Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I Made $6K With My eBook

macournoyer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#61

Post by oscardelben »

basugasubaku wrote: post #58
wallflower wrote: post #14

> “ The book I want to read. ” — Matz, creator of the Ruby language The amazing review / testimonial the author probably was able to ask for because he's credible and an active member of the Ruby ecosystem (tinyrb). Another lesson on the value of real working relationships.

It was a single tweet ( http://twitter.com/yukihiro_matz/status/3875573878 ). A more direct translation is "book I want". I'm glad the site links to the source, though. I like easy to verify testimonials.

Indeed I thought it was a joke until I read the testimonial.

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#63

Post by greyman »

duck wrote: post #53
macournoyer_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing took about 2 months IIRC. But the learning took >1 year :p

2 months of work for $6000? While making money probably wasn't the only reason for doing it, isn't that a pretty bad payoff? I know you will keep making sales, but (especially for technical writing) it will have a short shelf life...

No. That's a pretty good payoff.

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#64

Post by nailer »

macournoyer_ wrote: post #49
acangiano wrote: post #45

Your approach to the whole thing was very much affiliate/internet marketing oriented: list building via PPC, squeeze page, product sold through ClickBank, generous kickbacks to affiliates, high price for low page count, artificial urgency created through a limited time offer, and so on. Here is what I admire: * You managed to do all this without pissing off geeks, who are very sensitive to bullshit and tend to have a…

Thx a lot! I'm also surprised by the low quality of most products on ClickBank & other sites. That's why I'm talking openly about it, I'm sure most geeks here could do way better then everything on those sites.

In the 'Creating Passionate Users' sense, you made something that helps your audience be awesome - which is the best possible thing to create. Communicating that properly helps, but the product is king.

PS. I'm interested in buying your book now too, because I believe it will personally make me awesome.

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#65

Post by bemmu »

macournoyer_ wrote: post #49
acangiano wrote: post #45

Your approach to the whole thing was very much affiliate/internet marketing oriented: list building via PPC, squeeze page, product sold through ClickBank, generous kickbacks to affiliates, high price for low page count, artificial urgency created through a limited time offer, and so on. Here is what I admire: * You managed to do all this without pissing off geeks, who are very sensitive to bullshit and tend to have a…

Thx a lot! I'm also surprised by the low quality of most products on ClickBank & other sites. That's why I'm talking openly about it, I'm sure most geeks here could do way better then everything on those sites.

The landing page is really sweet. What do your adwords ads look like?

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#66

Post by macournoyer_ »

duck wrote: post #53
macournoyer_ wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing took about 2 months IIRC. But the learning took >1 year :p

2 months of work for $6000? While making money probably wasn't the only reason for doing it, isn't that a pretty bad payoff? I know you will keep making sales, but (especially for technical writing) it will have a short shelf life...

Of course I was not working full time on this. Most publishers give an advance of $6K when writing a full book, which can take a year or so. Nice article about this: http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#67

Post by macournoyer_ »

zackattack wrote: post #52

1. Who did the design and how much did it cost? 2. Can you show me your landing page for the initial adwords exploration campaign? How much was your CPC? How much did you bid? What was your quality score? (Thank you SO much)

1. I did everything myself, except reviewing

2. Sorry the old page is gone, it was a very crappy 2 colors page w/ a box in the middle w/ bullet points. My idea was, if I get decent CR on this, I'm guaranteed to sell some. I don't remember the CPC and the bid, but I spent 50$/day for 2 days on just a few keywords (about 10 iirc).

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#69

Post by GFischer »

oscardelben wrote: post #60
duck wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 months of work for $6000? While making money probably wasn't the only reason for doing it, isn't that a pretty bad payoff? I know you will keep making sales, but (especially for technical writing) it will have a short shelf life...

It took him 2 months but we don't know how many hours per day. Also this was the first book he wrote, maybe with the next one he'll make 6000 in one week. You can't expect to win big the first time.

If it's a good book, maybe he can revise and update it, add more chapters, and make a 2nd edition (with a new marketing campaign behind it).

Re: How I Made $6K With My eBook

#70

Post by jamesbritt »

macournoyer_ wrote: post #38
jamesbritt wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Says nothing about the quality of the book. Also, I'd like to read the book, but not for the price the author is asking. I'm impressed that one can sell an e-book for near $1/page, though. I realize that, in the end, it's about value delivered, not page count, but still. It tells me that people are not as price sensitive to some things as I thought.

That's why it's important to sell more than just an ebook. I included 2 full languages you can use in OSS, http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/ started from the Ruby language included in the package. + screencast and more. Also the book is amazingly good :p

Good points. :)

And a better deal.

Taking advantage of "This is a not a dead tree" is sorely lacking in the E-books I see. Even the page layouts of E-books assume you're using some shaped-like-a-page viewer, rather than allowing for a flexible layout that works well across different screens and devices.

Post reply on HN