9 ms·

Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics

202 points by hodgesmr 12y ago

the_cat_kittles 12y ago
its amazing to me that these guys pivoted (or at least forked) from data services to journalism, but i think they do a phenomenal job as writers. watching their path has been as confusing as its been encouraging. congratulations on your book!
bfwi 12y ago
Can you buy it in an ebook format other than Kindle?
- aluhut 12y ago
  You can get Calibre for free and convert it there.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Kindle ebooks have DRM and require you to buy them from Amazon. Some people prefer to avoid both when paying for books.
    - base698 12y ago
      I have my Calibre folder backed up with BT Sync and unDRM my kindle books there, so I can open them on anything with BT Sync installed. I always buy with Kindle and convert with Calibre then read in iBooks. It'd be nice not to have to do that.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Criminal offence if you're stripping the DRM in the process of format shifting.
    - JetSpiegel 12y ago
      On the other hand, Calibre is FLOSS and doesn't contact any servers, so there's not much they can do to enforce it.
beggi 12y ago
I've enjoyed Priceonomics blog posts and will probably get the book. Anyone remember when this was a pricing service startup though? Did they pivot to writing?
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  Did you even read the OP? They explain it.
  - Kiro 12y ago
    No, they don't. Their data crawling business is a pivot as well so it explains nothing about the former pricing service.
- alexmayyasi 12y ago
  Here's an explanation of the move to data services and writing articles and blog posts. http://priceonomics.com/introducing-the-priceonomics-business-model-data/ http://priceonomics.com/introducing-the-priceonomics-busines...
- drpgq 12y ago
  Has anyone jumped into the pricing service niche? I liked the pricing as well.
  - alttab 12y ago
    Black Locus, from Austin TX, was acquired by Home Depot for dynamic pricing [1]. [1]: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/home-depot-acquires-data-driven-pricing-analytics-startup-blacklocus/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/home-depot-acquires-data-dr...
talles 12y ago
Kinda off topic, but still: anyone besides me noticed how the logo and the favicon looks a lot like PayPal's? https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/i/logo/rebrand/ppcom.svg https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/i/logo/rebrand/ppcom... http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png
- alaskamiller 12y ago
  Pricenomics actually has the same aesthetics as the city parking signs in San Francisco.
roma1n 12y ago
Just curious -- how much of the book is based on blog content and how much is new?
- kqr2 12y ago
  If you’re a fan of our blog, we hope the new essays will be reason enough to buy the book: The Seal Clubbing Business, Why Is Art Expensive, How to Sell Nothing for $1000, The Big Lie, The World’s Most Expensive Free Credit Report, and The Food Industrial Complex.
  - roma1n 12y ago
    Great -- ordered!
discodave 12y ago
I think this book should get some kind of Godwin award for mentioning hitler in the fourth paragraph.
- devindotcom 12y ago
  You may be surprised to hear that there are books that mention Hitler in the first paragraph — in fact, some concern themselves with him exclusively!
  - jonnathanson 12y ago
    In fact, Hitler even beat out Jesus for total references for a good stretch of the mid-20th Century. For a long time, he was also stealing Christmas. But we're happy to note that Christmas overtook Hitler in the 1980s, and has narrowly edged him out ever since. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hitler%2CJesus%2CChristmas&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CHitler%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJesus%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CChristmas%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hitler%2CJesus...
  - SonOfLilit 12y ago
    I think there's an exemption to Godwin's Law for writing about Nazi Germany.
- lightyrs 12y ago
  Novick's Law: Nobody understands Godwin's law.
ebspelman 12y ago
Go Priceonomics! I really enjoy their approach to journalism.
pgrote 12y ago
The fake praise at the top is a great touch. All the reviews on amazon are 5 stars, too.
- atwebb 12y ago
  For anyone that wants to skim them: "I hope everyone reads this book and learns about the cruel business of selling pets." - Bowser, a dog "I can confirm I make money - making you feel bad about yourself." - Marketing Executive "We've finally been bested in the battle for best book with 'onomics' in the title." - Freakonomics "Buying this book was the best decision I ever made." - You, in the Future "I didn't really care for this book." - Your Childhood Nemesis "You know what the world needs? Another book." - Priceonomics Middle Management "Under no circumstances should anyone read this book." - CEO of De Beers "Finally, a book that helps me steal bicycles more efficiently!" - Bike Thief "Nutella really is healthy. Hahaha, I can't even say that with a straight face." - Food Industry Lobbyist "An intellectual tour de force of staggering proportions - Priceonomics" - Winston Churchill "After reading this book, I think I was duped into knighting a scoundrel." - The Queen of England "No this book is not tax deductible. Why would you even ask that?" - Your Accountant "Any press is good press, right?" - Actual Seal Clubbers "With my endorsement, this book will reach the tipping point before you blink." - Galcolm Madwell "Until this book, I had no idea why people started calling me Chilean Sea Bass." - An Arctic Toothfish "Mandatory reading at the Zoolander Center for Children Who Can't Read Good!" - D. Zoolander "Do not buy this book. Contains almost no practical information about bullshit or manure." - Farmer "Yes, the oligarchy needs something to spend its money on. " - Art Dealer "Finally, a book that passes judgement on my life's work!" - A Bordeaux Winemaker "You mean I wasted all my savings on a diamond ring?" - Dudes Everywhere "Can I interest anyone in a 'free' credit report? Lol." - The Experian Corporation "Of course pizza is a vegetable! Don't listen to those troublemakers at Priceonomics." - US Congress "Finally a book I can enthusiastically give two thumbs up!" - Friedrich Nietzsche "I only read the title, but I entirely disagree with everything in this book." - Internet Commenter
