I am an author, trying to self-publish and whatnot. After reading this post I almost bought the book.
Then I didn't. Because of this pricing model.
I wanted to buy the book. The value preposition is awesome and it is exactly the kind of content I need right now. The first option is super expensive and includes a bunch of things I don't care about. I want the book, not some videos I'll never watch, not a 90 day launch plan I'll never use. I want to read your book Nathan Barry.
The second option is still pretty damn expensive, and it's still shoving a bunch of things I don't want down my throat. I want the book.
Last option. $30, okay that's pretty reasonable. I will even swallow the patronisingly added one month subscription to ConvertKit, whatever that is. I just wanted the book and this option has the least crap with it.
Great.
Oh, for $29 I only get a PDF ... but I wanted a book. For that much money I really expected at least a paperback, possibly a hardcover.
I'm sorry Nathan Barry, I would love to read your book, heck, I want to read your book. But none of your pricing options make any sense for me.
PS: I passionately dislike watching videos and find it almost impossible to learn from them. I mean really learn, not just feel like I've learned.
"As a vegetarian, I don't like how you priced your hotdogs" should not weigh too heavily on any of the hotdog makers in the room. This comes up quite a bit here, for example when people who do not own businesses opine that $200 a month for a Business plan of SaasFoo shocks the conscience.
After some thought, I realized what was going on in my thought process. The problem isn't the price, the problem is the feeling that somebody is trying desperately to add bells and whistles to their thing to inflate the price.
Then I saw that there's no book book with the $30 option and it was just the final nail in the coffin. I think if that was the only option, or it was listed first, I would buy it. Especially if there was no patronizing "one month of something" and copy that tells me I am a bad person for not wanting the bells and whistles.
But here's the thing, my feedback reads: "As your target market[1], I don't like what you're selling me".
[1] assuming the target market are people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book
But here's the thing, my feedback reads: "As your target market[1], I don't like what you're selling me". [1] assuming the target market are people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book
No. The target market is "people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book - who are willing to buy a ebook at price point $X".
The market of folk who would buy the book at $10 is probably larger - but I guarantee it's not 10 x larger.
And if you're not going to get at least $30 value from the book - it doesn't sound like you're the market.
(Also - as an aside - I get the impression that you think that paper is the largest cost of a paper book. That for $30 price point paper would be expected... The thing is that the paper bit is the cheapest part of a book. On a normal bookshop book it's about 10% of the money you pay.)
You might also be falling victim to what I call the "Cialdini effect."
After I read his Influence book I couldn't have a normal interaction with sales people for a long time, since every time I'd recognise the techniques I would feel manipulated and angry.
It wasn't until a few years later that I actually could be impressed with the finesse of their execution while evaluating the morals of their actions separately.
The potential problem with having multiple tiers of products is that people have naturally formed negative reactions to up-selling from previous bad experiences with other vendors. Which then interacts with preconceived notions of what a self-published book might be like.
Oops, I meant to upvote you, but I think I accidentally downvoted you. I think the distinction from what patio11 is talking about here is important — not all complaints about pricing structures boil down to "this is too expensive."
Maybe it's just different learning styles, but I think most folks prefer video to text.
Like you, I can't stand it - I jump straight to a transcript or other text to consume the information: I read and understand WAY faster than people talk (or I can listen).
That said, I hate physical books, and am much happier with a PDF (or better, an actual ebook format) for the full price of a regular, physical book. I'm paying for the content, not the dead tree components.
I'm in the same boat as both of you regarding taking little away from video, but while I see this statement a lot, my limited experience doesn't seem to match (of course, neither of these things indicates either position is correct in any meaningful way). Is there a reason you believe this, or is it just other people you've met/spoken with who have that preference?
In my experience I read faster than I listen and more importantly, I pay more attention. Can't focus on video instructions for the life of me.
A two-way conversation or even a live person talking work well enough. But if I want to understand something in great detail and be sure that I get it, I'm going to need text.
I can only add another anecdotal data point, but my wife and I always turn on closed-captioning when watching TV or a movie. This started when we had children, who can tend to make noise at inconvenient times. We're now so used to it, that we are both annoyed when we try to watch something at a friends house without CC.
I found everyone has a different style, that's why I include all the options as separate packages. Those who love video can buy that, but if you don't like it you can get just the book for less money. Also, transcripts are coming for all the interviews. 6 are done, the other 5 should be ready this week.
The only thing I haven't done yet is print books. Maybe eventually.
I just bought your book. I'm hoping it can help with marketing my existing books, and selling them directly online. I currently sell on amazon.
