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.
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.
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 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'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 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.
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.
> 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 :)
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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 ?
"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
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."
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.)
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.
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.
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 = $2.82.
So unless you really care about the binding, or the PDF is in color (and needs the colors), then printing it yourself is really quite cheap.
Increases barrier to his "I want a paperback" as a simplistic counterpoint. Your sunk cost of "I need a laser printer for other reasons" does not reflect the issue of "I want a paperback," not that "I want a paperback, but I'll settle for buying and printing it myself."
So you say the book actually contains information you need right now (as an author trying to publish yourself) but you decided not to pay 30$ 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)
This is the same exact tactic employed by many of the e-book authors at Clickbank. You're basically forcing visitors into purchasing more than they originally wanted.
I once co-authored a book called Beyond Blogging that my co-author and I took great pride in writing. It was the first book I'd ever written, and we wanted it to be the "Think and Grow Rich" for bloggers. We put a lot of time into writing it, and felt it was a great product.
We opted to do what Nathan did and sold it for $30-$50 for a PDF. I can't remember the cost exactly.
We took a lot of heat for the price, but it did do well, and people still buy it and email me about it, many years later. We've since quit selling the PDF and posted it on Amazon and BN via Createspace, but at the time, the cost of producing a nice looking and readable PDF was not cheap. Launching was hard, as was keeping up with support.
While I don't regret our decision to price high and launch PDF only, as we needed something meaty to get launch partners involved, I often wonder what would have happened if we took a long view and opted for a book proposal and/or gone to print first, at a reasonable price of say $9.99 or $14.99.
It's my thought that we'd be selling more today than we currently are, would probably have a 2nd or 3rd version, and might have received a follow-on book deal to write a follow-up volume.
Instead, I have a book that once made me some decent cash, but isn't really part of my average day's business plan.
It feels like a waste.
Moral of the story is:
If you want to make a ton of quick cash, this pricing model will work, and you'll be happy as people laud you for the strategy (which really isn't new) and the amount of money you made. But I don't think it's a good long-term strategy, and I don't think it helps you build authority of any lasting kind.
Or you could have built a list of buyers and survey them on what else they want to learn and have an instant market for your 2nd book since they already like your writing.
This is interesting. I've been following along with Nathan's posts for a while.
I checked the new website design (http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/). I love the focus on copywriting. My first reaction is that it lacks a strong visual hierarchy. Everything is blue and the call to actions (price circles) blends in with the rest of the page. Whereas in the previous design, the pricing/buttons were more obvious with the vertical table grid design.
The main difference is that package descriptions have been expanded significantly, which is great. It's no longer just bullet points + price.
More copy is always better.
But by not having a compact table with the 3 package options, it makes comparing the packages harder.
I'm curious if this is why the sales increased? It seems to have obscured the notion that it's an ebook that optionally comes packaged with extras. It is now sold primarily as a complete course of ebook+videos+resources with a secondary option of just buying the book.
That seems to be a big change in the focus of the product/marketing rather than just a simple pricing change on the book itself.
Nathan, you're really coming out with some great posts. Please continue.
I saw another great post on this topic on the VWO blog recently which suggests reversing your pricing table to show the most expensive test first as an A/B test idea, and relates it to the "primacy effect":
I'm testing it now (no conclusive results yet), but I think it makes a lot of sense. I would love to see an A/B test of this on The App Design Handbook's sales page.
This is a really flawed analysis. You don't mention here the traffic and the conversion rate. It's possible for your second venture that you had much more traffic, better conversions, loyal customers...
There is a meaningful difference between the terms "conversion" and a "conversion rate". A conversion is an action, be it a sale or otherwise. Marketers and ad serving platforms do not use the terms interchangeably, just like clicks and click-thru-rate are not interchangeable.
"Refer to" is not the same as "means the same as". The linked page is a disambiguation page, which is not the same as a page that is explaining exactly what a particular word means.
