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This is the real way to do it! Not only did this author make more money, they have fewer customers, better customers, and can afford to take better care of them

This is the real way to do it! Not only did this author make more money, they have fewer customers, better customers, and can afford to take better care of them.

true_religion 15y ago
It costs nothing to sell a book to 10,000 customers as 1000 customers. There's no supply chain for an ebook. No support costs. No, re-occuring billing, or Q&A sessions for them. More customers could arguably give you free word of mouth marketing, but fewer "qualified" customers could give you better leads.
- ahoyhere 15y ago
  As somebody who makes quite a bit of money off infoproducts (ebooks etc) -- and who has a lot of friends who do it as well -- I can assure you, there are support costs for ebooks. :) People lose download links, you have to reissue. People want refunds. People have complaints. Not a lot, but it adds up. Lower-paying customers almost always are more demanding, less appreciative customers. I've seen this in my biz (infoproducts, courses & SaaS), heard it from friends in theirs (SaaSes, restaurants, training companies etc). It's a truism probably because it is largely true. As you brought up in your last sentence, there's also opportunity costs of going with a lower price. You've also taught those customers to only pay you $3-6, which means you may have a harder time selling them on fancier products later. Finally: Especially with infoproducts, when it's a no-brainer, people are likely to buy on a trigger and then never use what they bought. If your goal is to help people, change their minds, build a community, this can be a kiss of death.
  - wanderr 15y ago
    On the other hand, more expensive items often get worse reviews, because customer expectations rise. For example, I was looking at espresso machines on amazon a few months ago, and just about all of the $2k+ machines had worse ratings than the <$250 machines. I find it highly unlikely that the order of magnitude more expensive machines are actually worse, but they clearly set expectations much higher and therefore lead to more disappointment.
    - runako 15y ago
      Corollary: if you charge more, deliver a product at least as good as your cheaper competitors.
    - ahoyhere 15y ago
      That's a good point. I think it matters a lot WHAT you're selling. At $500+ a head for a day, our JavaScript workshop is more expensive than just about any other way of learning JavaScript. But we get almost exclusively rave reviews, because that price keeps out anyone who's not really committed. And I've found that, as I charged more for my product class ($500 -> $1250 -> $1550 -> now $2450+), people have become MORE enthusiastic, MORE involved, MORE likely to finish, MORE helpful to their fellow alumni, because the price is a filter and it's a kick in the ass. (When you only pay $500, you don't feel the pain so much when you let it fall by the way side. But nearly $3k is a LOT to sacrifice to laziness.) Obviously, this wouldn't work if I wasn't great at teaching. And I am great at teaching. But I've watched the enthusiasm level increase with the prices, rather than the other way around, even though I, the teacher, haven't changed, and neither has the material all that much.

This is the real way to do it! Not only did this author make more money, they have fewer customers, better customers, and can afford to take better care of them.

true_religion 15y ago

It costs nothing to sell a book to 10,000 customers as 1000 customers. There's no supply chain for an ebook. No support costs. No, re-occuring billing, or Q&A sessions for them. More customers could arguably give you free word of mouth marketing, but fewer "qualified" customers could give you better leads.

ahoyhere 15y ago
As somebody who makes quite a bit of money off infoproducts (ebooks etc) -- and who has a lot of friends who do it as well -- I can assure you, there are support costs for ebooks. :) People lose download links, you have to reissue. People want refunds. People have complaints. Not a lot, but it adds up. Lower-paying customers almost always are more demanding, less appreciative customers. I've seen this in my biz (infoproducts, courses & SaaS), heard it from friends in theirs (SaaSes, restaurants, training companies etc). It's a truism probably because it is largely true. As you brought up in your last sentence, there's also opportunity costs of going with a lower price. You've also taught those customers to only pay you $3-6, which means you may have a harder time selling them on fancier products later. Finally: Especially with infoproducts, when it's a no-brainer, people are likely to buy on a trigger and then never use what they bought. If your goal is to help people, change their minds, build a community, this can be a kiss of death.
- wanderr 15y ago
  On the other hand, more expensive items often get worse reviews, because customer expectations rise. For example, I was looking at espresso machines on amazon a few months ago, and just about all of the $2k+ machines had worse ratings than the <$250 machines. I find it highly unlikely that the order of magnitude more expensive machines are actually worse, but they clearly set expectations much higher and therefore lead to more disappointment.
  - runako 15y ago
    Corollary: if you charge more, deliver a product at least as good as your cheaper competitors.
  - ahoyhere 15y ago
    That's a good point. I think it matters a lot WHAT you're selling. At $500+ a head for a day, our JavaScript workshop is more expensive than just about any other way of learning JavaScript. But we get almost exclusively rave reviews, because that price keeps out anyone who's not really committed. And I've found that, as I charged more for my product class ($500 -> $1250 -> $1550 -> now $2450+), people have become MORE enthusiastic, MORE involved, MORE likely to finish, MORE helpful to their fellow alumni, because the price is a filter and it's a kick in the ass. (When you only pay $500, you don't feel the pain so much when you let it fall by the way side. But nearly $3k is a LOT to sacrifice to laziness.) Obviously, this wouldn't work if I wasn't great at teaching. And I am great at teaching. But I've watched the enthusiasm level increase with the prices, rather than the other way around, even though I, the teacher, haven't changed, and neither has the material all that much.