If you're interested in print, it's actually very easy. I used Aaron Shepard's books to get a rough idea of how things worked, and also found a freelancer who showed me the ropes. His 'Plan B' is great advice for how to get amazon to discount your book without reducing your royalties.
If you have any questions about POD, I'd be happy to help. My email's in my profile.
I can only assume that either you've been unlucky, or I've been lucky. Most of the videos I've purchased have been excellent and high quality. The videos are generally short and to the point. 5-10 minutes covering a specific topic. This also means I can move at my pace. Couple that with speeding up the video to get through certain parts faster, it's an wonderful choice.
Be careful you aren't looking at presentations in video format as an example of video for learning. It's not.
> Maybe it's just different learning styles, but I think most folks prefer video to text.
What I've found--it's entirely puzzling to me--the new generation does indeed.
I teach kids computer stuff and one of them (14) is experimenting with writing minecraft mods in Java. He seriously prefers watching a YouTube screencast of somebody narrating what he's doing in the Eclipse IDE over reading the exact same info on the minecraft modding wiki. There's no editing, direction, it's just a screencast of an IDE. It's tedious because when he gets stuck I have to seek through the video where he went wrong, a lot more effort than a quick scroll through a long wiki page. He knows this, and tries to work off text tutorials a bit more, but to me the case is more than clear: the current generation of young hackers prefers screencasts (and I really cannot fathom why, but I take it as a lesson in becoming an old fart).
I'm not a teacher in a school, they come here because they want to learn stuff and do things. There's also other activities like electronics, woodworking, metal, etc. (but I'm just at the computers). It's pretty much like a hackerspace for kids :) So I don't need to test them.
That said, yes he's definitely not just blindly following the steps in the screencasts but really trying to make his own thing and figure shit out. He also does other stuff (had a go at Unity--unfortunately I didn't have enough time to learn it myself first). A lot of the kids here actually have a bit of a resistance against just blindly following set instructions without adding their own ideas to it :) Often I have to hold them back a bit--just do this simple exercise first, yes just exactly like that, it'll give you some insights on the basics and after that you can have a go at trying to work out your grand idea (I word it differently of course, but that's the gist).
And yeah he may not understand all of what's going on when going through the decompile - run script - modify - repackage steps in minecraft, but he does learn a lot. There's no real set goals, if he learns that "whatever a computer is supposed to do, I can alter it and make it do my own wishes" at the very least, just learning about the possibilities (aka more than a microwave oven), it'll plant the seeds of a hacker-spirit :) (though in this particular example I can assure you it goes further than that)
And we'll see where it goes from there. If I notice they just learned one trick and go through the same motions every time I'll try to put them on a more challenging track. Although even in that case, say a kid is making a game (we use GameMaker) and after having struggled through a basic gameplay engine they are comfortable with simply creation zillions of levels, I don't necessarily stop them, as long as they're being creative. It doesn't have to be programming after all, if that is not their talent, maybe they can think up a great storyline, or draw cool graphics. Also it turns out that most modern games do in fact have zillions of levels, and when I see them ordering them into "world 1", "world 2", they must be up to something. That example is about a bunch of 8 year old btw, so I don't expect hardcore hacking/programming yet (but they're clever!), one of these 8 year olds was so super-proud of the game he had been working at for a while, "This game is getting really really AWESOME"--that can't be wrong :)
I often record the audio off a video (if I can't directly download it) and listen to it at 300% speed when I'm doing other activities that don't require mental focus.
Buy the PDF and print it yourself. I do this all the time. I prefer printed material when I'm going to study something seriously.
Printing it yourself is actually quite inexpensive -- provided that you have a laser printer. (The economics of an ink-jet printer for long documents is horrible.)
Let's do the math:
The OP says his book is a 125-page PDF. My double-sided laser printer will use just 63 sheets of paper. I can buy high-quality 22-pound paper for $10, including tax, for a 500-sheet package. Therefore, paper will cost 63/500 * $10 = $1.26.
The cost of my laser printer is one-time sunk cost, and I need a laser printer for other reasons than printing e-books, so I'll ignore the laser printer's cost (besides, it's not even that expensive).
I can refill a 6000-sheet toner cartridge (black only) for $75 including tax. Thus, toner to print the 125-page PDF will cost 125/6000 * $75 = $1.56.
Total cost to print the PDF yourself: $1.26 + $1.56 = $2.82.
So unless you really care about the binding, or the PDF is in color (and needs the colors), then printing it yourself is really quite cheap.
