Authority Case Studies: $30k in sales from first-time authors

http://nathanbarry.com/authority-case-studies/

by kanamekun • 13 years ago

73 37 13 years ago

zrail6• 13 years ago

My book is one of the case studies (Mastering Modern Payments). If anyone has any questions fire away!

onion2k• 13 years ago

$15,000 from 150 hours work is very good, especially as (presumably) you learnt a great deal from the process and established yourself as a domain expert at the same time. That's brilliant. I don't have a question, just congratulations.

zrail6• 13 years ago

Thanks so much! I really did learn a lot about marketing and launching products, as well as how to structure my time such that I can actually achieve a goal like that.

patio11• 13 years ago

Somewhat surprisingly to me before I did it: if you control the marketing/sales channel, then it is rather substantially a better deal that you might think it is after the launch window. The reason is that the book remains in the market after being written (like a software product and unlike, say, a consulting gig), and you can structure your affairs such that people are routinely exposed to it and you get decent residual income from it.

e.g. From my video course that launched last September-ish:

http://images1.bingocardcreator.com/blog-images/hn/power-of-...

My ballpark estimate for total sales was in the $20k to $40k region, which I would have allocated 95%+ to the initial launch window. Surprise x2: a) I underestimated how much it would sell and b) I greatly underestimated the residual value of the project.

(Incidentally: The long-term marketing/sales channels are partially ranking #1 for [lifecycle emails], a subject of interest to many marketers which honestly I should not be #1 on the Internet for, and also having a brief in-text commercial in one of the emails that people get a few weeks after they sign up for my email list. Most of y'all can execute on these, particularly the autoresponders for new signups for the email list.)

TBInman3• 13 years ago

Hi, thanks for making yourself available to questions (and congrats, of course)!

I wanted to ask you about (for want of a better phrase) softer metrics and your experience of writing a book. How has your new status as author impacted on those?

zrail6• 13 years ago

Not a huge amount yet. I haven't been invited to any conferences yet, if that's what you're asking :) I have noticed that friends who are implementing Stripe will come to me with questions and usually I can answer them right away, which is a nice feeling.

tessierashpool• 13 years ago

just wanted to say I recommend your book in my own latest ebook, which I used Docverter to build. I freaking love Docverter btw.

(my latest ebook = http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-ebook-software-...)

zrail6• 13 years ago

Awesome! Thanks!

Edit: Purchased! FYI if you want to crib off of the stylesheet for MMP it's in here: https://github.com/peterkeen/mmp-builder/blob/master/templat...

You should be able to grab the CSS out of there and set include it in your Docverter call with other_files[]=@filename and css=filename, assuming you're pushing Markdown. If you're pushing HTML just drop the styles you want directly in the header.

joelhooks3• 13 years ago

I used a bit of the RailsApp when I was learning Rails to build a subscription site. Luckily I met Pete and was able to use his book when I actually got to the subscription impl. I KNOW my app as a whole is shitty, so I just bought yours to see how I can unfuck ^^

Your books are always fun. Looking forward to it!

mathattack3• 13 years ago

150 hours seems very little for a book. (3 weeks of intense focus) Any idea on how you got to be so efficient? Were there hours hidden in other activities? Or had you done all the thinking in advance, and it was just putting pen to paper? Or did you just have a very fast routine?

Thanks for sharing your experience, and for your participation in the original article.

zrail6• 13 years ago

That number is a little bit misleading. First, because it's a rather concise guide (there's only 120 pages), and second, because that time was actually spread out across about double that number of weeks, including weekends. Additionally, it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart so I was pretty familiar with what I wanted to cover.

I tried to stick with 500 words per day when I was actively writing and a chapter a day when I was actively editing, but that 150 hours also includes quite a bit of time working on the example application.

ssttoo• 13 years ago

I've written a few technical books and my personal most optimistic estimate is 1h/page writing first draft and 2hr/page editing. This when I know exactly what I want to say (no more research, code usually done) and have a plan (headings ready, just filling the blanks)

But English is not my first language, can't a/b test for this variable.

