Everybody has a mobile phone nowadays. Well almost. Everyone from school kids to pensioners. So here are some ways you could actually make money from digital content and cash in quick on this fast growing market.
How to make money from digital content
1) Premium rate text services:
These are everywhere now. Basically, these services offer some kind of useful information to mobile phone users. The user pays for them by way of a clever reverse billing system by which the recipient of the message pays for it rather than the sender. It can be anything from a few pence to several pounds per message.
First you need to come up with something useful information you think people will want and which you could supply on a regular basis. It could be something like a regular recipe, a health tip, a joke – whatever you think people might like to pay for on a regular basis.
To send out your messages you’ll need to use a premium rate bureau service. As well as transmitting your messages these bureaux will collect and pay the call charges to you, less a commission.
You’ll also need to advertise your premium rate services. Offline newspapers and magazines as well as social media are good for this.
2) App writing:
You might have heard of apps. Basically they’re small computer programs that run on a mobile phone. Apps can perform all kinds of functions – games, jokes and novelties are some of the most popular apps. There are also apps that provide information, news, advice and help of all kinds.
It’s not too difficult for anyone to create apps. Start by coming up with an idea for your own app – check the bestseller lists to see what’s selling best. You’ll then need to find an experienced programmer or coder to write your app. – a service like Elance can help you find them. It needn’t cost a lot.
When your app is finished you can put it up for sale either in Apple’s App Store or the Android Market (depending on which type of phone it’s for). They’ll pay you a fee (less their commission) for every app that is downloaded. Some of the most popular apps sells hundreds of thousands of copies.
3) Kindle books:
Kindle books are electronic books (ebooks) that can be downloaded over the Internet and read on mobile devices including Amazon’s Kindle, laptops and mobile phones with an ebook reading application. So by publishing an ebook and putting it up for sale on Amazon anyone with a mobile phone anywhere in the world can buy, download and read your book. Amazon will pay you a commission of 30%+ for each sale.
To do well with this, you’ll need to come up with a good idea for a Kindle book. Remember that mobile phones have smallish screens, so novels aren’t ideal! Subjects that tend to work well with this type of mobile phone publishing include children’s books, recipes books, humour and, especially, travel guides.
This is just a brief run-through of 3 good, simple ways to make money from digital content. For more detailed information, including free articles and blueprints, search our What Biz Opp? site.