Increases barrier to his "I want a paperback" as a simplistic counterpoint. Your sunk cost of "I need a laser printer for other reasons" does not reflect the issue of "I want a paperback," not that "I want a paperback, but I'll settle for buying and printing it myself."
If you're serious about publishing, and are actually going to make the commitment to yourself to publish your eBook idea then $29 is peanuts. If reading this book helps you sell 3 more copies (assuming $10 per eBook) you already made your money back. So it's not a print book, I get that, I prefer to read paper as well. You do get all the information, and it's coming from someone who has actually done it, 3x over. If you were doing a startup and a founder who had 3 successful startups opened the kimono for $29 would you still think it was too much ?
We have to realize that no product is built for everyone. Hey, Android fans dislike the iPhone, but there's nothing Apple can do about it. The reason that you dislike the pricing model is because there is not already enough trust being built between you and the author for you to believe the values Nathan can provide. Yes you are intrigued by the headline and promise at the top of the landing page. But you are also internalizing to find reasons not to buy because you don't trust the author yet. Like Apple, there is nothing Nathan can do about it. Maybe he shouldn't release anything until he gets trust from everyone on the planet?
There is nothing wrong not to buy the product. If I just knew Nathan for the first time with Authority, I probably won't buy it either. But I've followed him for some time and trust he can deliver, so I bought the complete package without much hesitation.
Several people seem to be under the impression that the actually information in books isn't worth very much, and unfortunately, I think we have publishers to blame for that. Books, as they are priced on Amazon for example, are not priced to make the author any profit. They are priced to benefit the publisher. The vast, vast majority of that low price goes towards the publishers ethereal and rarely specified "costs" (plus, they absorb about 80-90% of the profits typically). They can price things at such a low price because they make up for it in volume. Their costs actually go way down as volume goes up. Printing is much cheaper, especially if they're sending a steady stream of work to a particular printer. Editing costs don't scale linearly in most agencies. Support costs definitely don't scale linearly. So they can spread their costs around to several different projects and still make a boatload of money.
Independent authors, who are trying to actually make somewhat of a living off of their works, do not have such luxuries. They are the editing department. They are the typesetting department. They are their support department. They're doing all these things with no benefits of economies of scale whatsoever. So it costs more. This is also why academic presses tend to cost more, too, because they're operating on a much smaller scale.
I can appreciate the desire for a physical book. I, too, prefer dead trees. Some of my own readers prefer it too (and for some reason think for $12 [or less], they'll get it), but in reality you have to realize that in paying $39 or $69 for that PDF, you're paying for a lot more hours of work from one person, costs that aren't spread across an entire business like a publisher, and that money is going directly to the author who is providing the product, which means it's probably (not always) going to be of a higher quality and a better purchasing experience (i.e., you could likely e-mail Nathan with a question and get a reasonable response).
Also, the scale of marketing for an independent author is much smaller. It's simply impossible to negotiate with the bigger players for shelf space, and it's not profitable to invest in tons of streams of marketing typically. So, you're left to target the niches you're writing for the best you can and hope it works out in your favor. I've had fabulous successes ($50k+++) and horrible flops (< $1,000 for a lot of work). A lot of that is because it's difficult to saturate the general market and get them interested in your work. Very rarely will someone come over your book and say "Oh hey I've heard about Rails [or whatever]. I'll buy that." because most people aren't browsing the Internet using Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky." So for most indie authors who aren't selling like Nathan, the higher price is needed to justify the investment of effort into the book.
So, that wall of text is to say: please think about the person behind the book and the effort they're putting into it when you look at the price tag. Obviously, they want to make money. They're not pricing it to give it away. But likewise, they're also [probably] trying to feed a family and keep writing more books.
I would love to pay $29 for the content in this book. No problem whatsoever, I even have the money.
But I expect a book for that sort of money. I'll gladly pay shipping costs on top of that price. On demand printing costs $4 per copy, I just checked.
In fact, if there was just a $29 option without all the other options, I might actually have bought just a PDF. But his copy actually tries to make me feel bad for just wanting the book and none of the other stuff. Perhaps that is really what rubbed me the wrong way the most. The further down that page I was scrolling, the farther away I was getting from a decision to buy.
Maybe I'm just weird.
(and yes, I get it, I'm a self-publisher author too, lots of time, low prices, tiny profit margins ... but 30 bucks is still a lot for a PDF)
It seems like an irrational objection, but I doubt it's uncommon. Can't say if it's a common enough objection to be a problem for Nathan.
