As all we know, having some extra income at the end of the month – for a university student – means a lot.
So what’s better than making a profit with little effort while also helping other students? Here we’ll explain in a few decisive steps, how you can make a bit of money on our website docsity.com. You can find more tips and advice on our blog.
Selling notes on Docsity
A small clarification before we dive in: this advice is applicable for selling online documents of any kind – university, high school, or to prepare for academic competitions. In short, these tips can be useful to all of us, without exception.
The ability to sell self-made material is one of the values that has distinguished Docsity’s community since our launch. Beyond this, the tips in this article will allow you to significantly improve the earnings from your content that you sell on Docsity’s store. Let’s see how…
1 The title speaks for itself!
How many times have you skimmed a newsletter or news website, only reading the headlines, without actually viewing the content or articles? And why should it be any different when searching for study documents?
The title of any document is one of the most important things to draw in potential viewers, as it represents the primary and most essential criterion in choosing to purchase a document.
Clearly, the title alone is not enough to increase your sales and will need to be accompanied by other elements…
2 The description, your faithful ally
As captivating as the title may be, it is not always enough to sell your document. The next place students look to determine a document’s worthiness is in the description, a place where we can add more information about the document’s contents and purposes.
The description of the document must be as exhaustive as possible, specifying, for example, the contents covered, which exam or degree course it applies to, and highlighting any strengths, such as the grade obtained thanks to said content.
The description, together with the title, are in fact the answer to the question, “Why should I choose this content, rather than another?”
Having accurate and clear information in the description could push someone who’s on the fence to choose your document!
3 Handmade: Is it always better?
In addition to the quality and completeness of a document’s contents, we must also emphasize the importance of formatting. That is, it’s crucial to concentrate on the “presentation” of a document.
Remember that on Docsity we can publish handwritten documents, such as the “classic” notes written during class in a paper notebook. Your handwriting and formatting, similar to the title and description, is also a factor in the choice of the document. A document with flawless content might not receive the same sales if it is poorly written or disorganized.
In general, wherever possible, non-personalized and computer-formatted writing is always preferable.
4 Everyone likes completeness
While scrolling through the list of documents for a given topic, we often read: “I skipped this part”, or “the X, Y and Z topics are missing”, or “I skipped the whole first part because the teacher doesn’t ask for it”.
If the document doesn’t present all the topics that users are looking for, then your document’s sales won’t see the surge that you would like. Remember that your document buyers might have a different professor that will include all sections in the exam, even if yours did not.
Would we ever buy pants if the label said “broken zipper” or “buttons missing”? Certainly not.
So why should it be any different for the documents we want to sell?
5 Data protection is essential
We all know that advertising and promotion are the basis of e-commerce. Keeping this in mind, however, we should not sacrifice our anonymity in order to make a profit. The transmission of personal data is a serious matter and not to be taken lightly, including in the sale of our study documents.
Therefore, we recommend avoiding sharing any personal data while selling your documents, such as email addresses or social media accounts. If a document is valid, it will be valid regardless of whether or not a buyer can contact the seller privately.
6 Outline: Make sense of the topics
Having an idea of what we will find in a document, beyond what is indicated by the title and description, is a further motivation to choose certain content over others.
Let’s imagine ourselves looking for a document we need: unconsciously we will be more attracted by well-presented content (title and description), well-organized (with index and topics covered, or in the form of concept maps), well-written (on the computer or with a beautiful handwriting) and complete. Simply put, this is medicine for our study headache!
So let’s remember to use correct formatting to separate the different topics within the document we intend to sell.
7 Be exclusive … it pays!
What happens if an item is only available in a particular store? Everyone interested in the product would head directly to that seller, right?
Well, for documents it’s the same: if the document is not available on any other platform, interested students will only be able to find it for sale on your Docsity profile.
Therefore, exclusivity in this increasingly connected world, plays a central role in your document’s success.
8 From the megaphone to social channels
When was advertising born?
According to scholars, the first form of advertising appeared in the fifteenth century in Paris, by Théophraste Renaudot, founder of the Gazette, a magazine specialized solely in paid advertisements.
Modern advertising as we know today spread in the first half of the 1800s, when young boys on the street corners of New York advertised newspapers for sale at a penny (the so-called “penny press”), through the use of a megaphone. Since then, this is one of the fields in which more innovation has been produced, reaching the current marketing studies that base much of their activities on the creation of increasingly complex and cutting-edge advertising campaigns.
While we don’t expect you to promote your Docsity documents with a megaphone on the street, we do know that promoting a product is always better for sales than simply leaving it available for others to find on their own. Even with your documents, this still holds true.
We recommend trying to promote your content also on your private social networks – in this way you can increase your sales chances and, ultimately, your earnings.
Repetition helps
Our advice here is not limited to a single type of user but can appy to all of us, from high school students to PhD students, when answering the question “How can I sell my notes on Docsity?”
The quality of the content is fundamental but, sometimes, it is not enough on its own. Using our suggestions in this post will allow you to see a noticeable improvement in your earnings.
Before proceeding to sell more documents, here you will find countless other free tips and guides that can help you with personal improvement, study methods, memorization, etc.