Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
1–10 of 88 posts
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#2I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me and when business picks up again I'll buy another copy for as much money as I can muster to the point that I'm almost uncomfortable with the price I pay. I promise this. And I'm sorry.
Do my other freeloaders feel guilty? Or are there none? Or are there some but don't feel bad at all?
Edit: Just read the "Why You Need a Degree to Work at BigCo" section and already it's worth a lot more than the asking price.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#3I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
I agree with you on the guilt evoked by the site design.
I immediately second guessed whether or not it was worth downloading and ultimately decided I would be willing to pay if it proved valuable. I reviewed the table of contents and saw the chapter "The single most important thing you must do to improve your programming career" so I decided to download it. I skimmed the chapter, decided it wasn't worth my money, deleted the pdf, immediately unsubscribed from the website, and then came back to HN and wrote this comment.
Is the design good because it urges a person to pay? Probably. Is the design dangerous because of the violent reaction people, like myself, get from the feeling of guilt it triggers? Probably.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#4I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
Don't feel guilty, appreciate that it was given for free. When things turn around, pay it forward. Doesn't even need to be in the same method - buy a homeless person a hot meal.
I'd say what you should do though, now that you got the thing for free - is actually read it - then leave feedback.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#5Note to self: Leanpub.com disrupts book publishing industry, it took them just ~ 11 months (EDIT: 2 yrs - look below) to get traction. Surprisingly, their original post got just TWO karma points:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2329397
Getting Mr Braithwaite to publish at Leanpub.com is also a sign of success.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#6I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
I only have one vote, but I think it’s meaningful in this case :-) If you’re in no position to pay for it, I want you to have it for free, and I’m glad that you went ahead and read it. If you do find it helpful, that would make me very happy.
This is a book I’ve already written, so it’s a sunk cost for me... It’s all blog posts that others have found useful or meaningful in their search for decent work with decent people at a decent wage. The more people find good work, the more we all benefit. If you’re out of work, you can’t click through ads to buy stuff, you can’t employ others, you can’t subscribe to services.
Helping you be healthy, happy, and financially secure is a win for us all.
Also, I’ve recently been “talking loud” about copyright cartels and the importance of being able to copy bits. Giving this “book” away is an attempt to do a little walking the walk instead of just talking the talk. I also considered creating a book solely to be distributed free on torrents. I may still do that.
p.s. Some people have gone ahead and paid for the book. Thank you! Remember that if you have a budget for books and you don’t mind doing a few extra clicks, buy one of my other books and download this one for free, you’ll get two books and I’ll be just as happy :-)
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#7I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
Yes.
Typically, when someone makes their creation available for free with an optional donation, I will donate a few dollars to encourage other content creators to do the same.
It is odd, though. I am not so much supporting or applauding the specific content creator, but more encouraging future ones to make their payments sliding or optional.
For instance, I buy every Humble Bundle that comes out, but have never played the games.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#8I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
I agree with you on the guilt evoked by the site design. I immediately second guessed whether or not it was worth downloading and ultimately decided I would be willing to pay if it proved valuable. I reviewed the table of contents and saw the chapter "The single most important thing you must do to improve your programming career" so I decided to download it. I skimmed the chapter, decided it wasn't worth my money, de…
Thanks for the candid feedback.
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#9I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
I love his type of content publishing. It works the same way as the Humble Bundles.
If you give something away for free, I'll take it for free.
If you give me the option to pay $0, and give me a reasonable suggested price(this book), I'll pay the suggested price.
If you give me the option to pay $0, show me what others are paying(humble bundle), I'll pay the median.
If you give me the option to pay $0, and give me "bonuses" at certain price breaks (kickstarter, humble bundle), I'll pay at the most attractive price break.
It actually makes a ton of sense to adopt these kind of pricing structures because people actually pay!
Re: Raganwald's "How to Do What You Love" is free today
#10I feel guilty. I just got the book for free and I feel like I need to justify it. I really respect Raganwald and I would love to pay and he deserves it. I took it free because the honest truth is that business is really, supremely bad right now. I have a total of $60 in the bank and a few grand in bills due plus some other awful things. I justify (maybe wrongly) downloading it free by assuming the book will help me a…
Peter from Leanpub here. If you're down to your last $60, please don't feel guilty not paying anything! Come back later and buy the book (or one of raganwald's other books) if you want. (On the bestsellers page, his other books are currently in the #5 and #9 spots.)
The reason we did the sliders this way is to encourage people who have extra disposable income to pay more. Since the Leanpub royalty rates are so good, we felt we should show what the author gets right on the purchase page. That's why we subtly change their color as they are dragged up and down, as well as live-updating the royalty, etc. So I'm really happy since this shows that they are working as intended :)