A conversion is a single thing: an event or transaction. A conversion rate is a number. The two are not identical.
This pricing model also works for consulting as well. Listen to Obie Fernandez talk about 321-Launch and you'll understand that value of bundling when it comes to consulting services.
Simply put, price yourself high. People will attach value to your work because of this.
Also, from a consulting standpoint:
This accomplishes a few things. It affords you time to spend on non-billable hours such as taxes and filling your pipeline. Finally, adding a 'special sauce' packages allows you to eventually de-commoditize yourself and allow you to start transitioning those jobs that are interchangeable to others under you without your client objecting too strenuously.
Is it really ethical to try to get as much money out of your customers? If you are making a profit after all costs are considered, how much profit is too much?
The question is maybe not too important when applied to something like an e-book, but it becomes different when applied to something people think they cannot do without, like a college education or healthcare. In those situations we have seen vendors will gouge you for as much as they can get, which ends up being as much as you have.
We as a society need to rethink whether that should be considered acceptable behavior. I don't know if legislation is necessarily the right solution (I am inclined to think it is not) but at the very least people should feel shameful for being so greedy.
Okay, so I'm not alone on this. Trying to wring every last penny out of your customer with inflated prices just so you can brag about it on guest blog posts isn't cool.
For those who do want to maxprice your product and jack your customers, at least don't go saying you care about the startup community. Actions speak louder than words.
I've found it annoying how he's milking his mailing list (that he got off of HN publicity) for all it's worth. He used to hit us with a sales pitch basically every day, now it's only every 5 - 9 days or so.
This is late, but do you remember how he got his mailing list off of HN? -He started an interesting experiment about starting a business from scratch, and planning to reach X thousand dollars of income per month in only a few months. "The Web-App Challenge" or something.
That was a very interesting project, so I signed up for updates. Not long after that, his e-mails started being mostly about selling ConvertKit to us, interspersed with useful(-looking?) articles. I can't help but feel like selling ConvertKit was his goal right from the start, and that the web app challenge was just a ruse to get us to receive his sales pitches. This is very clever, of course, but it's sleazy too.
ConvertKit is the thing he made as part of his "Web-App Challenge". Of course he's going to talk about it in his emails!!!
The whole point of signing up for the list is to see how he does what he says he's going to do. The emails are showing you almost EXACTLY what to do if you want to copy him. Would you prefer he put you on his list, then never mention the actual thing he's building?!
Could you try any harder to find something to complain about?
Is it really ethical to try to get as much money out of your customers? If you are making a profit after all costs are considered, how much profit is too much?
Is this also true with regards to charging more as a consultant/freelancer or about negotiating a better salary? We see a lot of stories like that on here too.
The problem is defining 'greed' is hard. Is a software developer asking for a $100k salary inherently 'greedy' for earning more than double the average US wage? Is someone earning $20k and pushing for a raise to $30k 'greedy' because someone in Africa lives on $1 a day?
Earning $100-150k in a year from a few e-books might seem 'greedy' in some ways, but then you could compare it to the textbook author who supposedly spent $24m building a house from the profits on some calculus textbooks.. ;-) http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/where-the-mo...
Rather than have such (unresolvable) debates, it tends to be simpler to rely on economics and charge what the market will bear because while it's not perfect, it's as fair and objective a value as could be arrived at through even the most perfect of debates.
So because it's hard to be ethical we shouldn't try? Because it is hard to quantify greed it is no longer a bad thing?
Because other people are doing it too is a good justification?
I recently watched the movie "Django Rising" and the character of Leonardi diCaprio troubled me greatly. Not because I thought he was really evil but because I thought he really wasn't. Had I been born in that time, son of a slave owner who was son of a slave owner, brought up surrounded by the values of that time, would I have been able to recognize that slavery was evil, would I have had the courage to do anything about it? Would I have behaved any differently from how Leo's character behaved?
