What are the key factors that influence the profitability of digital publishing?

You must own your market. You have to provide accurate content and content no one else provides. Then you need to do it a lot. Once you establish yourself as the source for news to the market you're targeting you should be able to build on this reputation. Market it. Shout to anyone who will listen that you are there for them. Then, they'll be happy to click in, and, at some point soon, pay for your original, important, exclusive content.

There is no compromising on the quality of your content. If the content isn't great; has many errors, does not suit the needs of the audience, they will not be interested in reading or coming back to read. Your content has to suit their needs, excite them and be of the best quality possible.

In order to have quality content, you have to be authentic. Allow others to see you have been vulnerable in the past. Know your content well. It's not something that you can pull of the top of your head if you don't know the content. It has to be good and it has to be relevant.

You content should solve a problem for your target audience. Don't just be a mere content creator. To become an authority in your niche, you need to become a problem solver.

La qualité du contenu, c'est une évidence. Mais il s'agit avant tout de répondre à un BESOIN réel et d'apporter une véritable valeur ajoutée.

In my experience the best way to grow is by recognizing the balance between multiple formats. One size definitely doesn’t fit all. You can share the same content through books, podcasts, videos, and digital courses while monopolizing on the way your content appeals to the preferences of different groups. Work smarter, not harder.

Remember you're not creating content for you. You're creating content for your target audience. Focus on their problems and their solutions, at a level they'll find useful. Anything that won't speak to them needs get cut, hard, regardless of how much you or your team loves it.

You are not likely to get rich via digital publishing/ self-publishing. But it can be a good vehicle for you to get your message out there and to be a support for other things you do: like presentations, meetings, conferences, etc.

At Anaphora Literary Press, I do my best to minimize costs to provide the cheapest book publishing services in the market. This cost-cutting involves me still using a CS6 suite from 2012, when Adobe started requiring annual subscriptions. And I have chosen the cheapest possible (ad sponsored) hosting, and delete emails to stay on the cheapest 356 email plan. I purchased the cheapest large-screen touch-screen desktop on the market in a Cyber Monday sale, and it still works years later, while my laptops used to expire too rapidly. I also cash purchased a tiny manufactured house in 2017, which is equivalent at this point to having paid $662 in rent. It's great to be able to rely on publishing to produce the necessary subsistence-income.

If you can't put how you serve others into one sentence, relook at how you are serving. It's vital to have a solid value proposition. It drives how you look at your content and how your content can serve your client/customer in their own goals.

What you leave out is often more important than what you leave in. Don't get bogged down doing three things well when you can do one thing perfectly.

Keep it simple. Make your content easy to read. Focus on using your digital product to solve a painful problem for your target audience. Don't just post that you have published your book, create an effective book marketing strategy you will use to promote your book.

If you've always said "I could write a book" or other people tell you "You should write a book about that!", then reserve some quiet time to think about your dream book: what is your topic of choice, how you would break it down into chapters, and want you want your message to your readers to be?