gumroad.com.

You run a tight ship. Your condiments are arranged alphabetically. Your books are ordered by dominant spine color in the ROYGBIV spectrum. You eat out of sectional plates. Everything is in its right place, and there is peace in your world. But then you upload your novella and accompanying music tracks into what was intended to be a tidy multi-file product, and your life is turned upside down.

Thankfully, Gumroad has just launched two features to put your life back together again.

What’s your favorite song on the new EP? Is it 06_DCoSA? 02 In_Hammocks?

That’s not going to work at all. To change the name of an uploaded file, simply click on the name. Make your changes and click the checkbox.

Nonononono. You accidentally uploaded your chapters out of order.

You can remove all of the files and get them back up properly, or you can take a deep breath and simply drag and reorder your files.

Save your changes and you’re all set. Your buyers will see a perfectly organized array of files, and you’ll be able to sleep soundly.

And there you have it. A two-in-one feature update that will save you time and bring things back into balance. You are a beacon of tranquility. You are a glowing, symmetrical starfish, unphased by the swirling sea of chaos around you.

Let us know what you think of these new features here.

You have a lot of options when it comes to producing content: blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, newsletters…the list goes on. Sometimes it can be difficult to decide which ones to focus on.

We’ve noticed an interesting trend among several successful creators lately: they’ve been prioritizing live webinars as one of the cornerstones of their content marketing strategy.

Why webinars? We asked Brennan Dunn, author of Double Your Freelancing Rate to help us get to the bottom of it.

Brennan has hosted several successful webinars recently with partners such as WooThemes and Clients from Hell. On average, 20-30% of the people who attend one of Brennan’s webinars end up buying a product from him - not bad!

In this video, Brennan walks us through:

• Why hosting a webinar is a great way to engage with your audience.
• How to structure the webinar.
• What tools to use to put it all together.
• How to follow up after the event.
• How to work with partners to widen your audience.
• What goals you should focus on.
• How to get started if this is your first product and/or you don’t have a large audience.

Episode Resources:

• Example webinar registration landing page: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/w/bidsketch/
• Example webinar recording landing page: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/w/bidsketch/?live=1

In May, 2013, authors/developers Sacha Grief and Tom Coleman released their book, Discover Meteor.

Like many products, they had a pretty big launch day, but we’ve been keeping an eye on them and noticed something pretty cool. They’ve figured out a way to sustain high sales for more than a year and a half.

We wanted to know how they did it, and luckily they were willing to share their strategies. We’ve put their exact methods in an in-depth case study, which we’re excited to share with you. 

We hope you gain some insights into creating your own sustainable sales strategy. Let us know what you think, and enjoy!

This month, we’re back with another round of Gumroad Picks, aimed at showcasing a few of the many wonderful creators and projects on Gumroad. This time, we’re highlighting five awesome films worth a watch.

Film-specific features like subtitle support and streaming on any device make Gumroad a powerful tool for filmmakers. In addition to filmmakers using these features, here are some of the trends we’ve noticed:

• Pre-orders: Filmmakers Muris Media and Emily Diana Ruth offered their audience the opportunity to pre-order their films. Pre-orders of The Water’s Fine helped Emily Diana Ruth finish the production of her film and fund entry into film festivals. Muris Media is currently using a discount to incentivize pre-orders of their new film, Maker.

• Screeners: Viewers who want to host a screening of Design and Thinking or The Hooping Life can purchase the right to do so. Design and Thinking offers both educational and corporate screening products. The public screening version of The Hooping Life gives buyers the right to charge admission when screening the film.

• Bonus Content Bundles: Along with their film, the team behind The Hooping Life offers viewers merchandise and bonus content. Bundling items together can be a great way of reaching super-fans. For example, in the case of The Hooping Life, aspiring hula-hoopers can choose The Hooping Life Bundle Special, which includes a “How To Hoop” DVD and a collapsible hula hoop.

Now grab some popcorn, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy these five awesome films, all available on Gumroad.

Design and Thinking

Design and Thinking, produced by Muris Media, is a documentary that explores how people are changing the world with their own creative minds. The film explores the meaning and power of design thinking, as told by social change makers, businessmen, designers, and other influencers. Featured individuals include David Kelley, founder of Stanford d.school and IDEO, Zachary Rosen and Matthew Cheney, founders of Mission Bicycle Company, and Jennifer Pahlka, founder of Code for America.

The folks at Muris Media are about the release a second film, Maker, which looks at the new wave of “Do-It-Yourself” and “Do-It-Together” culture. Viewers who loved Design and Thinking can pre-order Maker on Gumroad today.

The Big Picture: Reframing Dyslexia 

The Big Picture, directed by James Redford, is a documentary about the dyslexic experience. Through interviews with dyslexic children and their parents, iconic leaders with dyslexia, and medical experts, the film clears up common misconceptions about dyslexia, painting the condition as an obstacle that can be overcome.

Digital downloads of The Big Picture are sold through Gumroad. Viewers inspired by the The Big Picture can visit the film’s website to learn more about taking action and helping to reframe dyslexia.

