Transitioning from Free to Paid Content: A Pep Talk

I assume you’re an expert in your field. Even if you don’t feel like you’re an expert, you are because you’re putting yourself out there on your blog and people are looking to you for information.

But there’s one difference between you and other experts: you’re giving away all your knowledge and resources for free. Something isn’t right here.

Don’t get me wrong. Free information is great, and it’s a huge part of being successful as a blogger.

But how many people that you classify to be “experts”, are giving everything away for free?

Think hard. Did you come up with anyone? Yeah, me either.

Just like any other expert in the world, you deserve to be paid for your unique knowledge, and your effort and expertise.

There’s no need to be scared about this transition, or under-value yourself. If your audience truly knows, likes, and trusts you, then they won’t care about having to spend a couple bucks on a product that you would have previously made free. In fact, they will already know how awesome your free content is, so they’ll probably think that this paid content will be much better and worth it (which it should be).

People are coming around to the idea of paying for information. Your audience won’t forsake you.

The bottomline is to not be afraid of this transition. You’re entitled to do this. This is one time when I think it’s accurate to say that it’s not personal, it’s business.

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  • http://babystepstofluency.wordpress.com/ Fiona @ BSF

    Thanks for the pep talk, Lisa. I would love to make money from my blog… though I have just started, I'm already looking at ways to make money. My first goal is to earn enough to pay for hosting and a domain name – after that, the sky's the limit!

    I'm bookmarking this so I have something motivational to look at when I'm feeling discouraged. Thanks!

  • http://LisaMorosky.com Lisa Morosky

    Congrats to you for taking that leap. It can be kind of scary I think – and I think bloggers can get stuck on the “why would anyone pay money for my info” phase.

    And that's an awesome, and tangible, first goal. Good luck to you! :)

  • http://www.babystepstofluency.com/ Fiona @ BSF

    Hmmm…. funny that I already succeeded with my goal… I bought my domain just a little while ago! I guess making tangible goals really do help!

    Once I get set up, man, I can't wait. :D

  • http://LisaMorosky.com Lisa Morosky

    Congrats to you for taking that leap. It can be kind of scary I think – and I think bloggers can get stuck on the “why would anyone pay money for my info” phase.

    And that's an awesome, and tangible, first goal. Good luck to you! :)

  • http://www.babystepstofluency.com/ Fiona Verschoor

    Hmmm…. funny that I already succeeded with my goal… I bought my domain just a little while ago! I guess making tangible goals really do help!

    Once I get set up, man, I can't wait. :D

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