  - beamatronic 12y ago
    Can't forget: "I only read the title, but I entirely agree with everything in this book." - Internet Commenter
rondon2 12y ago
Thanks for explaining that you get $6 either way (Hardcopy or Kindle) I would have assumed you get more with the hard copy.
marban 12y ago
No iBook?
ironicman 12y ago
It made me chuckle that trying to share the book on Amazon using the email share option on the page is blocked. I suspect due to the word Bullshit in the title
- bwood 12y ago
  Email share just worked fine for me.
blisterpeanuts 12y ago
I guess when you can't think of a creative title, just use a profanity. I don't want my 9-year-old to be exposed to this kind of language either on the coffee table or on the tablet, so I won't be buying the book. Could you put out a PG-rated version for those of us prudish and old-fashioned types?
- Crito 12y ago
  9 year olds are typically in what, 3rd or 4th grade? Unless you are homeschooling him, he may not be swearing at home but that ship has long since sailed. I'm sure he and his recess buddies could teach you a few new words.
- LoganCale 12y ago
  The horror! Someone might encounter a word!
  - ivan_ah 12y ago
    It says parent under your post, but are you really a parent? Could it be that some people have different points of view on language usage around their kids?
    - JetSpiegel 12y ago
      Parents have different points of view on vaccines too, and I don't see people defending anti-vaccination rhetoric as "different points of view".
    - LoganCale 12y ago
      Having kids doesn't make you right about something.
- coffeecodecouch 12y ago
  A simple solution is to not leave this book out for your 9-year-old (or realize your 9-year-old really isn't interested). You can't seriously expect them to release a PG alternative.
Paul_Dessert 12y ago
Just a quick suggestion to the Priceonomics team... Start with the bottom half of the article. I had to go half way down the page to find out what the book is about. The first half talks about you WAY too much.
- ajkjk 12y ago
  Well, I thought reading about them was really interesting. I think it made me a lot more likely to buy the book, especially since they were delightfully honest in explaining their motivations.
riffraff 12y ago
I was so expecting the justification for pricing the kindle version at $9.26!
meritt 12y ago
I'm genuinely confused about the legality about building a business whose sole purpose is to scrape the web, repackage and sell that information. One side of the fence, you have all this publicly accessible information, so it's like.. why not? Anyone can obtain it. Why should you be restricted? Then on the other side you have companies who will place all sorts of legal restrictions, TOS/EULAs, etc to prevent against web scraping; sending out cease & desists and even sometimes going as far as taking someone to court. What's the best + safest approach here for a company like Priceonomics?
- hodgesmr 12y ago
  > "I'm genuinely confused about the legality about building a business whose sole purpose is to scrape the web, repackage and sell that information" Like Google?
  - meritt 12y ago
    Exactly. I am very much on the side of "If it's publicly available info, it's free to access and repackage" but a lot of companies and judges feel otherwise.
    - ZoF 12y ago
      Can you list some specific examples of companies to whom this pertains? By that I mean companies who think their data shouldn't be publicly available and also fail to place a no-crawl flag in their robots.txt.
      - meritt 12y ago
        Well, a robots.txt (much like an implicit TOS/EULA that nobody ever sees nor agrees to) isn't exactly legally binding. Yelp, LinkedIn, and Craigslist are examples that have taken legal action recently against other entities scraping and re-purposing the data.
- JVIDEL 12y ago
  I think part of the problem is that some services' TOS do give users the option to restrict access to their information so if you go and scrap it that might cause problems to the startup where that content was posted to.
guiomie 12y ago
Just did an impulsive amazon checkout. All this frictionless online shopping is getting dangerous. HackNews -> Amazon -> Paypal -> Gmail (confirmation) in less then 1 minute.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  One-click buy is literally scary. I bought several books for Kindle on impulse this way. "Oh, what an interesting book, I'd read it. Hmm... <click> [creditCard -= $14;]".
ChuckFrank 12y ago
It seems like the Amazon reviews might be stacked. There certainly are a ton of them popping up at 10 am this morning. Plus you can always tell a sock puppet review when they don't actually mention content and say things like "Greatest Book Evah" instead. I know it's important to appear that the book is a proven reading experience, and reviews are the essential way to do that, but fake/paid/friend reviews just raise red flags. I'm a huge fan of Priceonomics, and I would love to buy their book, but my concern is that a good portion of the book is repackaged articles. And anything that is a "heavily edited mashup" makes me cringe. "Everything Is Bullshit consists of some new essays, some of our favorite older essays, and some chapters that are heavily edited mashups of various pieces we’ve written before. If you’re a fan of our blog, we hope the new essays will be reason enough to buy the book: The Seal Clubbing Business, Why Is Art Expensive, How to Sell Nothing for $1000, The Big Lie, The World’s Most Expensive Free Credit Report, and The Food Industrial Complex. Some of our most popular essays on diamonds, taxi medallions, academic publishing, wine, colleges, and other bullshitty things also make an appearance. Some of the essays are in a different form than when we originally published them; others look mostly the same." So, with the sock puppet reviews, and the essays that "look mostly the same", they didn't convert me into a buyer. My advice: 1. Sincere pre-release reviews. Praise and criticism. 