The Water’s Fine

Written and directed by Emily Diana Ruth, The Water’s Fine is a short film about a young woman’s return to the family cottage where she spent her childhood. After years of family estrangement, Josie expects a big family reunion at the cottage but instead gets a series of disappointments.

Production of The Water’s Fine was initially funded through an Indiegogo campaign, with pre-orders of the film sold on Gumroad after crowdfunding ended. While making the film, Emily built and engaged with her audience through a video blog series. All 14 episodes of The Making of the Water’s Fine can now be watched on YouTube.

The Hooping Life

Hula-hooping is back, according to The Hooping Life, a documentary about the rise of modern hula hooping subculture. Filmed over six years and introduced by Shaquille O’Neill, the film documents the early days of the hula hooping movement and how individuals are transformed through commitment to the hoop.

In addition to selling a DVD of the film on their website, The Hooping Life team offers premium content and merchandise for super-fans.

The Boy Who Flies

The Boy Who Flies, a documentary by Canadian paraglider Benjamin Jordan, tells the story of Benjamin’s trip to Malawi, where he meets Godfrey, a young man who has always dreamt of flying. Together, the two set off for Malawi’s highest peak to attempt a flight that will make Godfrey Malawi’s first paragliding pilot.

The Boy Who Flies was featured at numerous mountain and adventure film festivals, including the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Digital downloads of the film (in both English and French) are now sold via Gumroad. Today, Benjamin and Godfrey are channeling the success of The Boy Who Flies into raising funds to build The School of Dreams, Malawi’s first paragliding school.

Want help selling your film directly to your viewers? Email us and tell us more about what you’re working on. You can also check out Gumroad for Films to learn more about the features we’ve added specifically for filmmakers like you. 

When compiling the Gumroad Picks lists, we look for creators who have had recent launches, lots of sales, or success using Gumroad in an exciting way. From there, we hand-pick creators whose work is especially innovative or creative. We hope to see you on this list in the future!

Did you know that entrepreneurs in Kuwait use Instagram to sell sheep? Or that a vintage clothing store in Vancouver sells out of items on Instagram before they even hit the shelves?

Since its release in 2010, Instagram has been growing and evolving in wonderful (and sometimes strange) ways. Today, with more than 200 million monthly active users, Instagram has become a viable business tool for many creative entrepreneurs.

We talked to Dan Luvisi and Victoria Ying, artists who have both used Instagram to promote their painting tutorials to their audiences. Here’s what they had to say about Instagram:

“The response [to my efforts to promote my painting tutorials on Instagram] has been very positive and I feel Instagram is a fantastic platform to advertise off of… It’s a wonderful way to connect and share, let alone build your identity.” 

- Dan Luvisi

“I think that a lot of my followers wouldn’t have seen my process painting available on Gumroad if I hadn’t posted it on Instagram…Instagram is such a fast and visual medium that putting links to Gumroad tutorials is only natural and welcome.”

- Victoria Ying

To help you make the most of Instagram, we’ve compiled 7 best practices for engaging your customers on the platform. These strategies and tips range from building your Instagram audience to promoting your work in the platform. Read on to learn how Dan, Victoria, and five other Gumroad creators use Instagram to connect with their audiences and to promote their work.

1) Post often 

Post photos regularly to grab the attention of new and existing followers. Posting a photo daily is a good place to start. Just remember that Instagram is built around beautiful and creative photos. When in doubt, “quality over quantity” is a good guideline to keep in mind.

If you’re in need of inspiration for what to post, try having fun with a project based series of photos. For example, Victoria Ying started 7 Days of Color. Every day for four weeks, she posted a painting that was a different color of the rainbow. The project was a great way for Victoria to stay motivated and it gave her audience a story to follow.

“Project based posts are always a great way to get attention and build participation amongst your community! With #7daysofcolor I was shocked at how many other people started to participate in the project with me! It was so much fun and I felt like it was a great way to get connected to other artists.” 

- Victoria Ying

2) Post consistent content 

Develop defining elements of your account. If you’re consistent with the content of your photos, the filters you use, and how you caption your photos, you’ll start to be seen as a leader in a particular area. Use hashtags to help users interested in your content focus discover your Instagram feed.

The Instagram feed of professional wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas consists entirely of breathtaking photos of wild animals, making it a great account to follow for anyone interested in wildlife or photography. To help users discover his photos, Will uses popular hashtags such as #nature and #safariphotos in his captions.

3) Deliver value to your followers through your posts

This value can be delivered in the form of inspiration or education. If you’re an athlete, post photos of your progress towards a fitness goal or post a video showing proper push-up form. If you’re an artist, give followers a glimpse of your artistic process or post a short how-to video.

Lina Saber, the creator behind bysaber (an Instagram account dedicated to all things health, skin, and nutrition), has gained a massive following by using photo captions and videos to share delicious recipes with her audience. Plus, because Lina’s followers see her account as a place to learn, she was able to very successfully launch a product, The 40-Day Skin Clearing Detox, on Instagram.

4) Post relevant content leading up to launch

Let your followers know about what you’re working on before it launches. Use Instagram posts to get your audience excited about what you’re working on. The goal is to convince your followers they want to buy your work ahead of time.

