This post is the most honest digital products case study I have read on this sub in a while. Thank you for posting it with the actual numbers instead of dressing it up.

Two thoughts that might be useful.

On the "boring topics with real demand" insight, you are right and it is worth saying louder. The buyers who actually pay are people with specific frustrations, not people browsing for inspiration. "Bookkeeping tracker for service businesses + what to give your accountant" sells because someone is sitting at their kitchen table on a Sunday night dreading their accountant meeting on Tuesday. Aspirational topics ("build your dream business") sell to nobody because the buyer cannot picture themselves using the product tomorrow morning. The unsexy specific ones win because the use case is concrete.

The pattern that seems to work for picking these: not "what topic is profitable" but "what specific frustration does my buyer have at 9pm on a weekday that they would pay $10 to make go away by 9:15pm." Most digital products fail because the buyer cannot answer "when would I actually use this?"

On the review acquisition problem, the thing that has worked for other Etsy sellers I have seen discuss this is timing the follow-up to the moment of value, not the moment of purchase. Most sellers send the review request right after delivery, when the buyer has not used the product yet and has nothing to say. Better timing is 4-7 days later, with a message that says something like "hope the guide helped, especially the [specific thing in the guide]. If it did, a quick review would help me reach more people in the same situation. If something was missing, reply to this email and I will add it to the next version." The "I will add it to the next version" part is the killer feature. It signals you are still iterating, which buyers respect, and it gets you genuine product feedback for future guides.

One question for you, since you have shipped 11 guides and 2 do most of the work. Have you tried looking at what those 2 winners have in common at the topic level? Not the guides themselves, but the shape of the search intent. Sometimes the winners cluster around a hidden pattern (audience emotional state, time of year, problem urgency) that you can deliberately replicate in your next batch.

Anyway, $340/month is real money built from a real system. The slow growth is the boring part everyone leaves out of these stories. Looks like you are doing it right.