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How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

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Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#51

Post by anentropic »

djaychela wrote: post #37

I have written and self-published a couple of books [1] - one which is effectively a practical textbook for the course I teach (A level music technology in the UK, for 16-18 year olds), and one which sprung out of a course I taught locally for a number of schools, using Sibelius 7, where the user interface changed in a similar way to the change to Word 2007's "ribbon" interface. The A-level textbook took me about a y…

It makes sense that you sell more through Lulu: I'd never heard of Lulu until I read this self-publishing thread here on HN

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#52

Post by jjnoakes »

coldtea wrote: post #40
patrickyeon wrote: post #24

A little off-topic, but I found this interesting: > "Specifically, a lot of the traditional guys price e-books at $20–30, often times more than the paperback/hardcover, which is so stupid." It catches my eye when people get stuck on an e-book version costing more than a hard copy. It's funny that a Kindle version can be more valuable (instant delivery, easier to carry around, and a more enjoyable reading experience)…

> It's funny that a Kindle version can be more valuable (instant delivery, easier to carry around, and a more enjoyable reading experience) to somebody, but still seem like it should cost less. That's a bizarro reasoning. Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs (and all that functionality comes basically for free), and publishe…

> Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs

Is that really how supply and demand works though? If people are willing to pay more for the extra functionality, why would you not sell it at that higher price?

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#53

Post by chrisabrams »

jjnoakes wrote: post #52
coldtea wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny that a Kindle version can be more valuable (instant delivery, easier to carry around, and a more enjoyable reading experience) to somebody, but still seem like it should cost less. That's a bizarro reasoning. Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs (and all that functionality comes basically for free), and publishe…

> Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs Is that really how supply and demand works though? If people are willing to pay more for the extra functionality, why would you not sell it at that higher price?

Most people aren't paying for the extra functionality of ebooks though. Most people are still buying physical books: http://authorearnings.com/report/print-vs-digital-report/

Also, your reasoning for selling a book at a higher price is not correlated to supply vs. demand. What you are talking about is a pricing strategy. There is a near unlimited supply of an ebook, so it's not supply vs. demand, it's a pricing strategy that's setting the price. A pricing strategy could also be used to sell the ebook at a cost below production costs to drive sales. Again, the ebook supply remains constant.

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#54

Post by coldtea »

jjnoakes wrote: post #52
coldtea wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny that a Kindle version can be more valuable (instant delivery, easier to carry around, and a more enjoyable reading experience) to somebody, but still seem like it should cost less. That's a bizarro reasoning. Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs (and all that functionality comes basically for free), and publishe…

> Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs Is that really how supply and demand works though? If people are willing to pay more for the extra functionality, why would you not sell it at that higher price?

>Is that really how supply and demand works though? If people are willing to pay more for the extra functionality, why would you not sell it at that higher price?

People are not willing, they are forced to, if they want the book, because books have an artificial monopoly based on copyright.

That is, I can't offer the same book for cheaper unless I have the copyright to the content.

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#55

Post by cylinder »

dilemma wrote: post #39

1. Active, not passive: This is income made by actively promoting the book upon its release as stated in the post. 2. Past, not future: This is historical revenue based on active marketing. It is unlikely that it will bring the same income in the future without marketing. 3. Revenue, not profit: The nice cover design is something others would need to pay for if this is to serve as reference, but this cost isn't taken…

People are constantly misusing the term "passive" when they mean "residual."

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#56

Post by ddoran »

>But 1-on-1 advising doesn’t scale.

In the right market, it doesn't have to scale. I know some wealthy people (in NYC) who have dropped a lot of money to get their kids into Ivy League schools. It is a must for those people and I've seen them drop high dollar for application advice and prep. With any kind of success, the same people get referred over and over again in the same circles.

As an aside, I loosely know someone who went to prison for a white collar crime. He too hired a high dollar consultant (former prison officer, IIRC) to advise him on how to prepare for, adjust to and survive in prison.

Of course consulting to wealthy people isn't passive, but the return on effort is hard to beat, once you're in the right referral circle.

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#59

Post by dceddia »

rayalez wrote: post #49
umurkontaci wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's about supply and demand, but the cost of distributing and ebook compared to a hard copy is close to zero. Plenty of products are artificially priced, but when this is very obvious, it feels like a rip-off.

Things cost as much as people are willing to pay for them. If I'm willimg to pay $5/$20/$50 for an ebook, it should be irrelevant how much it costs to distribute it. It has information in it and if I want this information I will give author the money. He may have determined his price by considering the distribution costs, or how much he wants to make per hour, or based on how much he thinks people will buy it for, or…

To expand on this: if the book can provide value above and beyond its selling price, it is a worthwhile purchase.

Your examples of "how to price" are all focused on what the author wants (or what he can get away with). The way to justify a higher price is to focus on what the READER wants, and the value they will get out of the book.

An ebook about learning React, for instance, might be worth $39 because it will save the reader HOURS of reading through random blog posts. How much is their time worth? (source: I wrote and sell an ebook about this. People actually buy it :)

Re: How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing

#60

Post by jjnoakes »

chrisabrams wrote: post #53
jjnoakes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously it's not about the value added because of extra functionality, it's about the new technology having lower marginal costs Is that really how supply and demand works though? If people are willing to pay more for the extra functionality, why would you not sell it at that higher price?

Most people aren't paying for the extra functionality of ebooks though. Most people are still buying physical books: http://authorearnings.com/report/print-vs-digital-report/ Also, your reasoning for selling a book at a higher price is not correlated to supply vs. demand. What you are talking about is a pricing strategy. There is a near unlimited supply of an ebook, so it's not supply vs. demand, it's a pricing strat…

> Most people aren't paying for the extra functionality of ebooks though. Most people are still buying physical books

That's not what I'm talking about though. I'm talking about this: if you set the price of ebooks at some small margin above the price to produce plus the price to license the content, you sell at price $X. If you set the price where people are willing to buy it due to increased convenience for them, you sell at price $Y. If $Y > $X, why not sell at $Y?

Of course, this isn't a direct relationship, since different people have different $Y prices, but there's a price curve there, and one ought to sell their ebooks on the curve to maximize the (number of sales) * $Y.

> Also, your reasoning for selling a book at a higher price is not correlated to supply vs. demand.

Maybe supply vs demand was the wrong choice of words, but that shouldn't detract from the point.

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