Blogger Abby Lewis used Instagram to periodically updated her followers on the status of her book Building a Framework: Everything I Learned My First Year of Blogging. A month before launch, Abby started by announcing a “secret project”. Throughout the following weeks, Abby shared additional information and posted progress photos. By launch day, Abby’s followers were excited to finally be able to purchase her book — and knew exactly when and how to do so.

5) Use descriptive photos and captions

Use pictures that highlight exactly what followers will get from your product. If you’re an author, show your book’s cover or use a photo of someone reading your book. If you’re a chef, post a photo of the cake that follower’s can bake if they buy your recipes. If you’re a filmmaker, use a still from a scene in your film. In your photo’s caption, be sure to include the essential details: product name, product price, and where to buy the product.

When sharing his painting tutorials on Instagram, Dan Luvisi uses Gumroad product page cover images. Dan’s photo captions include each tutorial’s name and price, as well as the URL of the product page.

6) Link directly to your work in your Instagram bio

Because the majority of Instagram traffic occurs on mobile devices, it’s especially important to make it as easy as possible for your followers to get from the Instagram post promoting your work to a page where they can actually buy your product. A great way to do this is by linking directly to your product page in your Instagram bio (since your bio is the only place where hyperlinks are allowed). If you choose to link to your website instead of directly to a product page, keep in mind that minimizing clicks is the best way to maximize conversion rates.

Krista Stryker, creator of the 12 Minute Athlete, added a direct link in her bio to make it really easy for her followers to access her new training program, Pull Up Mastery.

7) Use limited-time offers

Setting up offer codes can be a great way to thank your Instagram followers for their support of your work. They can also serve to encourage your followers to go through with a purchase on launch day, or be used to market your work and boost sales post launch.

Brandan Schieppati, founder of Rise Above Fitness, periodically sets up offer codes to give his followers discounts on particular training programs. Rather than promoting offers on launch day, Brandan uses offers to drive sales months after releasing his training programs.

That’s it for today. We hope to see you putting these strategies into practice on Instagram soon! 

Looking for more advice on how to make the most of Instagram? Stay posted for an upcoming interview with creator Lina Saber, who has grown her Instagram audience to more than 220 thousand followers.

Thinking about promoting your work on Instagram? Already using Instagram in ways we didn’t mention here? We’d love to hear from you.

We’re thrilled to announce our participation in Designer Fund’s Bridge program. Bridge is a professional development program that connects experienced designers with top, design-forward startups in San Francisco. We’re excited to join our friends at Pinterest, Dropbox, Remind, and Asana in this extraordinary partnership.

Design is foundational to everything we do at Gumroad. Our CEO and founder, Sahil Lavingia, is first and foremost a designer. Our mission is to empower people to make a living selling what they make, and we’re building the future of commerce for these creators. We need more great designers to help us get there.

In addition to working on a product that could impact millions of filmmakers, musicians, authors, artists, designers, and other creators around the world, as a Bridge designer at Gumroad you’ll have access to our creative team for mentorship and Bridge’s weekly workshops. Oh yeah, plus great compensation and benefits, relocation expenses, and all the tools you need to get the job done.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Gumroad design team and Bridge, check out http://designerfund.com/bridge. Apply early by October 5th or before applications close on October 26th at http://app.designerfund.com/bridge/.

Feel free to contact bridge@designerfund.com with any questions.

We’re thrilled to host a small event in San Francisco on September 29th with author, entrepreneur, and modern-day explorer Chris Guillebeau. Chris’s new book, The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life, recently debuted at #3 on the New York Times Best Seller List. 

We’re going to talk quests, happiness, and leading an unconventional life with Chris live, but in the meantime, we wanted to know how his writing has evolved, how he stays motivated to complete a writing project, and why he’s constantly on the road meeting with readers.

You wrote an article for your blog in 2012 entitled How to Write a Book - what’s changed, if anything, now that you’re on your third book? What are you better at, and what do you still need to work on?

I think that post is still mostly relevant in terms of the how-to. I did struggle quite a bit with writing the new book, in part because it’s my most personal work yet, and also because it took some time to really figure out the universal lessons of quests and adventure. I was four months late in delivering my manuscript—something that’s never happened before, but hopefully it made for a better product in the end.

I also struggle at times with writing on the road. I get overwhelmed with a lot of projects and sometimes neglect the essential craft of creating. I’m in five or six cities each week and it occasionally becomes tiring. These are good problems to have, of course. I have a great life and am fortunate to be able to write and travel. But there’s still a long list of things I need to improve.

So many people say they want to write a book, but so few do. What do you think holds most people back and how do you personally overcome that?

Well, I think the biggest challenge is that tackling a book project from start to finish involves a lot of steps. Even when you just consider the writing and editing (let alone the publishing and marketing aspects), it’s very easy to feel overwhelmed at not knowing what to do next.

I’ve always said that my most desired superpower—after the ability to fly or be invisible, of course—would be to always know exactly what to do next in any particular endeavor. I don’t have that superpower yet, but when it comes to books they do follow a fairly logical order of devising a structure, creating an outline, drafting, and revising. I try to adapt habits that support book writing. For example, I usually write 1,000 words a day no matter where I am or whatever else is happening. I know that if I do that, over time I’ll eventually be able to write more books.

