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Comment by beaker | Hacker News Reader

The copy on this article and the book page itself feels so spammy that I would never buy the product. I respect the desire/need to make money, but I do think a certain percentage of your potential audience will be turned off immediately by the excessive use of this type of obvious marketing-speak (excessive use of bold fonts, short, pointed sentences, all the vague truisms, "money back guarantee"..). I hope this doesn't become the standard type of post on Hacker News, I'm sorry but after clicking on that link it really feels like I've just been spammed.

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Thanks for the comment, and I used to agree with just about everything you said.

However, there's nothing at all wrong with "marketing-speak". It's based on psychology: people skim, bolding is used to emphasize importance, and money back guarantees - well, they're exactly what they mean.

For most things, I personally prefer easily digestible content over blocks and blocks of text.

So instead of arguing ... what % of HNers are actually clicking through to your "no bullshit" offer?

Very few articles on the front page of HN are littered with testimonials and sales copy.

I've made just under $1,000 in sales today from HN. 1 in 7 people who have clicked through to the article go to the sales page.

EDIT: I'm sure a few people people are skeptical. Here's a screenshot from ejunkie (and I just crossed over the $1k mark): https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2205912/Screen%20Shot%202012-08-23%...

So you've made around 3 sales per hour since you've submitted it.

Assuming 3 sales/hr directly from HN, that is encouraging.

I don't know how anyone can verify 3 sales/hr from HN only from that screenshot, however. Sorry my thirst is unquenched, it's just this whole deal reminds me of ClickBank sales where fudging screenshots and hyping and bullshitting others is fairly commonplace.

I would believe 1 in 7 overall users click through, but I'm still curious who is doing it because I am a jaded, jaded marketer.

You'll just need to take my word on it - I'm not going to post ejunkie/PayPal creds :-)

Total uniques for the main article: 7,772 Total uniques for the sales page: 1,238 A 2% conversion rate (26 sales) isn't that far fetched. It was converting higher with the pre-HN traffic (about 6% on average).

take off the tinfoil hat, there's a reason you see that kind of copywriting and styling a lot...it works, and it works very well.

So long as the product being sold is legitimate, usage of that styling and copy is more than acceptable as it's a proven way to increase sales and conversions.

Marketing != Evil

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