2. A clear TOC with the new stories outlined (and republished ones linked to) 3. Enroll in Kindle Match. $9 an Ebook is outside the optimum pricing range for Ebooks. (2.99-4.99) 4. Use this to build the Priceonomic brand and not as a revenue structure. Price accordingly. 5. Look at your Freakonomics and Gladwell covers. I like yours, but I don't think it's the best version you could come up with. Though I recognize that good covers are hard. Very hard. If you want my help, msg me. This, all of this, is what I do.
- rohin 12y ago
  Hi there, I work at Priceonomics. Thanks for the suggestions. We'll probably do a blog post about our marketing strategy of this book, but I wanted to address your point that the book had reviews as soon as it launched on Amazon. How is that even possible? Many people had advanced copies of various drafts of the book. When the book went live this morning we emailed all of them letting them know it was up there. Hence people (all of whom are regular readers of our blog and seem to like us) could review it even though the book was only just released. Hope that clears up your questions! BTW, do you have any data on the optimum pricing of an ebook being $2.99-4.99? I would love to see it.
OrwellianChild 12y ago
Looks like they read their own guest posts... The Economics of Writing a Book, by Carter Phipps http://priceonomics.com/can-authors-make-money-selling-books/ http://priceonomics.com/can-authors-make-money-selling-books...
ivan_ah 12y ago
I wouldn't have said it in so much words, but the authors are onto an important new business model: free web stuff and sell books The key point is that content in the form of a book (a unit of meaningful discourse) can be productized and offered in a sidebar. Instead of advertisements that pay micro cents per impression, why not offer a book and make 40% profit on print books and 97% profit on eBooks sold? I'm not sure this will work for journalism, but for a lot of other types of content (ahm... hm.... textbooks), it's going to work for sure. The questions are: (1) what kind of reading is better done in book-sized chunks, and (2) how to decide which content goes into the free stuff and how much into the paid book. The OPs are using the improved blog posts + new content equation, which has never been tried before. It will be very interesting to watch.
- steveklabnik 12y ago
  This model isn't that new. Webcomics and Tumblrs have been putting out coffee table books for years.
  - bmelton 12y ago
    Agreed. "Stuff White People Like" is perhaps the earliest one I can think of, but "Shit My Dad Says", Dan Lewis' "Now I Know" and even our own Patio11's "Sell More Software" have all executed this business model, or one close enough to it to count as prior art.
    - infectoid 12y ago
      More over, I believe Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans model is what most people should be aiming for in the future. http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/03/1000-true-fans/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/03/1000-true-fans/
  - ivan_ah 12y ago
    I guess what I find new is the how easy it has become to print stuff these days, e.g. via peecho.com or lulu.com. I'm all for eBooks, but there is something about the printed book that makes me more likely to want to pay for it... Could you show me examples of Webcomics and/or Webcomics for sale? Are they in print or PDF? I'd be interested to check their pricing models.
jonthn 12y ago
Can I get this on iBooks?
brianbreslin 12y ago
I have never so quickly impulse bought a kindle book. Didn't even read reviews, since I love their blog so much.
shitgoose 12y ago
They should be more specific: Everything is Bullshit, except for this Book. Otherwise people may arrive to wrong conclusion.
- ccarter84 12y ago
  'wrong conclusion'
- memoirmasters 12y ago
  But the Amazon reviews for the book are BS, so the title is appropriate.
dangliar 12y ago
I know my karma is going to get nuked, but as a datapoint to the authors of Priceonomics: I'll never buy a book with a curseword in the title. It screams "amateur hour". EDIT: Maybe you can use that topic for an upcoming blog post.
- blisterpeanuts 12y ago
  I agree, and I got nuked as well, but I'm still going to express my opinion. It seems to me that it's possible to come up with a creative title to draw people in without resorting to profanity. Profanity has shock value but also will turn off some people, so it's risky and possibly counter-productive.
- coffeecodecouch 12y ago
  I agree with you somewhat that using curse words in book titles can be amateurish, like clickbait in the physical world. PS the reason you're being downvoted is most likely because you prefaced your comment with "I know my karma is going to get nuked, but...". That's very Redditesque and is usually not tolerated.
mrottenkolber 12y ago
Not purchasable as a print copy in germany. And no, I will not buy a license to read it on my not existing kindle. The joys of Amazon.
- warmfuzzykitten 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure you can read Kindle books on any smart phone, tablet or computer you might own. That is actually one of the joys of Amazon.
ekianjo 12y ago
In japan the kndle version costs 20 percent more. That too is bullshit.
ericdykstra 12y ago
Looks great! Any plans releasing this as an audiobook? I do most of my reading while walking or washing dishes these days.

