I'm fascinated with and profoundly envious of people who can accrue huge sums of money in such short periods of time.
Given that this was all done within 24 hours, it's unlikely that many sales came from the quality of the book: people won't have had time to read the book, and so word-of-mouth-based sales will be negligible if not nonexistent.
In the first few days of sales, most every transaction is derived from presentation, notoriety, or luck...
I haven't read the book (and I couldn't afford it even if I had a desire to do so), and it may be a fine product. However, Nathan could have easily published a piece of abject trash, full of platitudes and banal tautology, and done perhaps just as well. Quality has no bearing on the initial success of a product, and only comes into play later. It just goes to show how much gravity factors like marketing have on sales.
I guess that's true, but it is really important to build a reputation for quality work. Also this was my second book, so I had people buy off of the quality from my previous book.
I finished v1 of my ebook from a post that did really well on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3837264 I have been really looking into distribution of the eBook and this is such a timely post for me.
Did you think about publishing the book on amazon / other eBook sites? Did you ever think about making this into a real book or using kickstarter to get funding?
There are three reasons I sold exclusively through my own site:
- Stores like Amazon and iBooks limit the price you can charge. iBooks limits it to $15 for the book, Amazon radically changes the royalty payments if you go above $10 (or so). I want to charge premium prices, so those audiences wouldn't work.
- Selling through another provider means that they aren't my customers. I don't have contact information for follow-ups, other sales offers, or anything else. Owning the customer list is really important to building a sustainable business.
- When I sell through my own site I keep about 95% from every sale. If I sold through the iBooks store I would only get 70%. I would be willing to accept a lower percentage if it meant I was able to build my customer lists.
A final thought is that I've seen people put all their effort into creating the product (whether it is an app or an eBook) then put it up on the store, just expecting it to take off and organically get sales. By selling through my own site I was forced to do all the marketing and promotion myself. Since that is a skill I am still developing, it was important to me.
Nathan, if you see this, have you thought about using AdWords to promote your books instead of using an affiliate network? I think it might be interesting to see if the CPA with AdWords or other online ads can be optimized to the point where it is cheaper than the CPA with affiliates.
I think Adwords and other paid traffic would be more effective driving traffic to an email capture squeeze page that delivered a series of free reports over a few weeks.
The final few emails would then try to sell the book. IMO it's too hard to sell this sort of product to an audience that has never heard of you.
When I worked out the value of each visitor (on average) I thought about using AdWords. I really don't know much about it, so it will be a new area to pursue.
Unfortunately selling with Gumroad I can't track conversions effectively, so that may make page optimization more difficult.
I'll give it a try soon and report back the results (on my blog).
Nathan: i think you should run that discounted sale again because i was one of the person who missed to buy it even though i had subscribed to email alerts (because i was hospitalized). Wouldn't buy it for $250 so im still waiting for another round of discounted sale and expecting an email obviously.
Congrats Nathan! Has anyone gone through the material completely and can comment on the quality and utility of the book? I'm considering purchasing (I'm a developer with no design skills) and was wondering how hopefully this will be to me.
1. Did you have to 'kick back' any money? To those that you interviewed, or companies where you used their screenshots in your examples/critiques? Did you reach out to them and notifying them that they/their company will be in your book for profit?
2. From the sample chapter, you talk a lot about principles and critiques of interface design but are there any area in the book where there are data or user ability studies to explain it further (ie: why they work)? Or is most of it based on experience?
3. Any plans for a sample page on the case study? I think that's where the most value is - the full process of where you take us through your thoughts and reasoning on designing a product.
Maybe have a chat to Drew Wilson who is working on http://spacebox.io. It's a nifty little tool for collecting payments via Stripe.
I believe he's currently working on adding subscription payments (and hopefully invoicing) which I am very keen to get but affiliates/electronic delivery could be another great add-on for him to deliver.
It's real. Though I'm not sure how to prove it to you in a way you would believe. Want to see a screenshot of my Gumroad account showing $75,000 in book sales? Oh wait, I've already included that in my posts.
[+] [-] ruswick|13 years ago|reply
Given that this was all done within 24 hours, it's unlikely that many sales came from the quality of the book: people won't have had time to read the book, and so word-of-mouth-based sales will be negligible if not nonexistent.
In the first few days of sales, most every transaction is derived from presentation, notoriety, or luck...
I haven't read the book (and I couldn't afford it even if I had a desire to do so), and it may be a fine product. However, Nathan could have easily published a piece of abject trash, full of platitudes and banal tautology, and done perhaps just as well. Quality has no bearing on the initial success of a product, and only comes into play later. It just goes to show how much gravity factors like marketing have on sales.
[+] [-] csomar|13 years ago|reply
1. 26k is not a huge amount of money.
2. He didn't make the money in 24 hours. There was a lot of work involved in the writing and making of the book.
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robbiea|13 years ago|reply
I finished v1 of my ebook from a post that did really well on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3837264 I have been really looking into distribution of the eBook and this is such a timely post for me.
Did you think about publishing the book on amazon / other eBook sites? Did you ever think about making this into a real book or using kickstarter to get funding?
Thanks for this post. Seriously Awesome.
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
- Stores like Amazon and iBooks limit the price you can charge. iBooks limits it to $15 for the book, Amazon radically changes the royalty payments if you go above $10 (or so). I want to charge premium prices, so those audiences wouldn't work.
- Selling through another provider means that they aren't my customers. I don't have contact information for follow-ups, other sales offers, or anything else. Owning the customer list is really important to building a sustainable business.
- When I sell through my own site I keep about 95% from every sale. If I sold through the iBooks store I would only get 70%. I would be willing to accept a lower percentage if it meant I was able to build my customer lists.
A final thought is that I've seen people put all their effort into creating the product (whether it is an app or an eBook) then put it up on the store, just expecting it to take off and organically get sales. By selling through my own site I was forced to do all the marketing and promotion myself. Since that is a skill I am still developing, it was important to me.
Good luck!
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjets718|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdunn|13 years ago|reply
The final few emails would then try to sell the book. IMO it's too hard to sell this sort of product to an audience that has never heard of you.
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
Unfortunately selling with Gumroad I can't track conversions effectively, so that may make page optimization more difficult.
I'll give it a try soon and report back the results (on my blog).
[+] [-] antidaily|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixQuarks|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pushpak_io|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kennethologist|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justjimmy|13 years ago|reply
1. Did you have to 'kick back' any money? To those that you interviewed, or companies where you used their screenshots in your examples/critiques? Did you reach out to them and notifying them that they/their company will be in your book for profit?
2. From the sample chapter, you talk a lot about principles and critiques of interface design but are there any area in the book where there are data or user ability studies to explain it further (ie: why they work)? Or is most of it based on experience?
3. Any plans for a sample page on the case study? I think that's where the most value is - the full process of where you take us through your thoughts and reasoning on designing a product.
[+] [-] anthonys|13 years ago|reply
I believe he's currently working on adding subscription payments (and hopefully invoicing) which I am very keen to get but affiliates/electronic delivery could be another great add-on for him to deliver.
[+] [-] richaclark|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pnathan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tekniiq|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stinkbubble|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azio|13 years ago|reply
Don't believe this bullcrap people. This person is lying to get covered by Hacker News and similar sites. I bet he didn't make $500 in total.
[+] [-] nathanbarry|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daeken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hartror|13 years ago|reply