You have a chapter in the book on “Defining Moments.” What was the defining moment when you decided to definitely write this book?

I was coming to the end of my journey to every country in the world. I’d traveled for ten years and seen much of my life changed throughout the journey—so naturally, I wanted to write about that. However, I didn’t want to just write a memoir or collection of stories. I knew I wanted to do something a bit deeper. As I thought through my experience over the past decade, and as I interviewed many other people who had undertaken a quest or grand adventure, I realized I wanted to tell the story of modern-day quests. I wanted to present an agenda: that a quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life, and here’s how you craft it.

How do you stay motivated to complete a book? Do you approach it the same way you would any other quest or are there peculiar challenges?

In some ways it is indeed a lot like a quest—though hopefully not one that requires ten years. Any good quest has a destination or goal. It has clear milestones or stages along the way. There’s a certain amount of struggle or challenge. Usually, the hero is changed or transformed at some point. All of these elements carry over into book writing.

When and how often do you ask for feedback? Who do you ask?

Feedback in life? Often. Feedback in writing books? Not so often. For the last two books I’ve worked with a fantastic editor, a guy who’s spent thirty years editing Jeffrey Archer and Condoleeza Rice and many other authors with much more stature than me. He gives me feedback, and I listen. A few other close friends and advisers give feedback, and I listen.

Otherwise, though, I think it’s the author’s responsibility to write the book. You don’t always need input and opinions. A good book presents a clear argument, and your argument can get bogged down if you’re constantly trying to please everyone and respond to all feedback.

You’re on the road now, visiting 40+ cities in your Book + Reader Tour. You’ve travelled extensively on past book tours as well. Why are live events so important for you?

I’ve done more than 150 book events and gatherings and have no plans to stop! In fact, once I started hosting meetups with readers in various cities, it changed the whole trajectory of my project. I began to understand much more about the people who read my blog or followed me online, and I don’t think this would have happened without the live component.

As you mentioned, I’m now back on the road for the new book, hearing from interesting people every night. Their comments and ideas and stories help me think about how I can improve and what I’d like to do next. 

Meet Chris. Chris Guillebeau will be joining us for an intimate discussion on happiness, quests, and living an unconventional life on September 29th at San Francisco’s Cookhouse. Click here for more information and to RSVP.

Art tutorials are so hot right now, with creators from Dominic Qwek to Will Terrell inspiring thousands of budding artists to create their own work.

Naturally, we needed to take a closer look into the art of selling them as well, so we enlisted the help of James Gurney, author and illustrator of the New York Times best selling Dinotopia book series.

James has produced three art tutorial videos: How I Paint Dinosaurs, Australia’s Age of Dinosaurs, and Watercolor in the Wild. Each tutorial follows paintings all the way through from start to finish, with every step thoroughly documented and the author’s voiceover explaining the thinking behind the paint brush.

"’How I Paint Dinosaurs’ by James Gurney is a superb adventure into the world of hands-on professional illustration; using dinosaurs as the vehicle, it packs an entire art school into one engaging, thoroughly entertaining package."

—Terryl Whitlatch, creature designer and concept artist

In this case study, we focused on the launch of his most recent tutorial, Watercolor in the Wild, so you can see, step-by-step, how he got the word out. Enjoy! 

What are the main tools/networks you use to reach your audience?

Although as a painter I use traditional, hand-made media like watercolor and oil, I have eagerly embraced some digital tools, such as blogging. I’ve written over 3,000 posts on a daily basis since for my blog, GurneyJourney.blogspot.com.  On Facebook, I have 4800 friends on my personal FB and 10,700 likes on the public page, but I only use Facebook promotionally to echo blog posts.

On YouTube I’ve posted 118 videos, with 770,358 Views and 10,016 Subscribers. I regard YouTube mainly as a promotional ecosystem and as a testing ground for new ideas. I don’t do Twitter, Instagram, or any other social channels, and haven’t yet set up an email marketing system.

What were your main promotional strategies?

1. The build-up

I tried out Nathan Barry’s suggestion to announce early and build awareness over time. However, I’m starting at a bit of a disadvantage because I don’t have an email marketing account in place—I’m more of a MailChump than a MailChimp.

But thanks to Gumroad’s Customer Update system, I was able contact the 400+ people who had purchased my two previous videos. About two weeks before release, I sent an email to my Gumroad gang telling them what was coming. On my daily art blog GurneyJourney, I did a detailed blog post about a week ahead describing the upcoming release.

 2. Launch day

The launch day was a Monday, a day that Google Analytics told me that my blog gets quite a bit of traffic. On Monday I released the two-minute trailer, which introduces the video and gives some excerpts. The Gumroad sales page actually went live the night before for my Gumroad customers with a 10% launch day discount.

3. A week of blog posts

I scheduled a “Watercolor Week" on the blog, set to kick off on the day of the launch. I created a week’s worth of posts that went deeper into each segment of the video. The purpose of each day’s post was to entice new customers, but I didn’t want to pitch too hard. I also wanted to deepen the experience of the paying customers and foster a sense of community among them.