I felt the same, actually. I find I absorb information better from paper.
But I know this is more a psychological than real hurdle. I did buy the PDF, as I'm an author and figure it's got to be worth at least $29 to me.
But I almost didn't, for the same reason. Some may have hesitated the wrong way. I only bought because I saw it a second time here on HN and reconsidered.
I probably would have preferred some kind of '$40, get both the book and pdf' option.
Of course, that adds complexity to the checkout process, so any prospective author has to figure out what segment of their market is like me and the grandparent.
> So you determine value based on mediums (PDFs) instead of the outcome (learning how to self publish)?
Yes. Just like I prefer paying for Spotify instead of CD's. Just like I would rather pay for Netflix than cable. And so on. Medium matters in value perception.
I would love to pay $29 for the content in this book. No problem whatsoever, I even have the money.
There's a huge disconnect between the above statement, and the below statement:
But I expect a book for that sort of money.
You claim to be willing to pay $29 for the content, and then immediately say that you expect a physical book! If you truly would love to pay $29 for the content, then by all means go do it, and quit complaining about the lack of carbon included in the product.
Yes. Because I read 90% of the books I buy cover to cover and I forget about 90% of ebooks after reading a few pages.
I don't want to pay $30 for something I won't read. A physical book is there, it begs to be read. Even if I put it away for months on end, I will still eventually read it. Ebooks ... eh, I have tens if not hundreds on my ipad that I've never gotten past the first ten pages.
Agreed. I can't get past those two contradictory statements. Even the assertion that the pricing model is at fault seems odd. The pricing model has nothing to do with it. It's merely the lack of a specific product: a physical book.
I have precisely the opposite attitude. If I pay for a book, it better damn well be an ebook without DRM. I can't be asked to read paper books anymore, I'll just end up reading one of my ebooks instead.
#1 I expect to be able to read extensive excerpts for free. Table of contents is not enough, because I want to know how that one section is more than a few paragraphs.
#2 I buy the ebook and start reading it. If it isn't Kindle it must be DRM free.
#3 If I finish the ebook, and I find myself continually referencing back to it I buy the print version.
#4 If I think the book is really good, I'll buy anywhere from 1 - 10 more copies to give as presents. Doesn't happen often.
I don't want a print book taking up space unless it is collectible or for reference.
This is actually valuable and useful feedback for any information product authors out there (which includes me, sometimes).
Some people just want a physical thing. It might be irrational to want a physical thing, but if not getting a physical thing is holding them back from giving you money, it doesn't really matter how irrational you think they are.
I've heard this in other venues too, usually accompanied by "so I started offering one, and I made a startling amount more money".
Question, Swizec - would you pay $39 for a physical copy of the book? That would cover printing costs and (just about) the additional labour.
(Of course, it's also a valid decision on the part of the business owner to say "well, I don't want to provide a physical thing: it's too much hassle". Maximising profit is not always the ideal route.)
So you say the book actually contains information you need right now (as an author trying to publish yourself) but you decided not to pay 30$ just because its not a paperback? seriously? Don't you think there is a big chance you will be able to sell a bit more of your own books after you read this one? Who cares if its a dead tree version? (BTW, I stopped paying for dead trees, I only ever buy ebooks for the last several years)
What do you consider big? $4 is a loss of 13.8% of the sales price. If you assume he already has some costs (his time to write the book is quite valuable), the loss in profit is even more.
A 13.8% loss in profit would sink many businesses.
Comments
I am an author, trying to self-publish and whatnot. After reading this post I almost bought the book.
Then I didn't. Because of this pricing model.
I wanted to buy the book. The value preposition is awesome and it is exactly the kind of content I need right now. The first option is super expensive and includes a bunch of things I don't care about. I want the book, not some videos I'll never watch, not a 90 day launch plan I'll never use. I want to read your book Nathan Barry.
The second option is still pretty damn expensive, and it's still shoving a bunch of things I don't want down my throat. I want the book.
Last option. $30, okay that's pretty reasonable. I will even swallow the patronisingly added one month subscription to ConvertKit, whatever that is. I just wanted the book and this option has the least crap with it.
Great.
Oh, for $29 I only get a PDF ... but I wanted a book. For that much money I really expected at least a paperback, possibly a hardcover.
I'm sorry Nathan Barry, I would love to read your book, heck, I want to read your book. But none of your pricing options make any sense for me.
PS: I passionately dislike watching videos and find it almost impossible to learn from them. I mean really learn, not just feel like I've learned.