> Is it really ethical to try to get as much money out of your customers?
I'm going to go with "yes" in the absence of any reason not to. In a fair deal, both sides should get a roughly equal amount of value from the transaction. If the customer would be willing to pay more without a second thought, but you artificially restrict the price out of some ethical compunction, then the customer is coming out ahead. Why is it ethical for the customer to come out ahead but unethical for both parties to profit equally? That line of thought does not make sense to me.
In the case of something like healthcare, I don't think your real objection is that equitable business transactions are unethical. I think your real objection is that you believe healthcare should be a public service rather than a fair exchange of value between private parties.
Neo-classical economics suggests that it is, in fact ethical to get as much money as possible out of your customers.
Not because people should only care about themselves, but because redistribution through the tax system, and charitable giving, are far more efficient at producing net gain for society, than being "nice" to your customers.
Competition is what prevents people from being "gouged" when it comes to the necessities of life, and in the absence of competition, yes, government intervention is justified.
While the author is a monopolist ex post, in that once he writes his book, he has a monopoly, the market is competitive ex ante, in that anyone can choose to write a book on that subject matter.
So it is almost certainly justified to maximize profit, just as it is in most other businesses.
Where do you draw the line? How much is "too much" profit? Would it be ok if he made $50k per book instead of $100k?
It's not like the guy's making billions. He's working his ass off and producing extremely valuable content to make an income that is maybe comparable to a senior google engineer. Given all the blatant fraud and theft going in the world these days at a million times the scale, I can't imagine why you'd choose to pick on someone trying to sell a good product for as much as people are willing to pay for it.
Being able to make a comfortable living by doing something like self publishing tech books is actually a huge coup for the little guy, not a form of greedy exploitation. It makes me happy that so many people are willing to support such an endeavor.
First of all, Nathan Barry is an excellent guy. Many people talk, he walks the walk...
Now back to the matter:
If you follow this strategy you must understand that this is not a method for long term ebook sales.
You'll get a quick burst of cash
and not much more after
This isn't a bad thing, this is how this method works. That's why he has 3 books out in such a short period of time....
If you want long term sales, there is another more profitable way to do it (too long for me to explain here).
Also, In some comments here, some people were complaining that the price was too high for a book. But he is not selling a BOOK; he's selling a proven system for making up to $100,000 with your own books. His mistake was framing "authority" as a book in his sales letter and that's why such problems arise.
I'll create the best book I possibly can and sell it for about 19.99. I still make a bit of money up front(less money than Nathan with this model... at the beginning) but a lot more sales because the book wont be perceived as "expensive" by any customer.
The goal here is NOT to make as much money as possible, BUT to make as many sales as possible.
Lets call my book The FRONT_END offer and the goal of the front end offer is just to get people into my marketing funnel.
Next...
I now have a massive list of customers and research shows that once people buy from you once, they are more likely to buy from you again...
It is to this customer list that I will sell the videos, interviews and in my case, I'll add bootcamps, one-on-one consulting sessions etc... I'll call these the BACKEND_SALES.
So, to summarise, you offer:
1. A low cost FRONT_END product to get people onto a customer list.
2. A long list of Higher ticket BACK_END products
You'll be reducing the barrier to entry into your marketing funnel, and you'll build a large customer list that you can sell to for years...
Over the course of the first year, you'll make significantly more this way(depending on your niche) than if you tried to make all that money up-front like this...
I'll do some case-studies and interviews pretty soon with people who I've marketed for/with who have used this system with great success..
And what prevents you from cutting the price of the book in half several months later? This way you still get a big chunk at the beginning, and later you can still market it to the more price cautious population. My bet is that even if people know that the price will go down in 6 months, most of the current buyers wouldn't want to wait, and bought it at the higher price anyway. And the 'this shit is too expensive' crowd can wait and get it at a discount.
What makes you think this method won't generate long-term sales? Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by that, your prediction runs counter to my experience and the experience of other information product vendors I've had discussions with.
