Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book • Hacker News Board

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#11

Post by thibaut_barrere » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:08 PM UTC

mootothemax wrote: post #8

sdoering wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a similar situation with an inhouse-ad on our site. The polished version performed ok, but just for the fun of testing, we switched to a rough screenshot image. It performed more than five times as good. Just because one doesn't like it, doesn't mean it won't work. My learning was: Always, test everything.

Just because one doesn't like it, doesn't mean it won't work. My learning was: Always, test everything. This is a point that every single commenter on HN needs to be aware of. There are far too many people who seem to think that just because they don't like something, it can't work, won't work, should be priced lower...

Even further: asking people if they like the page would result in different results compared to testing if they end up paying for the advertised product.

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#12

Post by bdunn » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:09 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #7

This post is great marketing for mentioned unfinished book. The HN frontpage is probably the perfect target audience, well put!

But by far the lowest converting traffic source :-) Thanks!

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#13

Post by thibaut_barrere » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:09 PM UTC

"Money – cold, hard cash – on the other hand. That’s the ultimate form of validation."

This is priceless especially considering how much effort goes into writing a book or creating a SaaS product.

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#14

Post by manmal » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:10 PM UTC

I am one of those 57 buyers.. I stumbled across the book after having seen the link in another article that was on HN. HN is the right audience for this book indeed :)

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#15

Post by danso » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

Great post...it also introduced me to this book, Exceptional Ruby: http://exceptionalruby.com/ Buying it right now.

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#16

Post by thibaut_barrere » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

bdunn wrote: post #12

kayoone wrote: post #7

This post is great marketing for mentioned unfinished book. The HN frontpage is probably the perfect target audience, well put!

But by far the lowest converting traffic source :-) Thanks!

It's definitely a low converting traffic source, but then it brings an interesting coverage/publicity, tends to generate retweets etc (based on my experience on http://hackerbooks.com/).

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#17

Post by bdunn » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:11 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #14

I am one of those 57 buyers.. I stumbled across the book after having seen the link in another article that was on HN. HN is the right audience for this book indeed :)

Thanks! Looking forward to your review.

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#18

Post by manmal » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:12 PM UTC

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #13

"Money – cold, hard cash – on the other hand. That’s the ultimate form of validation." This is priceless especially considering how much effort goes into writing a book or creating a SaaS product.

How do you actually contact people to ask for this? Emailing people? Or making a signup page and see who clicks on the (faux) "buy" button?

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#19

Post by thibaut_barrere » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:14 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #18

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #13

"Money – cold, hard cash – on the other hand. That’s the ultimate form of validation." This is priceless especially considering how much effort goes into writing a book or creating a SaaS product.

How do you actually contact people to ask for this? Emailing people? Or making a signup page and see who clicks on the (faux) "buy" button?

For my coming SaaS product (https://www.wisecashhq.com), I created a signup page back in september 2011, then tweeted regularly when I worked on it and mentioned it around (shipping end of september 2012).

It gradually got around 200 "pre-signups", and I used the list to contact people as well and verify my assumptions.

I will write a blog post about that soon!

Re: Selling $2,000+ Worth Of My Unfinished Book

#20

Post by alanmackenzie » Thu, Aug 23, 2012, 2:19 PM UTC

bdunn wrote: post #6

alanmackenzie wrote: post #5

I would quite happily preorder a copy of your book but there's not enough information to feel comfortable about parting with $39. Is this an ebook or in dead tree format? Do you ship internationally?

It's an ebook with worksheets and additional case studies / interviews from freelancers who charge a lot (most notably: Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs). Take a screenshot of this comment as witness, but I'm serious about refunding anyone who ends up not being able to raise their client rates. Paying for stuff that doesn't deliver value is dumb.

Challenge accepted, thanks for the answers.