Examples of Somethings

So what might your something be? What can you sell?

Well, that's really only a question you can answer. If this were as easy as reading an ebook to find the answer, everybody would be doing it.

But we can help with some suggestions.

We've already talked about things you could sell. But let's get more specific and look at various fields and types of work and what might make sense to sell.

Writers
Writers should be creating ebooks. And not just capital 'W' writers. If you're a writer of any stripe—this is not limited to professional writers—if you have a blog or do any kind of writing, you should be doing ebooks.

Maybe you are a professional writer. But you've never written an ebook for yourself. You make good money as a copywriter. Why bother with something else? Because you can. Because of everything we've already talked about. You're uniquely positioned, perfectly talented, and with today's technology perfectly able, to create and sell your own ebook.

Maybe you're not a writer but you're a company that has some written words. You've been running a blog forever. That's ebook content just waiting to happen. Collect the best of the best and you've got an ebook.

Maybe you don't have a blog. But you have an idea. You want to spread it. Books are a great way to do that. It doesn't have to be long or huge or massive. Physical books always had to justify their space (which often meant extra fluff).

Nobody published a 40 page print book. But that's just fine with ebooks (this book is barely 70 pages). Don't let the misconceptions hold you back.

Artists
Writers have words but artists have pictures, and a picture is worth a thousand words. So that means artists have 1/1000th of the work to do, right? Or something like that.

If you've got artistic skills—drawing, graphic design, photography, etc.—there's a wealth of things you can do.

• You can literally create and sell art. Painting after a long day's work might be ideal stress relief and provide a little pocket money. Selling an actual painting might seem far-fetched, but slapping a design on a T-shirt or selling prints isn't so crazy. And hello, Etsy is huge for a reason (but you should own your own shop... more on that later).
   
• Visuals are in high demand these days, whether it's stock photography, fonts or even tiny designs.
  
  The Over app is creating a marketplace of fonts and designs for people to slap on their photos and share on social media. Weird? Yes. But so cool that you could make money from it. Those design elements you slap on brochures, never to use again? You could make some cash by repurposing those for use in apps like Over.
  
  
• Books are easy to make these days and you don't have to be a writer. Ever heard of a coffee table book? People love amazing images and if you're good at capturing them, you can find new ways to share them. You can make print books easily and there are also digital books that are more accessible (and gorgeous) on iPads and other tablets or ereaders.

Developers
Oh, to be a developer these days. There are so many things yearning for good code, so many tasks longing to be simplified, so many options available with the proliferation of screens, WiFi and mobile. The work of a developer is no longer chained to a desk and an impersonal, immobile computer.

Plus, people are realizing that developers are cool: "I think people that make apps are artists," Will.i.am told Mashable. "Power to the geeks."

There are so many things you can code for cash: apps, WordPress themes and plugins, snippets of code for various languages, add-ons and extensions for existing products, etc. There are tons of options and different niches you can join.

All you need is a good idea, a vision for how it can take off and the determination to see it through.

Experts
Maybe you're not a writer, artist or developer. Maybe your skill is less tangible—you trade in knowledge and ideas. You're an expert. It's a skill that more easily lends itself to services, but there are ways you can turn that skill into a product.

You might not think of yourself as a writer, but writing down your advice and insight is one of the easiest ways to turn your knowledge into a product. And if you really hate the idea of writing, hire a writer.

Selling an ebook may be tried and true, but it's not the only way to share your knowledge. There are other ways you can get your expertise out there, including podcasts or other audio files, video, training webinars and more. Access may be the product you want to sell. An hour of your time could be what people really want (just be careful to do it in a way that's easily reproducible-selling an hour to one person severely limits your profits, but a one-hour webinar could give access to a larger group for the same time commitment on your part).

Tools
Maybe what you sell isn't so much something you create in order to sell, but it's something you already created and use all the time. Maybe it's a tool you use to do your job day in and day out. It worked for 37signals. Maybe as a writer you have a super in-depth style guide that puts the AP Stylebook to shame and you can package it as a starter style guide for corporations. Maybe you have a bunch of InDesign templates for various sized-brochures, complete with standard column breaks, footers, page numbers, etc.

It's basic stuff, but it saves you time on your projects and that might be valuable to beginning designers.

Or maybe you have really unique calendar needs so you created a funky calendar and you've never seen anything like it (this six foot long linear calendar, for example). You could sell it.

This idea of selling your tools might sound crazy, but people want an easier way of doing things. And they'll pay for a good solution.

Tribes & Fans
Maybe what you really have to offer is connection. You already have products people purchase, but the extra thing you can sell is that special sense of belonging. It's what creates tribes and what fans long for. We're talking about mementos, swag, experiences and memories.

It might be as simple as slapping your logo on a T-shirt. It might be recycling your cast offs, whether it's guitar picks or lug nuts. It might be a photo or an autograph.

Nonprofits
Maybe you're a nonprofit and you have nothing to sell. Ecommerce is still for you. You can use ecommerce to accept donations, take event registrations, even package and sell some of the content you have on hand, whether it's conference audio or ebooks.

Or maybe you want to give everything away for free. You can still use ecommerce. Free is great, but you should probably ask for email addresses so you can build your support community.

With ecommerce you can set up all your products as free items and ask for an email address at checkout. You can still give your stuff away for free, but you can forge a stronger connection with your audience.

It's All About the Angle
Some of this work of trying to sell things you create is really about finding the unique angle. You don't just want to write another book or create another line of T-shirts with funny phrases. You want to tap into a unique niche.

Maybe you create a stock photography site for local communities (stock photography for Tulsa, Okla.!) or you build a WordPress theme specifically designed for food trucks.

Sometimes making it work is all about finding your niche. What's your niche? Well, that's something you're going to have to figure out.