With first drafts I don't stop to edit - just let it out on paper as fast as possible.

davidw2• 13 years ago

It seems that there are a lot of books being sold directly these days. For some reason, I'm a bit ambivalent about that, although I can't quite explain why. Perhaps it's convenience? No wishlist, no one click from Amazon to my Kindle? Perhaps it's the lack of exposure to reviews on Amazon or other sites?

It's certainly good for the authors, as they get to keep pretty much everything from the sale, whereas with Amazon, at best, they're going to get about 70%.

For whatever reason that I find difficult to spell out, though, it also means I'm more reticent to buy these sorts of books.

graeme• 13 years ago

I'm one of the authors. I do print books, so I'm not direct only. But I can tell you why a lot of authors avoid kindle: If you price above $9.99, you do not get 70%, you get 35%.

Kindle formatting is also very hard to get right. Very often the top negative review of an excellent print book is "GGGGRRRRR, the kindle format is UUGGGGLY and doesn't work!!!!!!!?!?!?!"

Not the kind of publicity you want. If you're pricing on value, better just to avoid it.

amerkhalid• 13 years ago

I think paper is the best medium for any book with even slightly complex formatting.

I have bought many technical books on Kindle but now I am realizing that Kindle is not suitable for technical books especially when there are a lot of side bars, code snippets.

I don't like reading on ipad or laptop though. So I have started buy print versions of most technical books.

mathattack3• 13 years ago

Thank you for the comment. I was just wondering... "70% seems high, does anyone have first hand experience?"

clarky072• 13 years ago

My biggest mistake with my book was putting it on Amazon. As graeme mentioned, they limit your pricing options to basically $9.99. Over that you get 35%. Pretty much all of the successful stories you hear are from people pricing much higher.

programminggeek• 13 years ago

There are two awesome takeaways from this article. One, it is really smart that Nathan is showcasing his customer's results, because it makes it easier to sell the product if you can point to success other people had with it. We all love to tell ourselves the story that if they can do it, I can do it.

Two, if you look at some of the specific tactics like landing page, launch list, preordering, leveraging other people's audiences to sell your product, etc. and put them together all in the same campaign, you are much more likely to do well than if you do just one or two of those tactics.

I always like to read/listen for the little nuances that sometimes creep through articles like this in-between the lines. Some of the best little nuggets of wisdom are hidden in plain sight and never made a big deal of.

dmak• 13 years ago

I'm glad everyone's doing well with Authority!

rainl• 13 years ago

I've bought some of the books mentioned in the article, and many more which have been marketed with similar tactics, and have generally been disappointed with my purchases.

They are often the authors first book, heavy on the white space, with large fonts and so on, haphazardly organized, and night and day from something like a Pragmatic Programmers title.

I'm as susceptible as anyone to the copywriting strategy of "this book will solve your particular problem and, if you save even an hour, it pays for itself" but too many launches of this type have soured me on self published business and technical books unless there is absolutely no other place to get the information.

As a rule of thumb, if someone is selling a book in multiple "packages" , to me its an indicator that the quality will be poor and I will regret the time wasted reading it.

joelhooks3• 13 years ago

I've had a significantly different experience, and have directly benefited professionally from Nathan's books, a couple in the list, and several others of this nature.

TBInman3• 13 years ago

Seconded

zrail6• 13 years ago

I think most everyone in that list offers a no questions asked money back guarantee, if you're that unhappy with your purchase. Nobody wants an unhappy customer, that's why those guarantees exist.

michaelbuckbee• 13 years ago

The only ones I can vouch for are Mastering Modern Payments [1] and Sketching with CSS [2] - both of which have been enormously helpful.

A few more thoughts: these authors seem like a very reasonable set of people, if you had issues with their books they'd probably give you a refund.

Personally, I'm glad that we're done with the days of going to the bookstore and the technical section being dominated by 3 inch thick books that regurgitated the standard documentation of a programming language to pad things out.

1 - https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments 2 - http://www.sketchingwithcss.com

pushingsocial• 13 years ago

Reminded again about the value of creating relationships with top influencers in a niche.

