4 ms·

I'm fascinated with and profoundly envious of people who can accrue huge sums of money in such short periods of time. Given that this was all done within 24 ho

by ruswick 14y ago

I'm fascinated with and profoundly envious of people who can accrue huge sums of money in such short periods of time. Given that this was all done within 24 hours, it's unlikely that many sales came from the quality of the book: people won't have had time to read the book, and so word-of-mouth-based sales will be negligible if not nonexistent. In the first few days of sales, most every transaction is derived from presentation, notoriety, or luck... I haven't read the book (and I couldn't afford it even if I had a desire to do so), and it may be a fine product. However, Nathan could have easily published a piece of abject trash, full of platitudes and banal tautology, and done perhaps just as well. Quality has no bearing on the initial success of a product, and only comes into play later. It just goes to show how much gravity factors like marketing have on sales.

nathanbarry 14y ago
I guess that's true, but it is really important to build a reputation for quality work. Also this was my second book, so I had people buy off of the quality from my previous book.
- ruswick 14y ago
  Was your first book anywhere near as successful in the first 24 hours as this one?
  - nathanbarry 14y ago
    If you read the post you can see the number comparison (further down the page). Or you can read my summary of the first launch here: http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook-today/ http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook-today/ I sold about $12,000 in the first 24 hours for my first book.
    - ruswick 14y ago
      If anything, the first book is a better indicator of pure marketing-based success, considering that you didn't have a following at that point. For the record, I'm not asserting that it's bad that you made so much money based on theses factors. I don't expect you not to market you products. If anything, I was commenting on the importance of marketing to initial success.
    - xiaoma 14y ago
      About how many people were on your email list when you released the first one?
csomar 14y ago
I'm fascinated with and profoundly envious of people who can accrue huge sums of money in such short periods of time. 1. 26k is not a huge amount of money. 2. He didn't make the money in 24 hours. There was a lot of work involved in the writing and making of the book.
- ruswick 14y ago
  1. Over 25% of households in the country live on less than 26k/year. You have obviously succumbed to some sort of upper-class myopia. Not everyone is rich. 26k is quite a bit of money. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...) Even if that weren't true, it's still an inordinately large amount of money to earn in a single day. When is the last time you made 26k in a day? 2. The amount of time spent making the product has nothing to do with the amount of time in which the sales were made. What you're saying is just incoherent. Within a 24 hour period, he earned 26k. The assertion that the time put into making the product also qualifies as time over which he earned money just isn't logical. He made a lot of money in a short time based on notoriety and marketing. What is so hard to accept about that?
  - mhuffman 14y ago
    On your second point, that is like saying that the 3 years and 80 million dollars spent developing a game should be ignored because it made 90 million in the first 24 hours.
    - rexreed 14y ago
      If I may take artistic license to reinterpret the comment, what I get from the comment is that given the very short term nature of the sales, no one really had time to read the content and then publicize their opinions to yield this sales curve. Basically, there is no word-of-mouth or social proof effect evident in this sales curve. Indeed, we see the opposite - more people bought the book before others subsequently purchased it. Sales were due to pent up demand versus waiting for others to verify quality or value. Basically, the moment it was offered for sale, the product was purchased practically sight unseen (altho the article mentions that he in effect pre-released portions of the text to his newsletter subscribers). Given this, the book could have been low quality and it wouldn't have impacted this sales curve. In which case, the OP could have spent 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, or 5 months writing the book and the sales curve would look similar. What I gleaned from this article was not that it took substantial effort to write a book to evoke this sort of sales curve, but rather there was a process of building expectation and an audience which would result in substantial sales for a book, regardless of its level of quality. The level of quality became assumed and did not require prior evidence. Thus, labor / effort in writing was not proportional to sales.

by ruswick 14y ago

nathanbarry 14y ago

I guess that's true, but it is really important to build a reputation for quality work. Also this was my second book, so I had people buy off of the quality from my previous book.

ruswick 14y ago
Was your first book anywhere near as successful in the first 24 hours as this one?
- nathanbarry 14y ago
  If you read the post you can see the number comparison (further down the page). Or you can read my summary of the first launch here: http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook-today/ http://nathanbarry.com/learned-selling-6000-ebook-today/ I sold about $12,000 in the first 24 hours for my first book.
  - ruswick 14y ago
    If anything, the first book is a better indicator of pure marketing-based success, considering that you didn't have a following at that point. For the record, I'm not asserting that it's bad that you made so much money based on theses factors. I don't expect you not to market you products. If anything, I was commenting on the importance of marketing to initial success.
  - xiaoma 14y ago
    About how many people were on your email list when you released the first one?

csomar 14y ago

I'm fascinated with and profoundly envious of people who can accrue huge sums of money in such short periods of time. 1. 26k is not a huge amount of money. 2. He didn't make the money in 24 hours. There was a lot of work involved in the writing and making of the book.

ruswick 14y ago
1. Over 25% of households in the country live on less than 26k/year. You have obviously succumbed to some sort of upper-class myopia. Not everyone is rich. 26k is quite a bit of money. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Household_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...) Even if that weren't true, it's still an inordinately large amount of money to earn in a single day. When is the last time you made 26k in a day? 2. The amount of time spent making the product has nothing to do with the amount of time in which the sales were made. What you're saying is just incoherent. Within a 24 hour period, he earned 26k. The assertion that the time put into making the product also qualifies as time over which he earned money just isn't logical. He made a lot of money in a short time based on notoriety and marketing. What is so hard to accept about that?
- mhuffman 14y ago
  On your second point, that is like saying that the 3 years and 80 million dollars spent developing a game should be ignored because it made 90 million in the first 24 hours.
  - rexreed 14y ago
    If I may take artistic license to reinterpret the comment, what I get from the comment is that given the very short term nature of the sales, no one really had time to read the content and then publicize their opinions to yield this sales curve. Basically, there is no word-of-mouth or social proof effect evident in this sales curve. Indeed, we see the opposite - more people bought the book before others subsequently purchased it. Sales were due to pent up demand versus waiting for others to verify quality or value. Basically, the moment it was offered for sale, the product was purchased practically sight unseen (altho the article mentions that he in effect pre-released portions of the text to his newsletter subscribers). Given this, the book could have been low quality and it wouldn't have impacted this sales curve. In which case, the OP could have spent 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, or 5 months writing the book and the sales curve would look similar. What I gleaned from this article was not that it took substantial effort to write a book to evoke this sort of sales curve, but rather there was a process of building expectation and an audience which would result in substantial sales for a book, regardless of its level of quality. The level of quality became assumed and did not require prior evidence. Thus, labor / effort in writing was not proportional to sales.