"As a vegetarian, I don't like how you priced your hotdogs" should not weigh too heavily on any of the hotdog makers in the room. This comes up quite a bit here, for example when people who do not own businesses opine that $200 a month for a Business plan of SaasFoo shocks the conscience.
After some thought, I realized what was going on in my thought process. The problem isn't the price, the problem is the feeling that somebody is trying desperately to add bells and whistles to their thing to inflate the price.
Then I saw that there's no book book with the $30 option and it was just the final nail in the coffin. I think if that was the only option, or it was listed first, I would buy it. Especially if there was no patronizing "one month of something" and copy that tells me I am a bad person for not wanting the bells and whistles.
But here's the thing, my feedback reads: "As your target market[1], I don't like what you're selling me".
[1] assuming the target market are people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book
But here's the thing, my feedback reads: "As your target market[1], I don't like what you're selling me". [1] assuming the target market are people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book
No. The target market is "people in the process of writing and publishing a self-published (e)book - who are willing to buy a ebook at price point $X".
The market of folk who would buy the book at $10 is probably larger - but I guarantee it's not 10 x larger.
And if you're not going to get at least $30 value from the book - it doesn't sound like you're the market.
(Also - as an aside - I get the impression that you think that paper is the largest cost of a paper book. That for $30 price point paper would be expected... The thing is that the paper bit is the cheapest part of a book. On a normal bookshop book it's about 10% of the money you pay.)
However small percentage of the costs paper is for book it is very large percentage of the value (at least for a percentage of the customers).
You might also be falling victim to what I call the "Cialdini effect."
After I read his Influence book I couldn't have a normal interaction with sales people for a long time, since every time I'd recognise the techniques I would feel manipulated and angry.
It wasn't until a few years later that I actually could be impressed with the finesse of their execution while evaluating the morals of their actions separately.
The potential problem with having multiple tiers of products is that people have naturally formed negative reactions to up-selling from previous bad experiences with other vendors. Which then interacts with preconceived notions of what a self-published book might be like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upselling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_%28business%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_switch
Oops, I meant to upvote you, but I think I accidentally downvoted you. I think the distinction from what patio11 is talking about here is important — not all complaints about pricing structures boil down to "this is too expensive."
Maybe it's just different learning styles, but I think most folks prefer video to text.
Like you, I can't stand it - I jump straight to a transcript or other text to consume the information: I read and understand WAY faster than people talk (or I can listen).
That said, I hate physical books, and am much happier with a PDF (or better, an actual ebook format) for the full price of a regular, physical book. I'm paying for the content, not the dead tree components.
...I think most folks prefer video to text.
I'm in the same boat as both of you regarding taking little away from video, but while I see this statement a lot, my limited experience doesn't seem to match (of course, neither of these things indicates either position is correct in any meaningful way). Is there a reason you believe this, or is it just other people you've met/spoken with who have that preference?
In my experience I read faster than I listen and more importantly, I pay more attention. Can't focus on video instructions for the life of me.
A two-way conversation or even a live person talking work well enough. But if I want to understand something in great detail and be sure that I get it, I'm going to need text.
I can only add another anecdotal data point, but my wife and I always turn on closed-captioning when watching TV or a movie. This started when we had children, who can tend to make noise at inconvenient times. We're now so used to it, that we are both annoyed when we try to watch something at a friends house without CC.
I found everyone has a different style, that's why I include all the options as separate packages. Those who love video can buy that, but if you don't like it you can get just the book for less money. Also, transcripts are coming for all the interviews. 6 are done, the other 5 should be ready this week.
The only thing I haven't done yet is print books. Maybe eventually.
I just bought your book. I'm hoping it can help with marketing my existing books, and selling them directly online. I currently sell on amazon.
If you're interested in print, it's actually very easy. I used Aaron Shepard's books to get a rough idea of how things worked, and also found a freelancer who showed me the ropes. His 'Plan B' is great advice for how to get amazon to discount your book without reducing your royalties.
If you have any questions about POD, I'd be happy to help. My email's in my profile.
Most video is badly produced for learning. It meanders slowly and doesn't have onscreen links to the different sections of the video.
I can only assume that either you've been unlucky, or I've been lucky. Most of the videos I've purchased have been excellent and high quality. The videos are generally short and to the point. 5-10 minutes covering a specific topic. This also means I can move at my pace. Couple that with speeding up the video to get through certain parts faster, it's an wonderful choice.
Be careful you aren't looking at presentations in video format as an example of video for learning. It's not.
> Maybe it's just different learning styles, but I think most folks prefer video to text.
