Information products in Nigeria are beginning to turn out as major streams of income to young entrepreneurs. On Amazon alone, ebooks, print and audio books contributed to 45 per cent of the total revenue in February, 2016.
Most young entrepreneurs across the world who could not raise the needed the capital to start-up their businesses have capitalized on the sales of information products of different categories to craft their multi million dollar business from scratch.
Nigerians are not left out in this; they are many Nigerians out there whose major channel of livelihood comes from the sales of information products. These Nigerians are not super-beings. They did what everyone else has continued to disregard, and that is, discovering the basic requirements for making money with information products.
In this teaching, I will not only list out the requirements for making money with information products here in Nigeria so that you can reach your financial goals, but I will also practically walk you through my strategies for crafting the best information product in any niche of your choice. I will also list out some of the major online markets where you can display your products.
But before we go into the teaching proper let us quickly look at what information products are.
What is information product? It’s a set of product data that can be used to disperse information to variant media like blogs, websites, ERP systems etc.
How to Make Money From Information Products in Nigeria
Categories of Information Products
There are various categories of information products an entrepreneur in Nigeria can lay hold on to make money.
These include:
1. Books
By writing a book, you can make as much as millions of naira in a year without breaking the bank. How does this work, one may ask? Publish a well researched work, present it to the right audience and money will never stop flowing in your direction.
2. Audio books
Audio books are now in high demand. People whose tight schedules would not permit them sit down to read books are now in search of audio books they can listen to while driving, travelling and doing other house chores. Audible – an Amazon-owned company responsible for the production and sales of downloadable audio books had her members listen to 1.6 billion hours of content in 2015. One of the interesting things I love so much about audio books is its inexpensive nature. Years back, when I could not afford hundreds of thousands of Naira to publish my first book, I opted for audio book and with less than twenty thousand naira (N20,000), I was able to release the first audio version of my book, “Deliver the Future and Repackage Yourself for the Year” and few years later, I got the next audio book, “How to Be an Entrepreneur of Excellence.”
3. eBooks
Another wonderful information product one can engage into is eBook. E-Books are otherwise known as digital books. Among all the various categories of information products, eBooks are the cheapest and the fastest to circulate round the world. Making money with eBooks is as simple as ABC. What do you do? Publish a kindle book that will be sold for two dollars ninety nine cent ($2.99), get 1000 persons to download it in six months and you would have generated $2,990, an equivalent of N941,850 (using exchange rate of N315 per dollar).
4. Magazines
Magazine publication is another good channel of making money from information product. One amazing thing about magazine publication is that you don’t necessarily need to be a ‘good’ writer. You can outsource the topics you would want to discuss in your current edition to freelance writers who are specialists in those areas. As a freelance writer, I have written so many articles to individuals who are not much into writing but had the zeal to publish their own magazines. When I began my first job in the field of publishing as the managing editor of Atang Magazine, I focused on business and career articles, and event reportage, and outsourced other columns to freelancers.
I always tell people who care to listen that the easiest way to publish a magazine that will make a market hit is to combine it with pictorial illustration and in-depth analysis, don’t make it too voluminous except you already have millions of audience and do not make it be all about you – work as a team.
5. Newsletters
Newsletter is a periodically sent publication containing current events or the like, generally on a particular topic. Most entrepreneurs who market information via newsletters do them using weekly or monthly subscription. To efficiently maximize this category, you must choose a niche, build an audience in that niche who will know you, trust you and afterwards subscribe to your newsletter. If you are a writer or a personal finance coach, this kind of information product will be a veritable stream of income for you in Nigeria.
6. Ezines
It is otherwise known as online or digital magazine. eZines are cheaper, but to make much money from it your blog must have the capacity to generate huge traffic. You may choose to use free or premium subscription based on the financial budget of your audience.
7. Software
This particular one is for people who have computer programming knowledge. If you are savvy with coding, the amount of money you will make is limitless. Most serial entrepreneurs with knowledge of coding do this often. They build web and mobile apps, blog themes and other software as means generating money in Nigeria.
Here’s the Deal!
The choice of a Nigeria entrepreneur who wants to get a mouth-watering reward for their effort will depend on these five things:
- Audience
- Financial budget
- Projected profit ratio
- Tech knowledge
- Expertise
