This is an awesome story. It’s so awesome, I actually listened to the podcast. And you can, too. Cassidy Tuttle, we learn, built a six-figure online business based on succulent plants. No way!
Humble beginnings
Like most businesses, this one too took some time build. It wasn’t six-figures from the get-go. Cassidy Tuttle is a trained photographer and she started her succulents blog after she noticed that plants got more hits than her photography.
Succulents are plants that store water and tolerate droughts. And they are extremely popular. For now, most of the plants Tuttle writes about are indoor specimens. And as it turns out there is demand for information about them.
According to Tuttle, the one key issue people struggle with is watering so check out her blog post on this topic. Visit succulents and sunshine.
Products
Tuttle studied everything she could about succulents. Then she went on to create her own experiments which generated a lot of original content for her blog posts and e-books. Most of the discussion centers on soil, watering and propagating.
Most of the early e-books run 30-40 pages and sell for $10US on her website. They all include beautiful photography which is her one “unfair advantage”. Incidentally, Tuttle considers most gardening blogs to be unattractive because the photographs they use aren’t spectacular. Now you know.
Revenue
Aside from e-books Tuttle also turned to affiliate marketing and banner ads to bring in revenue. She also found out that posting on Pinterest brought in a lot of traffic. That’s another great hint.
Then publishers came calling. But there was a problem. To publish with traditional publishers Tuttle wouldn’t be able to sell her e-books at the same time. So she rejected the offers. And then the publishers of Idiot guides came calling with a nice advance and no strings attached. She jumped on it and this project was a great learning experience for her.
Remember, you can self-publish e-books and paperbacks with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing if nobody comes knocking on your door.
After six-figures
So what do you do after you hit six-figure revenues? Well, Tuttle is planning to write about cold-hardy succulents. This would be a shift towards the outdoors. And she’s planning to release more e-books.
I absolutely love this story. It inspires me to work even harder on growing this blog. Ideally readers will find some useful information here and eventually great products. For now, my e-books are only available on Amazon Kindle. But stay tuned, changes and upgrades are coming to the West Coast Landscape Professional blog. Thank you for visiting. And please spread the word.
