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The $120,000 E-Book

Brett Kelly, a self-described “professional geek” who worked as a software
developer, had a busy job and a stressful home life. As a result of $15,000 of
credit card debt and the high cost of Southern California living, Brett and his
wife, Joana, worked opposite schedules to make ends meet. “I’d get home and
trade off with a high-five to Joana as she went to work at a restaurant,” he told
me as we sat at a taco stand in Los Angeles. “The last few months, we were both
tired all the time, the kids were unhappy, and the overall situation wasn’t good.”

For years, Brett had watched from the sidelines as friends and colleagues
started profitable projects and either quit their jobs or established an additional
income stream. Finally, he had an idea of his own: As a power user of Evernote,
the free note-keeping software, Brett noticed that there was no detailed user
manual for people to get the most out of the service.§

Brett spent months carefully documenting every tip and trick he could find
about Evernote, compiling everything with detailed screenshots and tutorials into
a big PDF file. “I obsessed over this thing,” he said, “and I wanted to make sure
I got everything exactly right.” When he sent me a draft of what would become
Evernote Essentials, I was impressed. Many e-book writers pad their products
with superfluous copy, big fonts, and wide margins. Brett’s was the opposite:
The finished product weighed in at more than ninety pages of solid content.
Nevertheless, solid content isn’t everything; you also have to sell something that
people are willing to spend money on. Would they?

Right before the guide went on sale, Brett made a deal with Joana: If he sold
at least $10,000 worth of copies, she would quit her job waiting tables at the
restaurant and stay at home with their two kids full-time. Brett estimated that it
would take months, if not longer, to reach the $10k goal … but just eleven days
after Evernote Essentials went on sale, the PayPal account tipped into five
figures. (Being the geek that he was, Brett promptly took a screenshot on his
iPhone and made it his wallpaper.) Less than twenty-four hours later, Joana put
in her two-week notice at the restaurant. Aside from brief breaks when the kids
were born, this would be the first time she didn’t work in their seven years of
parenthood.

Months later, sales of Evernote Essentials continued to bring in at least $300 a
day, projecting annual revenue of more than $120,000 for something that was
essentially a side project. Interestingly, if the project had been produced as a
print book from a traditional publisher, those numbers could be considered a