202 points by hodgesmr 12y ago

its amazing to me that these guys pivoted (or at least forked) from data services to journalism, but i think they do a phenomenal job as writers. watching their path has been as confusing as its been encouraging. congratulations on your book!

bfwi 12y ago

Can you buy it in an ebook format other than Kindle?

aluhut 12y ago
You can get Calibre for free and convert it there.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Kindle ebooks have DRM and require you to buy them from Amazon. Some people prefer to avoid both when paying for books.
  - base698 12y ago
    I have my Calibre folder backed up with BT Sync and unDRM my kindle books there, so I can open them on anything with BT Sync installed. I always buy with Kindle and convert with Calibre then read in iBooks. It'd be nice not to have to do that.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Criminal offence if you're stripping the DRM in the process of format shifting.
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    On the other hand, Calibre is FLOSS and doesn't contact any servers, so there's not much they can do to enforce it.

beggi 12y ago

I've enjoyed Priceonomics blog posts and will probably get the book. Anyone remember when this was a pricing service startup though? Did they pivot to writing?

vinceguidry 12y ago
Did you even read the OP? They explain it.
- Kiro 12y ago
  No, they don't. Their data crawling business is a pivot as well so it explains nothing about the former pricing service.
alexmayyasi 12y ago
Here's an explanation of the move to data services and writing articles and blog posts. http://priceonomics.com/introducing-the-priceonomics-business-model-data/ http://priceonomics.com/introducing-the-priceonomics-busines...
drpgq 12y ago
Has anyone jumped into the pricing service niche? I liked the pricing as well.
- alttab 12y ago
  Black Locus, from Austin TX, was acquired by Home Depot for dynamic pricing [1]. [1]: http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/home-depot-acquires-data-driven-pricing-analytics-startup-blacklocus/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/17/home-depot-acquires-data-dr...

talles 12y ago

Kinda off topic, but still: anyone besides me noticed how the logo and the favicon looks a lot like PayPal's? https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/i/logo/rebrand/ppcom.svg https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/i/logo/rebrand/ppcom... http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png

alaskamiller 12y ago
Pricenomics actually has the same aesthetics as the city parking signs in San Francisco.