On the day before Watercolor Week began, I showed a stack of all the YouTube thumbnail designs so people could see what was coming up. People said stuff like I’m so psyched for this! I can’t wait to place my order! and Really looking forward to the videos on Youtube:D (poor art student, so free is good right now :) ) That last person who can’t afford the download at the moment is just as important to me as the paying customers.

4. Blurbs and reviews

I produced a physical DVD to be ready when the Gumroad download launched. That gave me something physical to send to potential reviewers and blurb-writers. I had advance copies of the DVD in hand a couple weeks ahead of launch day.

I sent some out to a few artist friends, inviting their feedback. Fortunately, the first review came out a day before the launch, so I was able to include a link to that along with the kickoff announcement.

I also used Gumroad’s offer code feature to distribute about five digital review copies to magazine reviewers in other countries.

5. Value-rich content for free

On Tuesday I released a video excerpt about suggested art supplies. I embedded that video at the head of a long, information-rich blog post about the materials. Blog posts are better than videos for conveying such detailed information. I wanted people who had bought the video to be able find this information, so I captioned that section of the video with a search suggestion so that they could find it.

I released two other five-minute excerpts of the video, totaling about 25% of the for-sale content. Each video ended with links back to the Gumroad sales page. I also put live links in the YouTube description panel. Within two weeks of release, these videos have racked up a total of over 20,000 views. 

Each sample clip has intrinsic value as a stand-alone video, but it also serves as a promotion for the full video. While it’s hard to make any income directly from YouTube, even if you create viral videos, it’s a great promotional tool for Gumroad creators, referring 11% of my sales, more than Facebook generated.

I also ran a poll asking blog readers to vote for their favorite watercolor pigments. I shared the results of the poll later in the week. This involved people in the blog, and they kept coming back to learn more, plus I learned something from my readers.

6. A bonus product

In addition to the main 72-minute feature, I produced a second video for sale on Gumroad that was a “Bonus Features” collection. It had some exclusive new material, and some remastered YouTube shorts with added voiceover. It was a fun collection of extras that I called “bite-size inspiration” for people to own in HD video.

As with the main feature, I let people download the MP4 video file, knowing that some people will copy the video without paying. But I’m not worried about that. As long as I keep my prices fair, the non-paying customer today will likely decide to become a paying customer tomorrow. At the head of each video, instead of a threatening FBI warning, I put a little a message thanking people for buying the video, and reminding them that their support allows me to keep creating more cool stuff.

I used Gumroad’s helpful feature of permitting multiple files in a single offering by uploading PDFs of additional articles to add value to the Bonus Features offering. Even though the sales volume of the Bonus Features was only 15% as large as the main feature, it was well worth doing, and it added a bump to the sales six days after the release. 

7. Focus on the customer’s creativity

Something spontaneous happened late in Watercolor Week. After I published a blog post and a Facebook update where I talked about ultra compact watercolor kits, people started sending me images of the custom compact watercolor kits that they created. I jettisoned my planned content and put the spotlight on their achievements instead. The blog became a forum for a lively exchange of ideas against the backdrop of the Gumroad release.  

8. Reinforce in print

I wrote an article for an art magazine called International Artist scheduled to come out a month after release. The article zeroed in on the same artwork that’s in the video. Captions with little play buttons directed readers to watch the free excerpts and the trailer on YouTube. Gumroad’s custom titling feature allowed me to rename the URL as “gum.co/watercolor” making it easier for a print exposure to bring in potential customers.

9. A thank-you video

I shot an exclusive thank-you video for Gumroad customers in my workshop. In the video, I showed some updates to the painting gear I had talked about on the main video, and I told them about some of the projects that are coming up, with news that I haven’t announced publicly elsewhere. 

I also sent individual thank-you emails to customers who chose to add $10 or more to the “Pay What You Want” base cost of $15.

Here’s the text of that email, which I customized for each person:

“Dear ________. I just want to take a minute to thank you for your generous donation above and beyond the asking price of my new Gumroad video. When I chose the “price-plus” option, I never anticipated that so many people would extend a hand so givingly. I’m really touched by your gift, and will invest the funds in the tools I’ll need for making more and better videos in the future. Enjoy the video, James Gurney”

10. Demo the methods

At the end of the week, after talking so much about techniques and materials, and answering lots of questions from people who had bought the download, I thought I should practice what I preached. So I took my watercolor kit to the county fair and did an impromptu portrait of the oldest carnival worker, and posted about it on the blog and Facebook.

How it all came together…

Let’s take a look at some results…

James’s main channels - his blog and YouTube - both performed well in terms of views and sales of his products. His strategy of reaching out to friends and influencers in the art world paid off too. While he didn’t get as many views from these reviews as he did with his owned properties, the conversion rate was very high, showing that people trust a recommendation!

In addition to the promotion strategies shared above, James also turned on Recommended Products in his Gumroad account. This allowed Gumroad to suggest his products to people who bought similar items from other creators. Recommendations had an extremely high conversion rate of 36.8%

James’s experiment with allowing people to pay $15+ instead of a flat fee worked out quite well, with 14.5% of people paying more than $15. His launch day offer code also effectively introduced a sense of urgency, and encouraged many people to purchase on the first day. 

Any final thoughts to share?

