Why Every Writer Should Sell One Tiny Product
Even if you don’t like selling… especially then
My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
We’ll be overwhelmed five minutes in.
We look at a blank page, the 12-module outline, the “build a community” advice, and suddenly cleaning the kitchen looks pretty appealing.
Tere’s a simpler path.
Sell one tiny thing.
Not a “build-your-perfect-life framework”. Not a 90-day bootcamp.
Just something small. A cheat sheet. A tool. A mini guide. A PDF. A template. Something manageable.
A weird little thing that solves one problem, sits on Gumroad or Payhip, and sends us a couple of bucks while we’re busy writing on Medium and Substack.
Why tiny products actually work
Tiny products remove two of the biggest creator killers: hesitation and pressure.
When the thing is small, we don’t overthink.
There’s no room to overthink. And small things ship quickly, which is how we get feedback without spiraling into “Does anyone even want this?”.
Also, people like buying small stuff. It feels safe. It feels light. It feels like “I can try this without rearranging my budget.”
Think about the last time you bought something online. You probably didn’t jump straight into a $299 mastermind. I didn’t.
We bought the seven-dollar templates, promising to fix exactly one problem. Or improving one thing.
Small removes risk on both sides.
The psychology behind it
Writers underestimate how much trust even a tiny sale builds.
Someone giving us even $3 does more for the relationship than 40 free blog posts will. Most likely.
It’s proof that our work is useful, not just “liked”. Likes are nice. Sales are commitment.
And once someone has bought one thing, the weird part happens: they’re more likely to buy another.
Kind of the IKEA effect, but for creators.
They’ve invested a little in us, which makes them more open to more.
This is why big creators push tiny things first. They’re not “cute add-ons”. They’re trust builders.
What counts as a tiny product?
Let’s get practical. A tiny product is anything that:
solves one clear problem
can be made quickly
doesn’t require a support desk or seven update cycles
doesn’t trigger our internal “this must be perfect” demon
Some examples:
a checklist we already use
a spreadsheet we built to track something annoying
a mini guide with 10 tips that actually work
a small design template
a snippet of code or automation
a script
a fill-in-the-blank thing
a writing prompt pack
a niche toolkit
a resource list we’ve curated anyway
Basically, something that took us a weekend to create but saves us and someone else a week of headaches.
And yes, these things sell. We’re not trying to scam anyone here. These should be useful things. And those sell.
Someone out there bought a Notion template that does nothing except track how many glasses of water they drink.
Why this matters
We writers don’t have investors. No teams. No budget for Facebook ads. Most of us, anyway.
It’s just us, caffeine, and stubbornness.
Tiny products let us act like a business without pretending to be a corporation.
They give us revenue we can actually build on. A tiny product turning into a medium product turning into a bigger product is how small creators grow on the side.
Medium helps us get readers. Substack helps us keep readers. Tiny products help us monetize readers.
The advantage
Making a tiny product teaches us what people will actually pay for.
Not what we think they will. Not what we hope they will. What they actually open their wallet for.
The moment the first sale hits, we learn more than from any course. We suddenly know:
which problem matters
which angle resonates
which audience is real
what we can expand later
Creators who skip tiny products might spend months building the wrong big product.
We do not have time for that.
But what if it’s “too small”?
Great. Perfect, actually. Small is what we want.
Tiny things can surprise us. One of my top-earning Medium stories was basically me ranting about personal websites. It wasn’t designed, optimized, or engineered to earn anything. It just hit a nerve.
Tiny products work the same way. They hit a nerve without needing to hit perfection.
How to pick your first tiny product
Let’s keep this simple. Ask yourself two questions:
What problem do people keep asking me about?
What small thing have I already solved for myself?
The overlap is your product.
Creators overcomplicate the entire thing because “product” sounds serious. “Helpful little thing someone can buy”. Suddenly, it feels doable.
How to price it
Don’t go crazy.
Somewhere between 5 and 19 dollars is the sweet spot for tiny products.
Cheap enough that people don’t hesitate.
High enough that we don’t resent creating it.
How to ship it fast
The lazy method:
Write the core content first
Make it pretty enough to not be embarrassed
Upload
Add a simple description
Hit publish
Go outside for ten minutes (optional but highly recommended)
Speed matters more than polish, at first. The tiny product is literally meant to be tiny.
What changes once we sell one
Our mindset.
Selling even one micro-product changes how we see ourselves and our small solo business.
Suddenly we’re not “just writing posts”. We’re creators with leverage. And that feeling does more for long-term motivation than any AI pep talk.
It also makes all future products easier. The system is already there. The plan is already there. The revenue is already there, even if it’s just coffee money.
The Bottom Line
Tiny products are the cheapest, easiest way to turn what we know into something someone will pay for.
They lower the stakes, speed up learning, build trust, and give us a simple way to monetize our work without building an online empire from scratch.
And we can ship one this weekend. Not perfect. Just tiny. Perfect comes later.