roma1n 12y ago

Just curious -- how much of the book is based on blog content and how much is new?

kqr2 12y ago
If you’re a fan of our blog, we hope the new essays will be reason enough to buy the book: The Seal Clubbing Business, Why Is Art Expensive, How to Sell Nothing for $1000, The Big Lie, The World’s Most Expensive Free Credit Report, and The Food Industrial Complex.
- roma1n 12y ago
  Great -- ordered!

discodave 12y ago

I think this book should get some kind of Godwin award for mentioning hitler in the fourth paragraph.

devindotcom 12y ago
You may be surprised to hear that there are books that mention Hitler in the first paragraph — in fact, some concern themselves with him exclusively!
- jonnathanson 12y ago
  In fact, Hitler even beat out Jesus for total references for a good stretch of the mid-20th Century. For a long time, he was also stealing Christmas. But we're happy to note that Christmas overtook Hitler in the 1980s, and has narrowly edged him out ever since. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hitler%2CJesus%2CChristmas&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CHitler%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJesus%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CChristmas%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Hitler%2CJesus...
- SonOfLilit 12y ago
  I think there's an exemption to Godwin's Law for writing about Nazi Germany.
lightyrs 12y ago
Novick's Law: Nobody understands Godwin's law.

ebspelman 12y ago

Go Priceonomics! I really enjoy their approach to journalism.

pgrote 12y ago

The fake praise at the top is a great touch. All the reviews on amazon are 5 stars, too.

atwebb 12y ago
For anyone that wants to skim them: "I hope everyone reads this book and learns about the cruel business of selling pets." - Bowser, a dog "I can confirm I make money - making you feel bad about yourself." - Marketing Executive "We've finally been bested in the battle for best book with 'onomics' in the title." - Freakonomics "Buying this book was the best decision I ever made." - You, in the Future "I didn't really care for this book." - Your Childhood Nemesis "You know what the world needs? Another book." - Priceonomics Middle Management "Under no circumstances should anyone read this book." - CEO of De Beers "Finally, a book that helps me steal bicycles more efficiently!" - Bike Thief "Nutella really is healthy. Hahaha, I can't even say that with a straight face." - Food Industry Lobbyist "An intellectual tour de force of staggering proportions - Priceonomics" - Winston Churchill "After reading this book, I think I was duped into knighting a scoundrel." - The Queen of England "No this book is not tax deductible. Why would you even ask that?" - Your Accountant "Any press is good press, right?" - Actual Seal Clubbers "With my endorsement, this book will reach the tipping point before you blink." - Galcolm Madwell "Until this book, I had no idea why people started calling me Chilean Sea Bass." - An Arctic Toothfish "Mandatory reading at the Zoolander Center for Children Who Can't Read Good!" - D. Zoolander "Do not buy this book. Contains almost no practical information about bullshit or manure." - Farmer "Yes, the oligarchy needs something to spend its money on. " - Art Dealer "Finally, a book that passes judgement on my life's work!" - A Bordeaux Winemaker "You mean I wasted all my savings on a diamond ring?" - Dudes Everywhere "Can I interest anyone in a 'free' credit report? Lol." - The Experian Corporation "Of course pizza is a vegetable! Don't listen to those troublemakers at Priceonomics." - US Congress "Finally a book I can enthusiastically give two thumbs up!" - Friedrich Nietzsche "I only read the title, but I entirely disagree with everything in this book." - Internet Commenter
- beamatronic 12y ago
  Can't forget: "I only read the title, but I entirely agree with everything in this book." - Internet Commenter

rondon2 12y ago

Thanks for explaining that you get $6 either way (Hardcopy or Kindle) I would have assumed you get more with the hard copy.

marban 12y ago

No iBook?

ironicman 12y ago

It made me chuckle that trying to share the book on Amazon using the email share option on the page is blocked. I suspect due to the word Bullshit in the title

bwood 12y ago
Email share just worked fine for me.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago

I guess when you can't think of a creative title, just use a profanity. I don't want my 9-year-old to be exposed to this kind of language either on the coffee table or on the tablet, so I won't be buying the book. Could you put out a PG-rated version for those of us prudish and old-fashioned types?

