8 ms·

Should you launch more than once?

70 points by nathanbarry 13y ago

mos2 13y ago
I think this is a pretty interesting article about doing a revised product, 2nd product launch. From what I gather, it is quite similar to a 2nd or subsequent edition of a non-fiction book. I can't remember where I read it, but someone said that you can often make more money off of a 2nd edition, and often it takes a lot less work than the 1st edition as you are just revising the content.
- nathanbarry 13y ago
  I was reading about this yesterday. Seems the publishing industry will release a hardcover, softcover, and then a small softcover version of the book. Not sure the exact benefits, but they wouldn't do it unless it made money.
  - SatvikBeri 13y ago
    I think it's price discrimination. As I understand it hardcover books have much higher profit margins. The major fans want to buy a book ASAP and if hardcover is the only option they'll buy that. But if all editions are available from day 1 then a lot of customers will buy the cheapest one.
    - nathanbarry 13y ago
      I think you're right. I found the article I was thinking of: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.htm... Here's the section: "WHAT IS PERHAPS most remarkable about the Patterson empire is the sheer volume of books it produces. The nine hardcovers a year are really only the beginning. Nearly all of those books are published a second and third time, first as traditional paperbacks, then as pocket-size, mass-market paperbacks. “Scarcely a week goes by when we aren’t publishing something by James Patterson,” Young told me, only half-joking."
    - runevault 13y ago
      That is 100% the case, same way movies prefer to have it in theaters and then release onto Blu-ray/dvd later to get people in theaters THEN get them to buy it. Controlling buying habits through windowing is annoying but not surprising method of improving revenue among other things. Another fiction example, to ensure the last book of the Wheel of Time would hit #1 on the NYT hardcover list the original author's widow talked the publisher into not releasing the eBook right away to make sure people who bought the book week 1 got the hardback ensuring it would hit the top spot.
- SatvikBeri 13y ago
  My game developer friends mentioned something similar–that expansion packs were much more profitable than building new games. Because the expansion could take ~10% of the time but would generate 50% of the sales of the original. This was in the 90s but similar principles are probably true in a lot of fields.
janesvilleseo 13y ago
Good post. It reminded me of the US College textbook system. They do this at a larger scale. It definitely drives home why you would want to relaunch the product.
antidaily 13y ago
You can make $50k too. Just sign up for his free course.
- RobAley 13y ago
  Well I found it quite useful. I've been doing small updates to my book [1], (mainly adding additional links, small examples and tidying text) since it launched late last year. I'm currently working on a larger update (adding a new section on Raspberry Pi programming, and some bigger code exaples, plus an enhanced HTML version), and I was wondering on how best to position the updated version. My choice was to continue with my current marketing, or to do a relaunch like Nathan. The information he gave is quite enlightening. [1] PHP Beyond the Web, http://www.leanpub.com/php http://www.leanpub.com/php
  - makmanalp 13y ago
    ... and you just hijacked this discussion about self-serving advice as an opportunity to plug your own book :) I think it's fine to plug oneself when it's at the end of an ostensibly useful article but a bit more jarring in a "me too" comment. I think the more socially acceptable thing to do is to put your book in your profile and mention that you're working on it. Those who are interested will find it easily. Opinions on this vary, of course.
    - davidw 13y ago
      This isn't reddit where you have to be ashamed of trying to make money or promote your hard work. The thing people should avoid is only commenting to promote their stuff.
      - mattmanser 13y ago
        Nathan Barry posts are bad enough as it is without people in the comments doing the same thing.
        13y ago
gk1 13y ago
My product isn't tech-related[0], and my (re)launch didn't net me $58 G's, but I had great results when I relaunched it. The site was running for years, but without any grand purpose or vision. Then I decided to completely revamp it, open it up as a platform for other cartoonists, and focus on a mission (help cartoonists make money). I wrote about this rebirth[1] and got an amazing response--24 hrs on the front page, lots of love and feedback. (And one minor snafu that cost me a few hundred bucks.) I have another post sitting in draft mode about the exact results of that relaunch, including metrics, analysis, and discussion on getting qualitative product feedback. [0] http://www.gagcartoons.com http://www.gagcartoons.com [1] http://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoonists/ http://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoo...
nickstinemates 13y ago
Amazing level of transparency. Thanks for sharing, Nathan.
easy_rider 13y ago
Here is a motivational song for y'all [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJDtTZ0Q1lY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJDtTZ0Q1lY
programminggeek 13y ago
In a lot of places it is common to have a big new feature launch once a year or so. Something as simple as a decent email launch sequence educating and informing your users and potential customers of the great new things you've added is often enough to make a nice bit of new money along with probably higher residual money. Joel Splosky wrote about this a long time ago with the whole idea that each new set of features lets you serve more customers, but it also gives you the benefit of a new "marketing event" that you can use to go out there and tell everybody what you are doing. Like anything, "launching" is a skill, and the more you do it, the better you get. Tim Ferriss also mentioned once that one reason he got into nonfiction books is he can relaunch a new edition every so many years and continue to make good money with basically the same material.
zrail 13y ago
For what it's worth, I read Authority before starting on my own book[1] and have earned almost $26k so far, sans relaunch. I'll be doing a 2nd edition sometime this year with lots of updates and will probably "relaunch" then. Nathan's stuff is great, I highly recommend it if you're planning on doing a project like this. [1]: https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments

