4 ms·

Developers, Designers: Make an Infoproduct

32 points by lfittl 16y ago

wccrawford 16y ago
Anybody that thinks writing a book is easy is -crazy-. Okay, writing a -bad- book is easy. Writing a book that's worthwhile isn't.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Hi, I'm the author. I've written 3 full-length books, and half of one. Two of the completed ones were for actual publishers, and ended up canceled or not published or I quit in disgust. The last completed one was obviously http://jsrocks.com http://jsrocks.com. But, I've written maybe 950 pages of book in my life so far. Writing a book is easy. Giving birth is also easy. Both may hurt like hell, but they're not difficult. You pretty much have to show up and push. Now, writing a book for the wrong reasons is impossible. If you're doing it for fame or exposure, or the cred, or the money (without finding an ongoing motivating force), yes, you will have to fight yourself every step of the way. But that's because you don't really want to write a book, you want the goodies that you think you'll get. But, more importantly, an ebook doesn't have a page count requirement. It doesn't have to look at-least-this-thick on the bookshelf. It doesn't have to meet some stupid editorial rule. It just has to do the job. An ebook isn't a book. But, like the rest of my article pointed out, _you don't have to even do an ebook_. EDIT: Actually, make that 4 full-length books, since the text for my 30x500 Launch Class is nearly 300 pages. http://unicornfree.com/prelaunch http://unicornfree.com/prelaunch. EDIT: Oh, and it's not because I'm not afflicted with distractability or procrastination. Just trust me on that.
  - QuantumGood 16y ago
    Simple to conceptualize and easy to do are not the same things.
    - ahoyhere 16y ago
      If you sit down at your desk every day at a certain time, what part of writing is "hard"?
rudenoise 16y ago
It's a pretty straight forward concept (certainly nothing new): charge for teaching/sharing info in a format you can distribute and charge for. This article does make a good description of what these products can be. The problem this article makes no attempt to address is, once you have an "infoproduct" ready to ship how do you find customers? As a post last week (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759052 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759052) referenced , you may need 1000 true fans to make a living selling direct (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...) I'm sure we all have info products in us, but the barrier to entry (or at least making a living) will be finding the balance of desiredIncome / numberOfCustomers = salePrice Factoring in the effort to find the number of customers required is at least as much work as creating a product in the first place.
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  If I included all that too, it would be TL;DR. You know I'm right. Follow my blog, though, because I'm going to be writing a lot more about infoproducts over the next few months, and I will be creating that infoproduct course that inspired the article. But, I will say, you're making a critical mistake if you create a product and THEN try to find customers for it.
  - RainerBlessing 16y ago
    Will you also write about how to find a topic for the infoproduct? That to me is the most difficult part.
    - ahoyhere 16y ago
      Yep. :)
newsisan 16y ago
But hurry! This special price is only for the first 500 copies. At number 501, the price will be $49! Hmm. So how does that add to $45,823?
- ahoyhere 16y ago
  Perhaps that was unclear, but that only refers to 500 copies of the final book (most sales were made when the book was in beta.)
Revisor 16y ago
Instead of creating easily warezable infoproducts, create scalable services. For an example see how Aaron Wall turned his SEO Book into a platform (forum, tools).

32 points by lfittl 16y ago

Anybody that thinks writing a book is easy is -crazy-. Okay, writing a -bad- book is easy. Writing a book that's worthwhile isn't.

ahoyhere 16y ago
Hi, I'm the author. I've written 3 full-length books, and half of one. Two of the completed ones were for actual publishers, and ended up canceled or not published or I quit in disgust. The last completed one was obviously http://jsrocks.com http://jsrocks.com. But, I've written maybe 950 pages of book in my life so far. Writing a book is easy. Giving birth is also easy. Both may hurt like hell, but they're not difficult. You pretty much have to show up and push. Now, writing a book for the wrong reasons is impossible. If you're doing it for fame or exposure, or the cred, or the money (without finding an ongoing motivating force), yes, you will have to fight yourself every step of the way. But that's because you don't really want to write a book, you want the goodies that you think you'll get. But, more importantly, an ebook doesn't have a page count requirement. It doesn't have to look at-least-this-thick on the bookshelf. It doesn't have to meet some stupid editorial rule. It just has to do the job. An ebook isn't a book. But, like the rest of my article pointed out, _you don't have to even do an ebook_. EDIT: Actually, make that 4 full-length books, since the text for my 30x500 Launch Class is nearly 300 pages. http://unicornfree.com/prelaunch http://unicornfree.com/prelaunch. EDIT: Oh, and it's not because I'm not afflicted with distractability or procrastination. Just trust me on that.
- QuantumGood 16y ago
  Simple to conceptualize and easy to do are not the same things.
  - ahoyhere 16y ago
    If you sit down at your desk every day at a certain time, what part of writing is "hard"?

rudenoise 16y ago

It's a pretty straight forward concept (certainly nothing new): charge for teaching/sharing info in a format you can distribute and charge for. This article does make a good description of what these products can be. The problem this article makes no attempt to address is, once you have an "infoproduct" ready to ship how do you find customers? As a post last week (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759052 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1759052) referenced , you may need 1000 true fans to make a living selling direct (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...) I'm sure we all have info products in us, but the barrier to entry (or at least making a living) will be finding the balance of desiredIncome / numberOfCustomers = salePrice Factoring in the effort to find the number of customers required is at least as much work as creating a product in the first place.

ahoyhere 16y ago
If I included all that too, it would be TL;DR. You know I'm right. Follow my blog, though, because I'm going to be writing a lot more about infoproducts over the next few months, and I will be creating that infoproduct course that inspired the article. But, I will say, you're making a critical mistake if you create a product and THEN try to find customers for it.
- RainerBlessing 16y ago
  Will you also write about how to find a topic for the infoproduct? That to me is the most difficult part.
  - ahoyhere 16y ago
    Yep. :)

newsisan 16y ago

But hurry! This special price is only for the first 500 copies. At number 501, the price will be $49! Hmm. So how does that add to $45,823?

ahoyhere 16y ago
Perhaps that was unclear, but that only refers to 500 copies of the final book (most sales were made when the book was in beta.)

Revisor 16y ago

Instead of creating easily warezable infoproducts, create scalable services. For an example see how Aaron Wall turned his SEO Book into a platform (forum, tools).