Crito 12y ago
9 year olds are typically in what, 3rd or 4th grade? Unless you are homeschooling him, he may not be swearing at home but that ship has long since sailed. I'm sure he and his recess buddies could teach you a few new words.
LoganCale 12y ago
The horror! Someone might encounter a word!
- ivan_ah 12y ago
  It says parent under your post, but are you really a parent? Could it be that some people have different points of view on language usage around their kids?
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    Parents have different points of view on vaccines too, and I don't see people defending anti-vaccination rhetoric as "different points of view".
  - LoganCale 12y ago
    Having kids doesn't make you right about something.
coffeecodecouch 12y ago
A simple solution is to not leave this book out for your 9-year-old (or realize your 9-year-old really isn't interested). You can't seriously expect them to release a PG alternative.

Paul_Dessert 12y ago

Just a quick suggestion to the Priceonomics team... Start with the bottom half of the article. I had to go half way down the page to find out what the book is about. The first half talks about you WAY too much.

ajkjk 12y ago
Well, I thought reading about them was really interesting. I think it made me a lot more likely to buy the book, especially since they were delightfully honest in explaining their motivations.

riffraff 12y ago

I was so expecting the justification for pricing the kindle version at $9.26!

meritt 12y ago

I'm genuinely confused about the legality about building a business whose sole purpose is to scrape the web, repackage and sell that information. One side of the fence, you have all this publicly accessible information, so it's like.. why not? Anyone can obtain it. Why should you be restricted? Then on the other side you have companies who will place all sorts of legal restrictions, TOS/EULAs, etc to prevent against web scraping; sending out cease & desists and even sometimes going as far as taking someone to court. What's the best + safest approach here for a company like Priceonomics?

hodgesmr 12y ago
> "I'm genuinely confused about the legality about building a business whose sole purpose is to scrape the web, repackage and sell that information" Like Google?
- meritt 12y ago
  Exactly. I am very much on the side of "If it's publicly available info, it's free to access and repackage" but a lot of companies and judges feel otherwise.
  - ZoF 12y ago
    Can you list some specific examples of companies to whom this pertains? By that I mean companies who think their data shouldn't be publicly available and also fail to place a no-crawl flag in their robots.txt.
    - meritt 12y ago
      Well, a robots.txt (much like an implicit TOS/EULA that nobody ever sees nor agrees to) isn't exactly legally binding. Yelp, LinkedIn, and Craigslist are examples that have taken legal action recently against other entities scraping and re-purposing the data.
JVIDEL 12y ago
I think part of the problem is that some services' TOS do give users the option to restrict access to their information so if you go and scrap it that might cause problems to the startup where that content was posted to.

guiomie 12y ago

Just did an impulsive amazon checkout. All this frictionless online shopping is getting dangerous. HackNews -> Amazon -> Paypal -> Gmail (confirmation) in less then 1 minute.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
One-click buy is literally scary. I bought several books for Kindle on impulse this way. "Oh, what an interesting book, I'd read it. Hmm... <click> [creditCard -= $14;]".

ChuckFrank 12y ago

It seems like the Amazon reviews might be stacked. There certainly are a ton of them popping up at 10 am this morning. Plus you can always tell a sock puppet review when they don't actually mention content and say things like "Greatest Book Evah" instead. I know it's important to appear that the book is a proven reading experience, and reviews are the essential way to do that, but fake/paid/friend reviews just raise red flags. I'm a huge fan of Priceonomics, and I would love to buy their book, but my concern is that a good portion of the book is repackaged articles. And anything that is a "heavily edited mashup" makes me cringe. "Everything Is Bullshit consists of some new essays, some of our favorite older essays, and some chapters that are heavily edited mashups of various pieces we’ve written before. If you’re a fan of our blog, we hope the new essays will be reason enough to buy the book: The Seal Clubbing Business, Why Is Art Expensive, How to Sell Nothing for $1000, The Big Lie, The World’s Most Expensive Free Credit Report, and The Food Industrial Complex. Some of our most popular essays on diamonds, taxi medallions, academic publishing, wine, colleges, and other bullshitty things also make an appearance. Some of the essays are in a different form than when we originally published them; others look mostly the same." So, with the sock puppet reviews, and the essays that "look mostly the same", they didn't convert me into a buyer. My advice: 1. Sincere pre-release reviews. Praise and criticism. 2. A clear TOC with the new stories outlined (and republished ones linked to) 3. Enroll in Kindle Match. $9 an Ebook is outside the optimum pricing range for Ebooks. (2.99-4.99) 4. Use this to build the Priceonomic brand and not as a revenue structure. Price accordingly. 5. Look at your Freakonomics and Gladwell covers. I like yours, but I don't think it's the best version you could come up with. Though I recognize that good covers are hard. Very hard. If you want my help, msg me. This, all of this, is what I do.

