Forget the Inventory: How To Sell Without Buying First

July 11, 2025

Welcome to The Tilt, the newsletter for content entrepreneurs from Tilt Publishing. We also will host the 2025 Content Entrepreneur Expo this August. If you’re a serious author, creator, or entrepreneur, join us for the best CEX to date!

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Money

Tag it: Podcasters can add the Funding tag to their episodes and link directly to their donation or funding site in the RSS feed. [Supporting Cast; h/t Podnews]

Tilt Take: Giving your audience an easy way to support you is smart. Expecting it to be a big revenue stream is not.

Grrrowth: A roundtable at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity indicates brands increasingly see creators as collaborators throughout the audience journey, not just content providers.[Ad Age]

Tilt Take: Working with brands requires content entrepreneurs to up your game. Think packages, not one-off deals.

Audiences

Auto help: YouTube Studio may soon host an AI assistant that analyzes your channel stats and provides performance summaries and improvement tips. [Social Media Today]

Tilt Take: Audience insight should be an ongoing activity, and an AI assistant means you’re more likely to do it regularly.

Tech & Tools

Professional integration: LinkedIn has added its member post analytics API to almost a dozen third-party social media management tools, including Later, Sprinklr, and Hootsuite.

[Lindsey Gamble]

Tilt Take: LinkedIn strengthens its commitments to creators and efficiencies. Now, you can have a one-stop shop that includes LinkedIn to assess follower growth, post impressions, and video views.

And Finally

Check back: Meta renewed its interest in a verified program for creators. Some creators are getting 12 months of Meta Verified for free. [Tubefilter]

Tilt Take: Do audiences really trust social media platforms to be trustworthy arbiters?

Drive Revenue With Print-on-Demand Products

Almost 20 years ago, Kevin Kelley first touted the theory of 1,000 true fans: Content creators need only 1,000 true fans (i.e., people who will pay for your products and services) to make a living. But they can’t keep buying if you don’t make a lineup of products and services available.

While you should distinguish one product or service as your primary one, adding two or three new ones can stabilize your revenue. And it’s possible that a new product will draw a new audience of people who prefer to consume your content in a different format.

Print-on-demand products: In traditional product sales, entrepreneurs must first buy their products, then sell and ship them to the buyers. It requires you to order and pay for the products upfront and have the space to house the cases of product before you can ship them to customers, and that assumes all the products will sell, which is an unlikely scenario.

Print-on-demand products require a more modest upfront commitment to create and set up the product in the store. It makes product expansion possible. The startup costs are low, and the ability to scale is high. And with some savvy API work, you could even offer customizable content.

Books are an ideal revenue stream: Books are the go-to print-on-demand product for entrepreneurs. They’re the second most profitable monetization stream for full-time content entrepreneurs, according to The Tilt research. (Consulting and coaching is No. 1.)

Think about the content you create, the products you sell, or the services you offer. Then, go to a bookstore and look for content related to your niche. You’ll find books about it. Books are ubiquitous. We’ve been using them for so long that there are books on every imaginable topic.

Even if your niche has multiple books on the topic, your book is something unique. Your audience already wants it. To your fans, the most important thing is that you wrote it.

Let’s say you make YouTube videos about at-home life hacks. What do you do? Publish a book (and then two more) filled with your life hacks. Now, your fans have a direct way to support the content they love. And they’ll have all your hacks on hand whenever they need them.

And because books invite in a new audience, perhaps people who aren’t on YouTube, but love life hacks, you’ll be growing your audience while creating new revenue.

How to add a new revenue source

While this quick three-step process focuses on books, it works for just about any product you want to launch.

1. What does your audience want?

Consider what you already create and look for ways to expand on it or shift the offering to make it something just a little different. If you’re a marketing expert, write a book about strategy. If you’re a gardener, write a book about plant care.

But don’t just write a boring or repetitive strategy or plant care book; write one that speaks to your niche audience, the platform on which you’re an expert, or a specific challenge that you’ve mastered. Give your audience the expertise and insight they’ve come to know you for.

2. Turn what they want into a book

Once you know what product you’ll create, it’s time to write the book. Gather the content you already have — blog posts, site pages, social content, and videos are a great beginning.

Next, you’ve got to turn that content into a book-shaped file. You’ve got lots of options for formatting a book:

Adobe InDesign is the premier tool for high-end book design. You’ll have complete control over every aspect of your file.
Microsoft Word is the tried-and-true option for simple, text-heavy book design.
Atticus is a web-based platform that does most of the design work for you. Perfect for your first book because you don’t need extensive formatting skills.

3. Market and sell your new product

Once you’ve got your book designed and available for sale, it’s a matter of letting your fans know. Once you’ve got some traction, you can start marketing to a broader audience.

The book is your revenue source, but for your readers, it’s affordable access to content, insights, and strategies you’re not sharing elsewhere. This is a small investment to them, but a huge part of growing your brand and business.

Plain and simple. Just like the dangers of relying on a single platform to reach your audience, relying on a single source of revenue is a dangerous proposition. Luckily, on-demand products are a proven way to add revenue and credibility to your brand.

Helpful Resources:

– Paul Hobday

Ready to get started with your nonfiction book? Tilt Publishing’s ready to help. Let’s talk.

Make Plan B Your Plan A (Content, Inc.)
Open AI Needs a Nap and So Do You (This Old Marketing)
Book Launch Blueprint: How Justin Moore Sold Over 1,000 Books in 90 Days (Publish & Prosper)
Thought leaders don’t just follow trends — they write about them. Be the expert with Tilt Publishing.
ICYMI: How To Turn Your Notes From a Conference Into an Action Plan

We’re pumped about having Mighty Networks join us as the title sponsor for Content Entrepreneur Expo 2025.

Their passion for the content creator community is so evident in everything they do. We know they will bring a ton of value and expertise to benefit you at CEX. One of the most noticeable value adds will be a brand new CEX event app they’re designing for us. We cannot wait to roll this out for attendees this year and we think you’re going to love this new addition to our community!

Get Your Ticket Today

No-bricks brick-and-mortar strategy … Barnes & Noble exec says cutting boring and tedious books from its shelves is a must. [Publishers Weekly]
Please zines … Zines are still around, and so is the advice on how to publish one. [My Modern Met]
Kick it … Crowdfund your next book? Kickstarter has some thoughts. [The Tilt]
Publishing proposal … Write your nonfiction book proposal with this guide. [Jericho Writers]

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