What I've found--it's entirely puzzling to me--the new generation does indeed.
I teach kids computer stuff and one of them (14) is experimenting with writing minecraft mods in Java. He seriously prefers watching a YouTube screencast of somebody narrating what he's doing in the Eclipse IDE over reading the exact same info on the minecraft modding wiki. There's no editing, direction, it's just a screencast of an IDE. It's tedious because when he gets stuck I have to seek through the video where he went wrong, a lot more effort than a quick scroll through a long wiki page. He knows this, and tries to work off text tutorials a bit more, but to me the case is more than clear: the current generation of young hackers prefers screencasts (and I really cannot fathom why, but I take it as a lesson in becoming an old fart).
I am curious about what you think-- is that kid really learning to solve for a class of exercises or training his muscle memory for a use case?
When you test them do they achieve the same outcome you would expect from a text?
I'm not a teacher in a school, they come here because they want to learn stuff and do things. There's also other activities like electronics, woodworking, metal, etc. (but I'm just at the computers). It's pretty much like a hackerspace for kids :) So I don't need to test them.
That said, yes he's definitely not just blindly following the steps in the screencasts but really trying to make his own thing and figure shit out. He also does other stuff (had a go at Unity--unfortunately I didn't have enough time to learn it myself first). A lot of the kids here actually have a bit of a resistance against just blindly following set instructions without adding their own ideas to it :) Often I have to hold them back a bit--just do this simple exercise first, yes just exactly like that, it'll give you some insights on the basics and after that you can have a go at trying to work out your grand idea (I word it differently of course, but that's the gist).
And yeah he may not understand all of what's going on when going through the decompile - run script - modify - repackage steps in minecraft, but he does learn a lot. There's no real set goals, if he learns that "whatever a computer is supposed to do, I can alter it and make it do my own wishes" at the very least, just learning about the possibilities (aka more than a microwave oven), it'll plant the seeds of a hacker-spirit :) (though in this particular example I can assure you it goes further than that)
And we'll see where it goes from there. If I notice they just learned one trick and go through the same motions every time I'll try to put them on a more challenging track. Although even in that case, say a kid is making a game (we use GameMaker) and after having struggled through a basic gameplay engine they are comfortable with simply creation zillions of levels, I don't necessarily stop them, as long as they're being creative. It doesn't have to be programming after all, if that is not their talent, maybe they can think up a great storyline, or draw cool graphics. Also it turns out that most modern games do in fact have zillions of levels, and when I see them ordering them into "world 1", "world 2", they must be up to something. That example is about a bunch of 8 year old btw, so I don't expect hardcore hacking/programming yet (but they're clever!), one of these 8 year olds was so super-proud of the game he had been working at for a while, "This game is getting really really AWESOME"--that can't be wrong :)
I agree.
I often record the audio off a video (if I can't directly download it) and listen to it at 300% speed when I'm doing other activities that don't require mental focus.
Buy the PDF and print it yourself. I do this all the time. I prefer printed material when I'm going to study something seriously.
Printing it yourself is actually quite inexpensive -- provided that you have a laser printer. (The economics of an ink-jet printer for long documents is horrible.)
Let's do the math:
The OP says his book is a 125-page PDF. My double-sided laser printer will use just 63 sheets of paper. I can buy high-quality 22-pound paper for $10, including tax, for a 500-sheet package. Therefore, paper will cost 63/500 * $10 = $1.26.
The cost of my laser printer is one-time sunk cost, and I need a laser printer for other reasons than printing e-books, so I'll ignore the laser printer's cost (besides, it's not even that expensive).
I can refill a 6000-sheet toner cartridge (black only) for $75 including tax. Thus, toner to print the 125-page PDF will cost 125/6000 * $75 = $1.56.
Total cost to print the PDF yourself: $1.26 + $1.56 = $2.82.
So unless you really care about the binding, or the PDF is in color (and needs the colors), then printing it yourself is really quite cheap.
Increases barrier to his "I want a paperback" as a simplistic counterpoint. Your sunk cost of "I need a laser printer for other reasons" does not reflect the issue of "I want a paperback," not that "I want a paperback, but I'll settle for buying and printing it myself."
If you're serious about publishing, and are actually going to make the commitment to yourself to publish your eBook idea then $29 is peanuts. If reading this book helps you sell 3 more copies (assuming $10 per eBook) you already made your money back. So it's not a print book, I get that, I prefer to read paper as well. You do get all the information, and it's coming from someone who has actually done it, 3x over. If you were doing a startup and a founder who had 3 successful startups opened the kimono for $29 would you still think it was too much ?