(Although your suggested method definitely works too.)
The thing is I'm NOT saying he cant also back-end his current customers BUT......
That's not what he's optimising for.
My method below will spread that 100,000 over the year and add a nice chunk to it.
Its really all about what you optimise for... I'll release some case studies pretty soon with real numbers so you can properly wrap your head around the concepts, but I hope you understand so-far.
I think I may have been able to wrap my brain around the basics, yes. :)
My question, however, was not "does your method work?" but "can you show that Nathan's method has the results you claim it does?" - ie a quick burst of sales then severely limited back-end?
Sometimes, I just wished people stopped trying to re-invent the wheel. All of this stuff is not new. It is covered in every DIY marketing book that has been published since the 70's. I don't get what is the fascination of trying to re-invent (or disrupt) marketing. No need for that. Just read a few books, take a structured approach to testing, and see the money roll in.
Also, if you make a post complaining how the book is too expensive and you wont buy it, guess what? you are not the target market. The target market is always people who can and will pay for something. Not people who can and will complain about the price.
Want to learn marketing? Start with the book Guerilla Marketing.
Your sales funnel approach is deprecated. What is used now is called a sales ladder. Rather than have people pass through a funnel, you have them take steps towards purchase. Sounds to be the same, but it is quite different, and much more effective. Do some research on it.
I paid $79 for the new 'Authority' release and am disappointed, more so because it's that expensive. I am sure he maximized revenue for the short term, but I am unlikely to buy anything else from him again.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 69.4 ms ] threadThen 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.
A 13.8% loss in profit would sink many businesses.
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.
The only thing I haven't done yet is print books. Maybe eventually.
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'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?
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.
Be careful you aren't looking at presentations in video format as an example of video for learning. It's not.
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.
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).
When you test them do they achieve the same outcome you would expect from a text?
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 :)
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.
So, the book appeals to people who think like this?
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
#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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, what? What are you replying to? I didn't ask a question.
If you read it out loud it sounds perfectly natural.
Buy it, upload the PDF to an on demand printer, send yourself a copy? :-)
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.)
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
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.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upselling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_%28business%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_switch
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.
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.
We opted to do what Nathan did and sold it for $30-$50 for a PDF. I can't remember the cost exactly.
We took a lot of heat for the price, but it did do well, and people still buy it and email me about it, many years later. We've since quit selling the PDF and posted it on Amazon and BN via Createspace, but at the time, the cost of producing a nice looking and readable PDF was not cheap. Launching was hard, as was keeping up with support.
While I don't regret our decision to price high and launch PDF only, as we needed something meaty to get launch partners involved, I often wonder what would have happened if we took a long view and opted for a book proposal and/or gone to print first, at a reasonable price of say $9.99 or $14.99.
It's my thought that we'd be selling more today than we currently are, would probably have a 2nd or 3rd version, and might have received a follow-on book deal to write a follow-up volume.
Instead, I have a book that once made me some decent cash, but isn't really part of my average day's business plan.
It feels like a waste.
Moral of the story is:
If you want to make a ton of quick cash, this pricing model will work, and you'll be happy as people laud you for the strategy (which really isn't new) and the amount of money you made. But I don't think it's a good long-term strategy, and I don't think it helps you build authority of any lasting kind.
I checked the new website design (http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/). I love the focus on copywriting. My first reaction is that it lacks a strong visual hierarchy. Everything is blue and the call to actions (price circles) blends in with the rest of the page. Whereas in the previous design, the pricing/buttons were more obvious with the vertical table grid design.
The main difference is that package descriptions have been expanded significantly, which is great. It's no longer just bullet points + price.
More copy is always better.
But by not having a compact table with the 3 package options, it makes comparing the packages harder.
I'm curious if this is why the sales increased? It seems to have obscured the notion that it's an ebook that optionally comes packaged with extras. It is now sold primarily as a complete course of ebook+videos+resources with a secondary option of just buying the book.