rohin 12y ago
Hi there, I work at Priceonomics. Thanks for the suggestions. We'll probably do a blog post about our marketing strategy of this book, but I wanted to address your point that the book had reviews as soon as it launched on Amazon. How is that even possible? Many people had advanced copies of various drafts of the book. When the book went live this morning we emailed all of them letting them know it was up there. Hence people (all of whom are regular readers of our blog and seem to like us) could review it even though the book was only just released. Hope that clears up your questions! BTW, do you have any data on the optimum pricing of an ebook being $2.99-4.99? I would love to see it.

OrwellianChild 12y ago

Looks like they read their own guest posts... The Economics of Writing a Book, by Carter Phipps http://priceonomics.com/can-authors-make-money-selling-books/ http://priceonomics.com/can-authors-make-money-selling-books...

ivan_ah 12y ago

I wouldn't have said it in so much words, but the authors are onto an important new business model: free web stuff and sell books The key point is that content in the form of a book (a unit of meaningful discourse) can be productized and offered in a sidebar. Instead of advertisements that pay micro cents per impression, why not offer a book and make 40% profit on print books and 97% profit on eBooks sold? I'm not sure this will work for journalism, but for a lot of other types of content (ahm... hm.... textbooks), it's going to work for sure. The questions are: (1) what kind of reading is better done in book-sized chunks, and (2) how to decide which content goes into the free stuff and how much into the paid book. The OPs are using the improved blog posts + new content equation, which has never been tried before. It will be very interesting to watch.

steveklabnik 12y ago
This model isn't that new. Webcomics and Tumblrs have been putting out coffee table books for years.
- bmelton 12y ago
  Agreed. "Stuff White People Like" is perhaps the earliest one I can think of, but "Shit My Dad Says", Dan Lewis' "Now I Know" and even our own Patio11's "Sell More Software" have all executed this business model, or one close enough to it to count as prior art.
  - infectoid 12y ago
    More over, I believe Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans model is what most people should be aiming for in the future. http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/03/1000-true-fans/ http://kk.org/thetechnium/2008/03/1000-true-fans/
- ivan_ah 12y ago
  I guess what I find new is the how easy it has become to print stuff these days, e.g. via peecho.com or lulu.com. I'm all for eBooks, but there is something about the printed book that makes me more likely to want to pay for it... Could you show me examples of Webcomics and/or Webcomics for sale? Are they in print or PDF? I'd be interested to check their pricing models.

jonthn 12y ago

Can I get this on iBooks?

brianbreslin 12y ago

I have never so quickly impulse bought a kindle book. Didn't even read reviews, since I love their blog so much.

shitgoose 12y ago

They should be more specific: Everything is Bullshit, except for this Book. Otherwise people may arrive to wrong conclusion.

ccarter84 12y ago
'wrong conclusion'
memoirmasters 12y ago
But the Amazon reviews for the book are BS, so the title is appropriate.

dangliar 12y ago

I know my karma is going to get nuked, but as a datapoint to the authors of Priceonomics: I'll never buy a book with a curseword in the title. It screams "amateur hour". EDIT: Maybe you can use that topic for an upcoming blog post.

blisterpeanuts 12y ago
I agree, and I got nuked as well, but I'm still going to express my opinion. It seems to me that it's possible to come up with a creative title to draw people in without resorting to profanity. Profanity has shock value but also will turn off some people, so it's risky and possibly counter-productive.
coffeecodecouch 12y ago
I agree with you somewhat that using curse words in book titles can be amateurish, like clickbait in the physical world. PS the reason you're being downvoted is most likely because you prefaced your comment with "I know my karma is going to get nuked, but...". That's very Redditesque and is usually not tolerated.

mrottenkolber 12y ago

Not purchasable as a print copy in germany. And no, I will not buy a license to read it on my not existing kindle. The joys of Amazon.

warmfuzzykitten 12y ago
I'm pretty sure you can read Kindle books on any smart phone, tablet or computer you might own. That is actually one of the joys of Amazon.

ekianjo 12y ago

In japan the kndle version costs 20 percent more. That too is bullshit.

ericdykstra 12y ago

Looks great! Any plans releasing this as an audiobook? I do most of my reading while walking or washing dishes these days.