We have to realize that no product is built for everyone. Hey, Android fans dislike the iPhone, but there's nothing Apple can do about it. The reason that you dislike the pricing model is because there is not already enough trust being built between you and the author for you to believe the values Nathan can provide. Yes you are intrigued by the headline and promise at the top of the landing page. But you are also internalizing to find reasons not to buy because you don't trust the author yet. Like Apple, there is nothing Nathan can do about it. Maybe he shouldn't release anything until he gets trust from everyone on the planet?
There is nothing wrong not to buy the product. If I just knew Nathan for the first time with Authority, I probably won't buy it either. But I've followed him for some time and trust he can deliver, so I bought the complete package without much hesitation.
Android fans dislike the iPhone
So, the book appeals to people who think like this?
Several people seem to be under the impression that the actually information in books isn't worth very much, and unfortunately, I think we have publishers to blame for that. Books, as they are priced on Amazon for example, are not priced to make the author any profit. They are priced to benefit the publisher. The vast, vast majority of that low price goes towards the publishers ethereal and rarely specified "costs" (plus, they absorb about 80-90% of the profits typically). They can price things at such a low price because they make up for it in volume. Their costs actually go way down as volume goes up. Printing is much cheaper, especially if they're sending a steady stream of work to a particular printer. Editing costs don't scale linearly in most agencies. Support costs definitely don't scale linearly. So they can spread their costs around to several different projects and still make a boatload of money.
Independent authors, who are trying to actually make somewhat of a living off of their works, do not have such luxuries. They are the editing department. They are the typesetting department. They are their support department. They're doing all these things with no benefits of economies of scale whatsoever. So it costs more. This is also why academic presses tend to cost more, too, because they're operating on a much smaller scale.
I can appreciate the desire for a physical book. I, too, prefer dead trees. Some of my own readers prefer it too (and for some reason think for $12 [or less], they'll get it), but in reality you have to realize that in paying $39 or $69 for that PDF, you're paying for a lot more hours of work from one person, costs that aren't spread across an entire business like a publisher, and that money is going directly to the author who is providing the product, which means it's probably (not always) going to be of a higher quality and a better purchasing experience (i.e., you could likely e-mail Nathan with a question and get a reasonable response).
Also, the scale of marketing for an independent author is much smaller. It's simply impossible to negotiate with the bigger players for shelf space, and it's not profitable to invest in tons of streams of marketing typically. So, you're left to target the niches you're writing for the best you can and hope it works out in your favor. I've had fabulous successes ($50k+++) and horrible flops (< $1,000 for a lot of work). A lot of that is because it's difficult to saturate the general market and get them interested in your work. Very rarely will someone come over your book and say "Oh hey I've heard about Rails [or whatever]. I'll buy that." because most people aren't browsing the Internet using Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky." So for most indie authors who aren't selling like Nathan, the higher price is needed to justify the investment of effort into the book.
So, that wall of text is to say: please think about the person behind the book and the effort they're putting into it when you look at the price tag. Obviously, they want to make money. They're not pricing it to give it away. But likewise, they're also [probably] trying to feed a family and keep writing more books.
I would love to pay $29 for the content in this book. No problem whatsoever, I even have the money.
But I expect a book for that sort of money. I'll gladly pay shipping costs on top of that price. On demand printing costs $4 per copy, I just checked.
In fact, if there was just a $29 option without all the other options, I might actually have bought just a PDF. But his copy actually tries to make me feel bad for just wanting the book and none of the other stuff. Perhaps that is really what rubbed me the wrong way the most. The further down that page I was scrolling, the farther away I was getting from a decision to buy.
Maybe I'm just weird.
(and yes, I get it, I'm a self-publisher author too, lots of time, low prices, tiny profit margins ... but 30 bucks is still a lot for a PDF)
But I expect a book for that sort of money. I'll gladly pay shipping costs on top of that price. On demand printing costs $4 per copy, I just checked.
Buy it, upload the PDF to an on demand printer, send yourself a copy? :-)
So you determine value based on mediums (PDFs) instead of the outcome (learning how to self publish)?
I don't think anyone who reads Nathan's book and ends up doing something because of it is going to bemoan the format they read it on.
It seems like an irrational objection, but I doubt it's uncommon. Can't say if it's a common enough objection to be a problem for Nathan.
I felt the same, actually. I find I absorb information better from paper.
But I know this is more a psychological than real hurdle. I did buy the PDF, as I'm an author and figure it's got to be worth at least $29 to me.
