Disclaimer: some of this stuff wasn’t explicitly said, it’s my interpretation of it (plus own ideas)
- Could just write blog articles and just collect/expand them into an ebook.
- people wouldn’t want to pay lots of times for each chapter, but it’s good to release early. Ways to get round this:
- have a season ‘pass’ like peepcode where people can pay upfront for the whole thing or just buy one edition if that’s all they want.
OR:
- release book early with only one or two chapters for a cheap price, but increase the price as you add more content. Early buyers can get updates for free as they come out.
- Make something that makes people feel better about themselves or relieves pain.
- if it’s boring to write it will be boring to read.
- doesn’t have to be long. Amy bought an ebook recently for $35 that was only 54 pages. That was all it needed to get the message across – no filler (publishing houses for real books enforce artificial word counts)
Other info product ideas:
- after doing a presentation, instead of putting slides on slideshare, just record a video of yourself narrating them (don’t have to show your face). And sell it on ejunkie (~10 mins = $5-$10 or 30-60 mins for $15-$30)
- or could just skip the real presentation and go straight to this format.
Marketing advice:
Building a list:
- for jsrocks, Amy just did a series of 3 blog posts announcing the book. These posts invited people to join a mailing list to get a discount. She got 400 people on the list from that (but list is only 700 now).
- note: a small, targeted list is better than a big one where no one is really interested – they’ll just ignore it anyway.
- could give away a free/v.cheap chapter or condensed cheat-sheet as a teaser.
Affiliates:
- can be useful but only in context, but for jsrocks this didn’t yield many sales .
Selling:
- ejunkie, paypal for ebooks
- could offer paper version too. Some people like ‘real’ objects. But don’t keep stock: use an online service!