70 points by nathanbarry 13y ago

mos2 13y ago

I think this is a pretty interesting article about doing a revised product, 2nd product launch. From what I gather, it is quite similar to a 2nd or subsequent edition of a non-fiction book. I can't remember where I read it, but someone said that you can often make more money off of a 2nd edition, and often it takes a lot less work than the 1st edition as you are just revising the content.

nathanbarry 13y ago
I was reading about this yesterday. Seems the publishing industry will release a hardcover, softcover, and then a small softcover version of the book. Not sure the exact benefits, but they wouldn't do it unless it made money.
- SatvikBeri 13y ago
  I think it's price discrimination. As I understand it hardcover books have much higher profit margins. The major fans want to buy a book ASAP and if hardcover is the only option they'll buy that. But if all editions are available from day 1 then a lot of customers will buy the cheapest one.
  - nathanbarry 13y ago
    I think you're right. I found the article I was thinking of: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all&_r=1& http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24patterson-t.htm... Here's the section: "WHAT IS PERHAPS most remarkable about the Patterson empire is the sheer volume of books it produces. The nine hardcovers a year are really only the beginning. Nearly all of those books are published a second and third time, first as traditional paperbacks, then as pocket-size, mass-market paperbacks. “Scarcely a week goes by when we aren’t publishing something by James Patterson,” Young told me, only half-joking."
  - runevault 13y ago
    That is 100% the case, same way movies prefer to have it in theaters and then release onto Blu-ray/dvd later to get people in theaters THEN get them to buy it. Controlling buying habits through windowing is annoying but not surprising method of improving revenue among other things. Another fiction example, to ensure the last book of the Wheel of Time would hit #1 on the NYT hardcover list the original author's widow talked the publisher into not releasing the eBook right away to make sure people who bought the book week 1 got the hardback ensuring it would hit the top spot.
SatvikBeri 13y ago
My game developer friends mentioned something similar–that expansion packs were much more profitable than building new games. Because the expansion could take ~10% of the time but would generate 50% of the sales of the original. This was in the 90s but similar principles are probably true in a lot of fields.

janesvilleseo 13y ago

Good post. It reminded me of the US College textbook system. They do this at a larger scale. It definitely drives home why you would want to relaunch the product.

antidaily 13y ago

You can make $50k too. Just sign up for his free course.

RobAley 13y ago
Well I found it quite useful. I've been doing small updates to my book [1], (mainly adding additional links, small examples and tidying text) since it launched late last year. I'm currently working on a larger update (adding a new section on Raspberry Pi programming, and some bigger code exaples, plus an enhanced HTML version), and I was wondering on how best to position the updated version. My choice was to continue with my current marketing, or to do a relaunch like Nathan. The information he gave is quite enlightening. [1] PHP Beyond the Web, http://www.leanpub.com/php http://www.leanpub.com/php
- makmanalp 13y ago
  ... and you just hijacked this discussion about self-serving advice as an opportunity to plug your own book :) I think it's fine to plug oneself when it's at the end of an ostensibly useful article but a bit more jarring in a "me too" comment. I think the more socially acceptable thing to do is to put your book in your profile and mention that you're working on it. Those who are interested will find it easily. Opinions on this vary, of course.
  - davidw 13y ago
    This isn't reddit where you have to be ashamed of trying to make money or promote your hard work. The thing people should avoid is only commenting to promote their stuff.
    - mattmanser 13y ago
      Nathan Barry posts are bad enough as it is without people in the comments doing the same thing.
      - 13y ago

gk1 13y ago

My product isn't tech-related[0], and my (re)launch didn't net me $58 G's, but I had great results when I relaunched it. The site was running for years, but without any grand purpose or vision. Then I decided to completely revamp it, open it up as a platform for other cartoonists, and focus on a mission (help cartoonists make money). I wrote about this rebirth[1] and got an amazing response--24 hrs on the front page, lots of love and feedback. (And one minor snafu that cost me a few hundred bucks.) I have another post sitting in draft mode about the exact results of that relaunch, including metrics, analysis, and discussion on getting qualitative product feedback. [0] http://www.gagcartoons.com http://www.gagcartoons.com [1] http://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoonists/ http://www.gkogan.co/blog/creating-new-business-model-cartoo...

nickstinemates 13y ago

Amazing level of transparency. Thanks for sharing, Nathan.

easy_rider 13y ago

Here is a motivational song for y'all [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJDtTZ0Q1lY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJDtTZ0Q1lY

programminggeek 13y ago

In a lot of places it is common to have a big new feature launch once a year or so. Something as simple as a decent email launch sequence educating and informing your users and potential customers of the great new things you've added is often enough to make a nice bit of new money along with probably higher residual money. Joel Splosky wrote about this a long time ago with the whole idea that each new set of features lets you serve more customers, but it also gives you the benefit of a new "marketing event" that you can use to go out there and tell everybody what you are doing. Like anything, "launching" is a skill, and the more you do it, the better you get. Tim Ferriss also mentioned once that one reason he got into nonfiction books is he can relaunch a new edition every so many years and continue to make good money with basically the same material.

zrail 13y ago

For what it's worth, I read Authority before starting on my own book[1] and have earned almost $26k so far, sans relaunch. I'll be doing a 2nd edition sometime this year with lots of updates and will probably "relaunch" then. Nathan's stuff is great, I highly recommend it if you're planning on doing a project like this. [1]: https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments