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.)
Comments
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.)