That seems to be a big change in the focus of the product/marketing rather than just a simple pricing change on the book itself.
I saw another great post on this topic on the VWO blog recently which suggests reversing your pricing table to show the most expensive test first as an A/B test idea, and relates it to the "primacy effect":
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/pricing...
I'm testing it now (no conclusive results yet), but I think it makes a lot of sense. I would love to see an A/B test of this on The App Design Handbook's sales page.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/006124189X/ref=r_soa_w_d
Thanks!
Conversions = sales / visitors (which is a % rate)
However, Wikipedia° suggests that conversion might refer to conversion rate. That's so far the only thing that I found from a few minutes search.
° http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion#Marketing
A conversion is a single thing: an event or transaction. A conversion rate is a number. The two are not identical.
Simply put, price yourself high. People will attach value to your work because of this.
Also, from a consulting standpoint:
This accomplishes a few things. It affords you time to spend on non-billable hours such as taxes and filling your pipeline. Finally, adding a 'special sauce' packages allows you to eventually de-commoditize yourself and allow you to start transitioning those jobs that are interchangeable to others under you without your client objecting too strenuously.
Is it really ethical to try to get as much money out of your customers? If you are making a profit after all costs are considered, how much profit is too much?
The question is maybe not too important when applied to something like an e-book, but it becomes different when applied to something people think they cannot do without, like a college education or healthcare. In those situations we have seen vendors will gouge you for as much as they can get, which ends up being as much as you have.
We as a society need to rethink whether that should be considered acceptable behavior. I don't know if legislation is necessarily the right solution (I am inclined to think it is not) but at the very least people should feel shameful for being so greedy.
For those who do want to maxprice your product and jack your customers, at least don't go saying you care about the startup community. Actions speak louder than words.
The one that he got off of HN publicity, by posting useful information on his site to share with other people?
That was a very interesting project, so I signed up for updates. Not long after that, his e-mails started being mostly about selling ConvertKit to us, interspersed with useful(-looking?) articles. I can't help but feel like selling ConvertKit was his goal right from the start, and that the web app challenge was just a ruse to get us to receive his sales pitches. This is very clever, of course, but it's sleazy too.
The whole point of signing up for the list is to see how he does what he says he's going to do. The emails are showing you almost EXACTLY what to do if you want to copy him. Would you prefer he put you on his list, then never mention the actual thing he's building?!
Could you try any harder to find something to complain about?
Is this also true with regards to charging more as a consultant/freelancer or about negotiating a better salary? We see a lot of stories like that on here too.
The problem is defining 'greed' is hard. Is a software developer asking for a $100k salary inherently 'greedy' for earning more than double the average US wage? Is someone earning $20k and pushing for a raise to $30k 'greedy' because someone in Africa lives on $1 a day?
Earning $100-150k in a year from a few e-books might seem 'greedy' in some ways, but then you could compare it to the textbook author who supposedly spent $24m building a house from the profits on some calculus textbooks.. ;-) http://castingoutnines.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/where-the-mo...
Rather than have such (unresolvable) debates, it tends to be simpler to rely on economics and charge what the market will bear because while it's not perfect, it's as fair and objective a value as could be arrived at through even the most perfect of debates.
Because other people are doing it too is a good justification?
I recently watched the movie "Django Rising" and the character of Leonardi diCaprio troubled me greatly. Not because I thought he was really evil but because I thought he really wasn't. Had I been born in that time, son of a slave owner who was son of a slave owner, brought up surrounded by the values of that time, would I have been able to recognize that slavery was evil, would I have had the courage to do anything about it? Would I have behaved any differently from how Leo's character behaved?