My background is as a painter and a writer, not a marketer or a sales guy, so all this is kind of new to me, and it’s fun. Instead of working with a big publisher that keeps all this info to itself, I get to work all the levers.

I’m grateful to Gumroad and its community of artist-publishers for sharing information to help me succeed with self-publishing.

What I come away with is that the new digital arts economy is different in several fundamental ways compared to the old one. These differences are suggested by the following four paradoxes:

• You have to give something away in order to sell it.
• People will pay more if you let them set their own price.
• Promote others if you want to advance your career.
• Share your trade secrets and you will benefit.

These principles seem counterintuitive to someone like me raised in the pre-digital arts economy. The differences arise because people buying digital content understand that they’re directly supporting the personal vision of the artist. They’re not just buying a product; they’re buying into a relationship.

From Netflix-binging tips to a stack of New York Times best-selling authors to gadget performance at home and (way, waaay) abroad, here are your weekend reading recommendations from the Gumroad team. We hope yours is the perfect balance of productive creativity and recharging relaxa-ti-on.

Home

How to Tell When a Robot Has Written You a Letter (Medium)
Handwriting robots are here, and they’re learning the subtle art of irregularity.

The Only 15 Netflix Hacks You’ll Ever Need (Vulture)
For your binging this weekend.

Work & Creativity

Neil Gaiman: ‘Terry Pratchett Isn’t Jolly. He’s Angry’ (The Guardian)
Assumption vs. really knowing someone.

Chris Guillebeau on his New NYT Best Seller, Writing, and the Road (Gumroad)
Questing, getting started, and staying motivated.

17 Bizarre Jobs Our Ancestors Did That No Longer Exist (Business Insider)
Will your job exist in 100 years?

10 Strategies for Selling Art Tutorials (That Can Work for Any Product) (Gumroad)
New York Times best-selling author and illustrator James Gurney on his latest release in this awesomely in-depth case study/interview.

Some Advice from Jeff Bezos (Signal v. Noise)
On people who are right a lot.

Stuff and Things

iPhone Camera Evolution: How Does the iPhone 6 Camera Compare to Previous iPhone Cameras? (Snap Snap Snap)
From macro to lowlight.

Lost GoPro (Swissmiss)
After a year on the ocean floor…

On a Shoestring, India Sends Orbiter to Mars on Its First Try (New York Times)
Go, MOM!

Odds and Ends

Researcher Shows that Black Holes Do Not Exist (Phys.org)
So… we might not get sucked and squished into an inescapable point of spacetime after all?

Loyalty Nearly Killed My Beehive (Nautilus)
On gently nudging and tinkering with nature.

We’ve been growing pretty fast. There are now more than 10,000 individual filmmakers, musicians, authors, artists, designers, developers, and other creators around the world selling via Gumroad, with hundreds now making their entire living doing what they love.

There are two questions that we ask ourselves every day here at Gumroad:

1. What do these creators spend their time on that’s not making things?
2. Can we do that for them?

Over the past 18 months, these two questions have prompted us to build and ship feature after feature (after feature) for creators and their customers alike. Audio streaming, video streaming, inline reading, gifting, subtitle support for films, recommended products, customizable galleries, pre-orders, subscriptions, give more, buy again, pay what you want, offers (and offers again), and many more.

Today, we’re excited to share the latest thing we’ve built — our first mobile app. Available on iOS 7 and above (Android coming soon), the app serves as a mobile version of the Gumroad Library. It offers native experiences for watching, listening to, and reading mobile-friendly Gumroad products.

We built the Gumroad app to help the audiences of our creators have the best mobile experience possible. As of this morning, more than 8,000 films + videos, 35,000 books + comics, and 15,000 music products sold via Gumroad are mobile-ready.

Many Gumroad creators make their living entirely from selling what they make to their audiences via Gumroad, and each month we’re seeing more and more creators pass the six-figure mark on the platform. It’s been exciting to help make it possible for people to spend their lives doing what they love.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a Sundance #ArtistServices workshop at the IFP Filmmaker Conference in New York. It was a full day of phenomenal discussions and presentations from some of the leading minds in independent film.

I wanted to share one presentation in particular, given by Jeremy Schwartz of Squarespace. Jeremy spoke about the principles of good website design, and while he focused on film, I liked that his ideas were applicable to creators in general.

According to Jeremy, the elements of a killer website include:

1. A great photo
2. A good logo
3. A little bit of copy/tagline
4. A clear call to action (CTA)

The fourth is probably the most important element. The goal of your website should be so clear that a visitor should know exactly what they’re supposed to do when they get to your site.

The CTA will change over the lifetime of your product. For example, in the beginning of your filmmaking process, you might want visitors to sign up for your email list, follow you on social media, or back your crowdfunding campaign. After you’ve released your film, the CTA might be to go see your film or buy it.

I liked Jeremy’s emphasis on keeping the site super simple and clear. Too often we get bogged down with all the things we could include on a website, like press, bios, a synopsis, etc. There’s a place for all of those, but they shouldn’t bombard your visitor when they first come to your site.

Here’s a great example from the website of the film Life After Beth.

There are a lot of great tools out there for building your project’s website, including Squarespace, Tumblr, and Wordpress. Of course, when you’re ready to sell, you can easily link to or embed your Gumroad product in any of these!

