$30,000 eBook Sales. In 2 Months.
blog.studiofellow.com
blog.studiofellow.com
With each email it became increasingly clear that you/the author had not started at all and were just fishing to see if there was interest first.
This kind of deception under the guise of "market research/validation" pisses me off and lead to an unsubscribe and, consequently, no sale.
"Coming soon." "Want to know when it's ready?"
The original design is here: http://cl.ly/0o143s3d053r3V2B2K3v
I put up the page with every intention to write the book. Also, I told anyone who asked that I hadn't started writing yet. I just didn't put that on the page.
A couple of people are throwing around the word "Deception" and I think that's quite heavy handed. I didn't list every single detail on the landing page, but that hardly constitutes deception.
Again, apologies to anyone who did feel that way. I've tried to be as transparent and honest about this project as possible. If there's a detail that's important to you, just ask!
I've been guilty of something of the sort, but I made clear that the product wasn't finished (and it looks like the author was as well).
However, it's nice to have a data point of someone who dislikes this approach.
It would help ease my cognitive dissonance.
On the one hand, I believe people lie about what they'll buy. Whether they lie to us or to themselves, it doesn't matter. On the other hand, I also can't stand this validation tactic. So I hope such research would show it's not necessary to deceive. But if not, I can more easily look past people doing so.
By getting potential customers early own, not only is he more motivated to get the book out the door, but he can also talk to his first customers to see exactly what they want to learn that he can teach.
Great work, Jarrod!
Where you able to find another book/resource to meet your need? If not, why deny yourself the knowledge that you were interested it getting?
The problem is that people don't want to participate in market research, so the only way to do it a lot of the time means not being entirely straightforward, and looking for roundabout ways to attract attention and get feedback.
However, if you're willing to look beyond the fact that you thought you were signing up for a complete product, and consider the big picture instead, you'll see that having early customers leads to better products and less time wasted on making things nobody wants. So ultimately, you benefit from it.
I used to get worked up about these things too, but I got over it.
Your blog post will also do me a lot of good, since I'm writing a book aimed at tech geeks as well. Thank you for writing it.
I had to chortle at that one. Aren't we training people to save money for a 'dry spell' these days? :-)
http://bootstrappingdesign.com/
It does look great on Chrome, however.
It also says "Me gusta" on the Facebook like button :) which is sometimes jarring when mixed with English, but that's because of my default language I guess.