But I almost didn't, for the same reason. Some may have hesitated the wrong way. I only bought because I saw it a second time here on HN and reconsidered.
I probably would have preferred some kind of '$40, get both the book and pdf' option.
Of course, that adds complexity to the checkout process, so any prospective author has to figure out what segment of their market is like me and the grandparent.
> So you determine value based on mediums (PDFs) instead of the outcome (learning how to self publish)?
Yes. Just like I prefer paying for Spotify instead of CD's. Just like I would rather pay for Netflix than cable. And so on. Medium matters in value perception.
It's possible you're in the minority.
It's possible. But it's very unlikely. I'm yet to meet a person that don't think this way.
I would love to pay $29 for the content in this book. No problem whatsoever, I even have the money.
There's a huge disconnect between the above statement, and the below statement:
But I expect a book for that sort of money.
You claim to be willing to pay $29 for the content, and then immediately say that you expect a physical book! If you truly would love to pay $29 for the content, then by all means go do it, and quit complaining about the lack of carbon included in the product.
Yes. Because I read 90% of the books I buy cover to cover and I forget about 90% of ebooks after reading a few pages.
I don't want to pay $30 for something I won't read. A physical book is there, it begs to be read. Even if I put it away for months on end, I will still eventually read it. Ebooks ... eh, I have tens if not hundreds on my ipad that I've never gotten past the first ten pages.
After all, Nathan's book is about ebook publishing. Wouldn't it be weird if it comes in paperback?
Yes.
Yes, what? What are you replying to? I didn't ask a question.
You made an assertion with enthusiasm. He said yes because he was agreeing with your '!'
If you read it out loud it sounds perfectly natural.
Agreed. I can't get past those two contradictory statements. Even the assertion that the pricing model is at fault seems odd. The pricing model has nothing to do with it. It's merely the lack of a specific product: a physical book.
I have precisely the opposite attitude. If I pay for a book, it better damn well be an ebook without DRM. I can't be asked to read paper books anymore, I'll just end up reading one of my ebooks instead.
Here is my flow --
#1 I expect to be able to read extensive excerpts for free. Table of contents is not enough, because I want to know how that one section is more than a few paragraphs.
#2 I buy the ebook and start reading it. If it isn't Kindle it must be DRM free.
#3 If I finish the ebook, and I find myself continually referencing back to it I buy the print version.
#4 If I think the book is really good, I'll buy anywhere from 1 - 10 more copies to give as presents. Doesn't happen often.
I don't want a print book taking up space unless it is collectible or for reference.
I really have no use for print books, though. Why have it take up space at all?
The only thing I could do with one is gift it to someone that doesn't already prefer ebooks, and there are few and fewer people like that.
This is actually valuable and useful feedback for any information product authors out there (which includes me, sometimes).
Some people just want a physical thing. It might be irrational to want a physical thing, but if not getting a physical thing is holding them back from giving you money, it doesn't really matter how irrational you think they are.
I've heard this in other venues too, usually accompanied by "so I started offering one, and I made a startling amount more money".
Question, Swizec - would you pay $39 for a physical copy of the book? That would cover printing costs and (just about) the additional labour.
(Of course, it's also a valid decision on the part of the business owner to say "well, I don't want to provide a physical thing: it's too much hassle". Maximising profit is not always the ideal route.)
So you say the book actually contains information you need right now (as an author trying to publish yourself) but you decided not to pay 30$ just because its not a paperback? seriously? Don't you think there is a big chance you will be able to sell a bit more of your own books after you read this one? Who cares if its a dead tree version? (BTW, I stopped paying for dead trees, I only ever buy ebooks for the last several years)
If he sold physical copies of the book for $29, his profit margin would be cut down significantly.
Not really. Print on demand for a 170 page book costs about $4 per copy. That's not really a big profit margin hit.
What do you consider big? $4 is a loss of 13.8% of the sales price. If you assume he already has some costs (his time to write the book is quite valuable), the loss in profit is even more.
A 13.8% loss in profit would sink many businesses.
Plus shipping costs. That print on demand price sounds good, where did you find it?
I will gladly pay shipping costs when I buy a book. I just googled "price for print on demand paperback"
Createspace has great pricing. I'm guessing that was the source.
After shipping, it costs me about $3/book for a 160 page paperback copy of my book if I order 20+ at a time via CreateSpace.
Tough. You're saying the seller should make less income just because you want a hardback book?
For $29 you get a PDF and the mobi/epub formats for your iPad, kindle or whatever else