Learn more about how to sell Gumroad products off or your website in our handy guide.

From DANG-TV-is-getting-awesome to why you should wear a lab coat to seeing how many times an airline can cram lobster down your throat in one flight, here are your weekend reading recommendations from the Gumroad team. We hope yours is the perfect balance of productive creativity and recharging relaxa-ti-on.

Home

Television is being taken over by filmmakers, and that’s a beautiful thing (Quartz)
What’s your favorite 20-hour movie?

What You Can Learn in the next Ten Minutes That Will Make Your Entire Life Better (LinkedIn)
Somewhat misleading title for a funny read.

Work & Creativity

Independence and the Creative Life: Thoughts From XOXO (Kickstarter)
“Independence is hard. Independence is lonely. And it takes a unique kind of bravery to create something and to put it out into the world in this unfiltered way that is enabled through technology…”

An Insanely Detailed, Hand-Drawn Map of San Francisco (Citylab)
For the modern-day cartography enthusiast.

How I Rewired My Brain to Become Fluent in Math (Nautilus)
"There is an interesting connection between learning math and science, and learning a sport."

You Should Run Your Startup Like a Cult. Here’s How. (Wired)
All hail Sahil, Supremely-Wise Overseer and Maestro of Dreams. All hail.

Stuff and Things

Gumroad Library for iPhone (Gumroad)
Our new app is here!

An Australian researcher has worked out how to store 1000TB on a CD (Science Alert)
Finally, a place to store my 250,000,000-song library!

Tesla CEO promises a self-driving model for next year (Engadget)
I’ll believe it when I fall asleep in the back seat and wake up in Tahoe.

Odds and Ends

What It’s like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class (Medium)
Here’s one way to cash in your airline miles.

Thru You Too (Kutiman)
Read this one with your ears as well as your eyes. Kutiman’s follow-up to his 2009 ThruYou project seamlessly blends unrelated YouTube videos into haunting, jazzy songs and videos.

After years studying how nutrition can help us heal our bodies and our skin, Lina Saber decided to create a platform where she could share everything she was learning. Lina chose Instagram because of its simplicity and the way users connect via photos, rather than words. Today, Lina’s Instagram account, @bysaber, boasts more than 220K followers. 

In a nutshell, @bysaber reflects my goal to inspire, be inspired, and connect with the world while sharing everything I love.

- Lina Saber

In June, Lina released her first product, the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox. Lina successfully leveraged her large Instagram audience for the launch, promoting the program to her Instagram followers. 

Today, Lina is here to share what she’s learned about using Instagram to effectively build an audience and to authentically promote a product. Keep reading for Lina’s detailed advice and you could be on your way to 220K followers in no time!

You have a big presence on Instagram, with a large number of engaged followers. What strategies have you used to grow your audience over time?

• Quality: When I first started, my images were quite blurry and the lighting was bad. After following a few very successful pages, I was inspired to up my game. I bought a new camera, began taking pictures outside, and started using simple photo editing apps like Pixlr Express and VSCO Cam.
• Focus and Consistency: I knew my passion was mainly health and nutrition. I think people like it when you do one thing very well and successfully, rather than doing many things with no focus. This way, your energy is directed into creating your best work. You can see how many successful Instagram pages choose to narrow their focus into one topic and to send a strong message.
• Originality: I think it is easy to create a page that only features other people’s photos or copies other people’s work. Originality is a must - something that makes your page stand out and reflects your life in a way. It could be unique videos or photos of a special place or special person. At the end of the day, it boils down to putting your best foot forward and slowly creating a gallery with content that reflects your lifestyle, your personality, and what you truly believe in.
• Collaboration: Collaborating with health companies, food companies, and other companies that share my message has helped me tremendously. Many companies have reached out to me to review their products or to collaborate with them and create something healthy using their product. They then share that on their popular pages.
• Hashtags: Some pages dedicate their entire accounts to sharing the work of others. For instance, there is an Instagram page dedicated to sharing other creator’s detox water. They have close to 700K followers. If a page like that recognizes your work, you can get many new followers in a matter of days.

Your 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox bundle has been really popular. What motivated you to create the program and to start selling it?

Something that inspired me to put together the program were the many emails I received every day, asking about skin, acne, and blemishes. I felt the pain of the amazing people that reached out to me to share their stories. I spent hours responding to as many of them as I could and started to realize that I would never have enough time to respond to everyone. I decided to create the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox to share exactly what I’ve done to heal my skin. I knew in my heart that it was something that was going to really help so many of my followers.

How have you used Instagram to market the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox?