Writing a book and publishing it doesn't guarantee success, but having a network of influencers review and recommend is the closest thing you can get to a sure bet.

clarky072• 13 years ago

I haven't read Authority yet, but it is on my to do list. I did do most of what they suggested in this article though for my book[1] except one thing. That is price it high and do multiple packages. I think my biggest mistake was having Amazon as an option because that limits me to selling for $9.99. It hasn't been a total failure, but it hasn't made the ~5k these examples did, and I'm pretty sure pricing is the biggest reason why. I suspect most of the people who bought it at $9.99 would have also paid a higher price, especially with additional resources in a package.

[1]http://buildanappbusiness.com/

acoleman616• 13 years ago

I'm in the process of writing a book right now (http://yourfirstwebapp.com) with the help of Nathan's Authority, and I can say that his book is jam-packed with useful info. It's been particularly beneficial in helping me develop a cohesive plan/strategy to plan, write, and market my book.

TBInman3• 13 years ago

All interesting and useful stuff. I would be interested to talk to some of those that enlisted outside help in getting the final finished product together about their experiences (particularly those of using elance etc for these kind of services).

What's great about Authority is that it essentially validates itself the more and more popular it gets.

nerdnorth• 13 years ago

Biggest takeway for me: look at the effect unit price has on revenue

Just doing a quick analysis of the first two: http://d.pr/i/hhne

Having higher price-points dramatically increases total earnings.

wikwocket• 13 years ago

I think this is an excellent point. A related trend I see is in kickstarters. If you look at many of the big successes, they have pledge levels closer to $50-100 than to $15-20. For example in the board games category, many card games will raise $10-20k, but games with miniatures usually have higher pledge levels, and raise more like $80k-100k.

I am not sure if the actual lesson is, "charge more," or "sell to people who are willing to pay more," but I think both of these are valid pieces of advice.

mcone• 13 years ago

I have no experience with self publishing, but as an author with No Starch Press (http://nostarch.com/masteryourmac), I can tell you that publishers probably put more work into the books than the authors themselves.

Publishers hire people to design the cover, copy edit the manuscript, provide a tech review, lay out the book, and market it. The amount of work that goes into a traditional book is astounding, so it doesn't surprise me that some people here are complaining about the quality of self-published books. In my opinion, the logistics are simply too much for one person to handle.

And let's be honest here. The real work of an author should be to write. Should they really have to worry about marketing, layout, and copy editing? I think not.

I'll go with a traditional publisher again. My book looks beautiful, reads well, and is on the shelf at the local Barnes and Noble. Sure, I don't get all of the revenue, but I do have a wider audience and steady passive income.

joelhooks3• 13 years ago

I get NEGATIVE royalty statements from Manning. My experience with OReilly had been much better, but I'll never publish through a traditional publisher again.

petercooper• 13 years ago

but as an author with No Starch Press (http://nostarch.com/masteryourmac), I can tell you that publishers probably put more work into the books than the authors themselves.

Believe me, this is because you're an author with perhaps the best tech publisher out there (Pragmatic Bookshelf being another, and then O'Reilly and Addison Wesley probably as the best 'big' ones).

Most tech publishers simply try as rapidly and cheaply as they can to get as many books out into the market as possible whether that means cutting corners, screwing over authors, or whatever.

No Starch (to whom I have no real connection other than being a fan of their books) was founded by someone with a desire to publish high quality geek-oriented books and who is still heavily involved in this process. This is also certainly true for the Prags, and slightly less so for O'Reilly (I don't think Tim is heavily involved in editorial now but he's still a huge and active figure), but don't believe the glut of tech publishers out there are like this! :-)

All that said, you are broadly right. It is better if a publisher can do what they do best and authors do what they do best, rather than authors try and do everything. It's like an entrepreneur doing their own legal and accounts. But on the flip side I'd say self publishing still beats going with a crappy publisher.

nathanbarry• 13 years ago

I'm late to the comments (been traveling all day), but I just wanted to add a huge congratulations to each author in the case studies. They worked hard and the success is well deserved!

Authority Case Studies: $30k in sales from first-time authors

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