You know you spend too much time on the internet when you search for technical writing software and find an Amazon shop for technical writing software… and then realize you built it. And forgot about it! Yes, this is what happened to me yesterday. Maybe I need to slow down because…
Why Create a Technical Writing Shop On Amazon?
I thought it would make money. And it did. About two hundred dollars.
You make 6-8% of what you sell on Amazon, so you need to be selling big time and I wasn’t – so I left and had more luck selling affiliate products, such as BizTree Business Documents, Write English with Confidence kits and Project Management templates for Method123.
What I Did Right
It’s hard to know what other technical writers want before you open a web store. I found that they didn’t buy many technical writing books (what I had thought) but gifts.
Gifts for kids were the biggest seller. Star Wars still sells tons, fwiw.
I developed the site navigation to focus on:
- Adobe
- Business Writing
- DVDs
- Gifts & Toys
- Grammar
- Gerry McGovern
- Information Architecture
- Proposal Writing
- Robohelp
- Technical Drawing
- Technical Writing Software
- Technical Writing
- Training
- Magazines
- Screen Capture
- Web Writing
- Writing As a Career
What I Did Wrong
What I know now that I didn’t know then was:
- Technical writers don’t buy technical writing books online. To be more clear, they get them through the company or downtown.
- Technical writers don’t buy much technical writing software online. Same thing – they get them through the company.
What they do however is….
- Search for technical writing books online
- Find them on Amazon and
- Buy a present while they’re there…
So, if I was starting again, I’d design the store around gifts for technical writers.
How about you? What do you buy online?
PS – setting up these stores is Free. Just register as an affiliate and it takes about five minutes. You get paid by cheque every quarter.