• Leading up to the Launch: About a week before the program was released, I announced it in a few of my captions. I did this in the form of a countdown.
• Choosing Promotional Photos: Almost every single post on my Instagram is about using food to heal your body, so the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox is something that blends in very well with my usual content. I think rather than aggressively advertising a product, it is best to take the simple route. Share it about two times a week and bring it up in a few captions to remind the people who have not seen it. It’s important to choose a photo that stands out. Posting photos that are good quality and that pop out is important. Instagram is a place where people connect with images more than words. That’s the beauty of Instagram. I think more people will read words on a photo than a long caption. The promotional photos I usually post clearly include the words “40 Day Detox” in transparent font. I then explain what the program is in the photo caption.
• Linking in Bio: In a way, the fact that Instagram doesn’t allow links in photo captions or comments is a blessing in disguise. It limits spammers and limits the app from crashing. I deal with this challenge by very clearly stating that the link to the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox is in my bio and that followers can email me if they have trouble finding it.
• Collaborating with other Instagramers: I collaborated with a few Instagram creators who post about healthy lifestyles like I do. I sent them the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox for free and they shared it with their followers after reviewing the content and trying the program out for themselves.
• Answering Follower’s Questions: After launching the program, I received many questions about it right away. I made a point of answering them immediately. I think that if someone is genuinely interested and has an additional question or concern before buying the product, they deserve to get an answer. I know I would want an answer. After every promotional post on Instagram, I took time to answer all incoming questions.
• Timing of Promotional Posts: After the launch, I posted about the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox twice a week at different time intervals to make sure it was reaching all of the time zones. I used a site called Totems, which lets you see where your followers are from. Knowing that most of my followers are in America, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada helped me coordinate the timing of my posts about the program.

What have you found most rewarding about how your audience has received the program?

I’m really excited when I hear from my customers after they have completed the 40 Day Skin-Clearing Detox and they explain how much it has helped them. It puts a huge smile on my face to know that I’ve inspired one person to take control of something that has been affecting them for so many years. I also appreciate when people email me additional questions about maximizing results and to request additional features in the book. The amazing thing about it all is that incoming questions are not just from the US, they’re from all over the world. I just can’t believe how far the program has reached. It’s all thanks to the Instagram platform connecting us all.

Do you have any final words of wisdom or advice for other creators who want to use Instagram to grow their audiences and to sell products to their audiences?

• Instagram is free, it is fun, and it is ok to follow and connect with people you have never met in real life. 
• Think about every photo before you post it and make sure that your posts reflect only what you truly believe in and stand by 100%. Less is more when it comes to Instagram.
• Don’t forget, Instagram isn’t an advertising site. It’s a platform where you can get as creative as you like. People will appreciate all the amazing work that you put into it. In other words, people don’t want to see endless photos of products, they want to see creations.

A big thank you to Lina for sharing her Instagram expertise! Be sure to check out @bysaber​ on Instagram and to keep an eye out for Lina’s New Year’s Cleanse and Official Skinfood Recipe E-books, both out soon. 

Thinking about promoting your work on Instagram? Be sure to check out our first post on making the most of Instagram, 7 Ways to Engage Your Audience on Instagram.

Already using Instagram in ways we didn’t mention here? We’d love to hear from you.

Whether you plan to spend your weekend spying on meerkats via white space spectrum, besting an opponent in an argument, or honing your content marketing strategy, we’ve got you. From hard-won wisdom on how to fail to a high-speed look at the new Tesla D, these are your weekend reading (and watching, and listening!) recommendations from the Gumroad team.

Home

Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit(Vanity Fair) 
Before binge-watching Homeland this weekend, slurp up some knowledge from Elon Musk, Judd Apatow, and some other smart folks.

Serial (Serial)
This new podcast from the folks at This American Life will hold you over until True Detective is back.

Friday Fives (The Infatuation)
One of our favorite food blogs publishes a weekly download from some serious eaters. Nom.

Work & Creativity

Inspiration From Video Games to Get Into a Flow State at Work(Fast Company) 
All that video game playing could actually help you be creative. Level up!

Inktober (Jake Parker) 
Participating in #Inktober is a great way to knock out an E-book of drawings in a month. 

What I Do When I Fail (ZenHabits)
“Before you failed, you thought that something would work (a prediction), but then real-world information came in that told you it didn’t work. That means you now know something you didn’t know before. That’s excellent.”

Grow Your Audience and Promote Your Work on Instagram (Gumroad)
The ins and outs of Insta from someone with six figures of engaged followers.

Is Your Ambition Holding You Back? (99u)
“On one hand, it’s the driving force behind every great accomplishment. On the other, it’s a constant voice nagging you to do more.”

How to Create Content For the (New) Online World (Design Sponge)
More demand doesn’t necessarily mean more content and more work … it means that you need to “spread a smaller amount of high quality content onto a wider range of platforms.”

Stuff & Things

My Lap of Terror in the Tesla D(The Verge)
The new Tesla has arrived and it’s very, very fast.

Are You Addicted to Your Phone? This App Has the Answer (Refinery29)
Checky is here to make us all feel awful about our tech habits.

Another Google White Spaces Trial Brings You Live Meerkat Action From the London Zoo (TechCrunch)
Because meerkats.

Odds & Ends

Office Role-Play? Meet the People Who Pretend To Work At An Office Together(Fast Company)
BLARP-ing is a thing and we don’t get it.

Why I’m Betting On You To Help Shape the New Economy (Medium)
President Obama is on Medium, guys, and he’s talking to Millennials: “So here’s something we know for certain: Your rising generation of Americans isn’t just adapting to a 21st-century economy. You’re actively changing it.”

The Secret of Winning an Argument is Ridiculously Simple (Business Insider)
How to change someone’s opinion, according to science.