I'm going to go with "yes" in the absence of any reason not to. In a fair deal, both sides should get a roughly equal amount of value from the transaction. If the customer would be willing to pay more without a second thought, but you artificially restrict the price out of some ethical compunction, then the customer is coming out ahead. Why is it ethical for the customer to come out ahead but unethical for both parties to profit equally? That line of thought does not make sense to me.
In the case of something like healthcare, I don't think your real objection is that equitable business transactions are unethical. I think your real objection is that you believe healthcare should be a public service rather than a fair exchange of value between private parties.
Not because people should only care about themselves, but because redistribution through the tax system, and charitable giving, are far more efficient at producing net gain for society, than being "nice" to your customers.
Competition is what prevents people from being "gouged" when it comes to the necessities of life, and in the absence of competition, yes, government intervention is justified.
While the author is a monopolist ex post, in that once he writes his book, he has a monopoly, the market is competitive ex ante, in that anyone can choose to write a book on that subject matter.
So it is almost certainly justified to maximize profit, just as it is in most other businesses.
It's not like the guy's making billions. He's working his ass off and producing extremely valuable content to make an income that is maybe comparable to a senior google engineer. Given all the blatant fraud and theft going in the world these days at a million times the scale, I can't imagine why you'd choose to pick on someone trying to sell a good product for as much as people are willing to pay for it.
Being able to make a comfortable living by doing something like self publishing tech books is actually a huge coup for the little guy, not a form of greedy exploitation. It makes me happy that so many people are willing to support such an endeavor.
http://arttrezzo.com/ebook_pricing.html
Other books appeal a thousand people, if you get $1 from everybody that thinks about buying those, you'll get $1k at the bank.
Now back to the matter:
If you follow this strategy you must understand that this is not a method for long term ebook sales.
You'll get a quick burst of cash
and not much more after
This isn't a bad thing, this is how this method works. That's why he has 3 books out in such a short period of time....
If you want long term sales, there is another more profitable way to do it (too long for me to explain here).
Also, In some comments here, some people were complaining that the price was too high for a book. But he is not selling a BOOK; he's selling a proven system for making up to $100,000 with your own books. His mistake was framing "authority" as a book in his sales letter and that's why such problems arise.
I'll create the best book I possibly can and sell it for about 19.99. I still make a bit of money up front(less money than Nathan with this model... at the beginning) but a lot more sales because the book wont be perceived as "expensive" by any customer.
The goal here is NOT to make as much money as possible, BUT to make as many sales as possible.
Lets call my book The FRONT_END offer and the goal of the front end offer is just to get people into my marketing funnel.
Next...
I now have a massive list of customers and research shows that once people buy from you once, they are more likely to buy from you again...
It is to this customer list that I will sell the videos, interviews and in my case, I'll add bootcamps, one-on-one consulting sessions etc... I'll call these the BACKEND_SALES.
So, to summarise, you offer: 1. A low cost FRONT_END product to get people onto a customer list. 2. A long list of Higher ticket BACK_END products
You'll be reducing the barrier to entry into your marketing funnel, and you'll build a large customer list that you can sell to for years...
Over the course of the first year, you'll make significantly more this way(depending on your niche) than if you tried to make all that money up-front like this...
I'll do some case-studies and interviews pretty soon with people who I've marketed for/with who have used this system with great success..
(Although your suggested method definitely works too.)
That's not what he's optimising for.
My method below will spread that 100,000 over the year and add a nice chunk to it.
Its really all about what you optimise for... I'll release some case studies pretty soon with real numbers so you can properly wrap your head around the concepts, but I hope you understand so-far.
My question, however, was not "does your method work?" but "can you show that Nathan's method has the results you claim it does?" - ie a quick burst of sales then severely limited back-end?
Also, if you make a post complaining how the book is too expensive and you wont buy it, guess what? you are not the target market. The target market is always people who can and will pay for something. Not people who can and will complain about the price.
Want to learn marketing? Start with the book Guerilla Marketing.
This isn't very useful on its own; The arithmetic was never the hard part. Predicting your success is.