The Truth About Passive Income: Why Your $9 PDF Won’t Make You Rich

You’ve probably seen the ads.

“Create a digital guide in 10 minutes. Post it on Etsy. Wake up to $1,000 days!”

No audience? No problem. No copy skills? AI’s got you. No marketing experience? Just go viral, right?

Except… that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Let’s talk about the truth behind passive income and why digital downloads aren’t the shortcut they’re hyped up to be. Spoiler alert: this blog might save you thousands of dollars and months of wasted effort.

What Even Is Passive Income?

Let’s clear something up: passive income is not “make it once and money falls from the sky.”

Passive income is front-loaded active income. You hustle up front—creating the offer, building the funnel, driving the traffic—and THEN you get paid while you sleep.

But that "sleeping money" only happens if your systems, strategy, and visibility game are rock solid.

So unless you’re willing to build the infrastructure behind that pretty little PDF, it’s just sitting there collecting digital dust.

The Myth of “Value” (and Why Your Info Product Isn’t Selling)

Here’s what no one tells you: information isn’t valuable anymore. Thanks to Google and AI, anyone can find answers in 10 seconds flat.

So what are they paying for? Transformation.

Your $9 checklist isn’t selling (anymore)? It's time to ask yourself:

• Does it solve a painful, specific problem?

• Can the buyer clearly understand what will change for them?

• Would they say “I’d buy that!” if they knew the end result?
  

Products that sell consistently help people:

• Save time

• Build confidence

• Get clarity

• Make progress
  

That’s what people are buying. Not “content.” Not templates. Not information they can get for free.

They’re buying results.

Let’s Talk Numbers

Let’s say you want to make $10,000 from a $37 digital product. You’d need to sell 271 copies to make that money.

If your sales page has a 5% conversion rate (which is pretty good!), you need at least 5,420 people to see your sales page.

Now make that a $10 product. You need 1,000 sales. That’s 20,000 page views.

And if you’re trying to build that traffic via ads? Giving you a very generous (and probably unrealistic) $2 per lead, that’s $40,000 in ad spend.

To maybe make $10,000. Hard pass for me folks.

And we haven’t even factored in:

• Your email platform

• Design tools

• Software to deliver the product

• Your time (yes, that counts too!)

  
  

Still sound passive? Or like something you'd want to invest in?

The Cost of Chasing Hacks

Let’s get real: some of the loudest voices in the “digital product = easy money” space?

They’re spending tens of thousands a month to sell you that dream.

I looked up one of these “faceless funnel” brands in Facebook’s Ad Library. They had 250 active ads running at the same time.

Even at Facebook’s minimum $1/day per ad, that’s $7,500/month, but to be more realistic, a lead or sales ad would require at least $5/day per ad. That’s nearly $40,000/month in ad spend.

So if TikToks and PDFs really sell themselves… why are they dropping five figures a month on ads?

Because that “secret” IS the product. And selling you the pipe dream is the entire business model.

What Actually Works?

Here’s the part no one wants to hear:

There is no secret.

No magic funnel.

No $47 foolproof template.

No AI-generated ebook that’s going to turn into a million-dollar brand.

What works?

• Building trust

• Solving real problems

• Delivering transformation

• Showing up again. And again. And again.

  
  

It’s not sexy. But it scales.

5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Selling My First Digital Product

1. Value = Results The more people use it and get wins, the more they’ll recommend and rebuy from you

2. You Can Build as You Go—Just Be Ready to Hustle You can sell before you have a list, but you’ll work harder for every sale (or pay a lot more)

3. Market More Than You Think Once is never enough. Your audience needs to hear about your offer over and over.

4. Cheap Doesn’t Mean Easy Low-ticket offers still need strong messaging and consistent visibility.

5. Revenue Isn’t the Full Story That $20K launch? Ask how much of that they kept. Sustainability matters more than screenshots.

   
   

Thrive in 5

Insight without action is just (more) noise, so here are three things you can do in five minutes or less:

1. Run the Numbers Take your product price and income goal. How many units do you need to sell?

2. Check the Traffic If you don't already have your own data, use average conversion rates to estimate how many visitors you need. Reality check: it’s probably more than you thought.

3. Hit Unsubscribe If your inbox is filled with people trying to sell you magic beans, pick one and hit unsubscribe. Yes, right now, I'll wait.
   

Ready to Get Strategic?

You don’t need another funnel hack. You need a real strategy.

If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and finally build a business that works—without sacrificing your sanity—check out The Shortcut.

It’s my done-with-you service that simplifies your operations, automates the chaos, and sets you up to scale with strategy.

And if you're not quite ready for that? Cool. Get on my list. I’ll send you weekly honest, strategy-first insights that will actually move your business forward.