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From the article: Valderrama allegedly said that she organized newsletter swaps, in which authors would promote each other’s books to their respective mailing

by rpeden 8y ago

From the article: Valderrama allegedly said that she organized newsletter swaps, in which authors would promote each other’s books to their respective mailing lists. Funnily enough, I've seen this same behavior from developers, freelancers, and authors who are "internet famous" on HN and Reddit. I've signed up for quite a few newsletters from these people because they often provide useful information. But since I signed up for so many, I started noticing that fairly often, they'd recommend each others' products. I realize it's entirely possible that these endorsements are authentic, but after a while, it starts to look like it's an interconnected web of people that met at conferences and agreed to cross-promote each each other on their respective newsletters. And so it ends up feeling like each recommendation isn't really authentic, but is instead more of a quid pro quo in exchange for a reciprocal recommendation. And it's possible that I'm completely wrong and just imagining all of this. It's just one of my pet peeves, so perhaps I'm exaggerating how prevalent it is. And don't even get me started on developers who have resorted to hokey long-form sales copy to sell their books and services... :)

ageitgey 8y ago
I'm a person with a mailing list in this space who has recommended other people's products, so I can maybe offer some insight on how this world works. The typical person working in this niche is a solo creator who maybe splits there time creating free content and doing paid consulting projects. The business model is usually something like "write a lot of regular free content to build up a giant mailing list and then occasionally sell something to your mailing list to pay the bills". The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to create good content. You are often so drained creating your "free" content that you don't have enough time or energy left to create enough "paid" content regularly enough to pay the bills. So you find friends who have created great stuff that you really like and you help each other out by cross-promoting. In almost every case, it's a direct business relationship. The typical deal in this niche for reselling electronic content is a 50/50 split. So you help your friend sell extra copies (which is just free income to them) while you also make decent money to sustain your work. Of course once you get "magic internet money" coming in this way, it's very tempting to abuse your audience and oversell. But then you lose subscribers quickly. Some people are very cynical about this and literally have spreadsheets to maximize how much they can sell while minimizing user attribution, but I'm not a fan of that. It just feels gross. So yes, it is indeed a small, interconnected web of people who agreed to cross-promote each other. And sometimes the recommendation isn't authentic, but often it is. But in almost case, it's not an exchange of free recommendations, but it's literally an affiliate split between the authors. As far as long-form sales copy to sell books, it is definitely very hokey. But the counterpoint is that most other approaches just don't convert. A cold lead who finds you via Google needs to be convinced that your stuff is worth money and long-form sales copy is one way to do that. I also hate it and completely avoid it, but I understand why people do it.
- rpeden 8y ago
  Thanks for providing some perspective! I appreciate it. And I completely understand that long form sales copy is often what converts visitors into customers. It just doesn't convert me. But it would be totally irrational for content creators to waste time on landing pages that'll convert anti-long-form grumps like me. :)
  - ageitgey 8y ago
    As a fellow grump, I totally agree - even to my own financial detriment. But you are exactly right - that ad page isn't for you at all. The mailing list and free content is for you. You hopefully buy based on your relationship with the author and aren't going to be convinced by any ad copy anyway. They just hope you'll ignore or forgive them for the annoying ad copy and not unsubscribe. That ad copy is aimed at the less-engaged customer - say a project manager at a large nameless consulting company somewhere in Germany or whatever who doesn't really care about topic X but was told by their boss to research topic X and has a training budget to buy a book on the topic (which they may or may not even read). Notice also how every one of these pages will have an absurdly priced $800 bundle option. First, some people at companies who have training budgets will buy it because to them $800 vs. $100 is a rounding error when it's all just free money anyway. And second, having an $800 option makes the $100 option seem incredibly reasonable (when you are essentially asking someone to pay $100 to download a PDF).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 8y ago
Spy Magazine was writing about this 30 years ago: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/08/one_cheer_for_cheering.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/08/one_ch...
jstarfish 8y ago
This is also how webrings operated in the 90s. I make a Diablo page, you make a Diablo page, we both have a common banner in the footer that references each other's sites and anybody else in the ring. (Don't forget to sign my guestbook!) They still do this with black hat SEO, since such sites aren't going to get any legitimate backlinks organically anyway.
- cortesoft 8y ago
  oh man, web rings

by rpeden 8y ago

ageitgey 8y ago

I'm a person with a mailing list in this space who has recommended other people's products, so I can maybe offer some insight on how this world works. The typical person working in this niche is a solo creator who maybe splits there time creating free content and doing paid consulting projects. The business model is usually something like "write a lot of regular free content to build up a giant mailing list and then occasionally sell something to your mailing list to pay the bills". The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to create good content. You are often so drained creating your "free" content that you don't have enough time or energy left to create enough "paid" content regularly enough to pay the bills. So you find friends who have created great stuff that you really like and you help each other out by cross-promoting. In almost every case, it's a direct business relationship. The typical deal in this niche for reselling electronic content is a 50/50 split. So you help your friend sell extra copies (which is just free income to them) while you also make decent money to sustain your work. Of course once you get "magic internet money" coming in this way, it's very tempting to abuse your audience and oversell. But then you lose subscribers quickly. Some people are very cynical about this and literally have spreadsheets to maximize how much they can sell while minimizing user attribution, but I'm not a fan of that. It just feels gross. So yes, it is indeed a small, interconnected web of people who agreed to cross-promote each other. And sometimes the recommendation isn't authentic, but often it is. But in almost case, it's not an exchange of free recommendations, but it's literally an affiliate split between the authors. As far as long-form sales copy to sell books, it is definitely very hokey. But the counterpoint is that most other approaches just don't convert. A cold lead who finds you via Google needs to be convinced that your stuff is worth money and long-form sales copy is one way to do that. I also hate it and completely avoid it, but I understand why people do it.

rpeden 8y ago
Thanks for providing some perspective! I appreciate it. And I completely understand that long form sales copy is often what converts visitors into customers. It just doesn't convert me. But it would be totally irrational for content creators to waste time on landing pages that'll convert anti-long-form grumps like me. :)
- ageitgey 8y ago
  As a fellow grump, I totally agree - even to my own financial detriment. But you are exactly right - that ad page isn't for you at all. The mailing list and free content is for you. You hopefully buy based on your relationship with the author and aren't going to be convinced by any ad copy anyway. They just hope you'll ignore or forgive them for the annoying ad copy and not unsubscribe. That ad copy is aimed at the less-engaged customer - say a project manager at a large nameless consulting company somewhere in Germany or whatever who doesn't really care about topic X but was told by their boss to research topic X and has a training budget to buy a book on the topic (which they may or may not even read). Notice also how every one of these pages will have an absurdly priced $800 bundle option. First, some people at companies who have training budgets will buy it because to them $800 vs. $100 is a rounding error when it's all just free money anyway. And second, having an $800 option makes the $100 option seem incredibly reasonable (when you are essentially asking someone to pay $100 to download a PDF).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rhizome 8y ago

Spy Magazine was writing about this 30 years ago: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/08/one_cheer_for_cheering.html http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2001/08/one_ch...

jstarfish 8y ago

This is also how webrings operated in the 90s. I make a Diablo page, you make a Diablo page, we both have a common banner in the footer that references each other's sites and anybody else in the ring. (Don't forget to sign my guestbook!) They still do this with black hat SEO, since such sites aren't going to get any legitimate backlinks organically anyway.

cortesoft 8y ago
oh man, web rings