
Everything Is Bullshit: A Book by Priceonomics - hodgesmr
http://priceonomics.com/everything-is-bullshit-a-book-by-priceonomics/
======
ChuckFrank
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
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.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Ah, yes, the amazon page went live this morning. That makes sense. You may
have wanted to curate, or to pull out some specific talking points for your
reviewers. I think good good reviews are better than bad good reviews. But I
understand the challenge.

As to the pricing info.

I like this post, though it's old and prices may have changed --

[http://evilgeniuschronicles.org/2011/01/12/ebook-pricing-
vs-...](http://evilgeniuschronicles.org/2011/01/12/ebook-pricing-vs-revenue/)

Here are some more current discussions.

[http://gigaom.com/2013/05/09/whats-the-best-price-for-a-
self...](http://gigaom.com/2013/05/09/whats-the-best-price-for-a-self-
published-ebook-3-99-smashwords-research-suggests/)

[http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-can-the-
avera...](http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-can-the-average-
writer-make-money-self-publishing-e-books)

(see pricing barometer above)

[http://boingboing.net/2014/01/16/whats-the-most-
profitable-p...](http://boingboing.net/2014/01/16/whats-the-most-profitable-
pr.html)

[https://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120728/...](https://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120728/19122219866/traditional-
publisher-ebook-pricing-harming-authors-careers.shtml)

At 266 pages, I think you $16.95 book price is perfect. You might have even
been able to push it up to $18.95 because of your brand. But being
conservative, I think $6 a copy profit is good.

I would have priced the Ebook at $5.95, and I would've signed up for the free
matchbook service, so when you buy the book you get the ebook for free. I'd
drop the DRM too.

But these reviews are just stinkers:

"I was taught to question everything when I was in school and have practiced
that ever since. Everything Is Bulls __* is a fine example of that. Love it! "
& "Love it! Rohin and the guys really put together a fantastic book. They did
a great job using stories to explain the concepts. Very engaging - I highly
recommend!"

Because, you don't actually use 'stories' to explain concepts. You use data.
And his 'questioning everything' isn't really the gist of your work. You don't
question everything, you examine some things in great detail.

Still, congratulations. I think that your marketing/content/service structure
is really the future. Instead of you wanting to be bigger than the NYT, I
could see the NYT following your model - if they could build a service
structure that isolates it from the content structure.

Who knows. Even Porlandia wadded in on the topic.

[http://www.newscastic.com/news/did-portlandia-show-us-the-
fu...](http://www.newscastic.com/news/did-portlandia-show-us-the-future-of-
journalism-62509/)

*Note -- Charlize Theron NSFW (not actually it's part of the joke)

~~~
jonnathanson
_" you don't actually use 'stories' to explain concepts. You use data."_

In fairness, some of the Priceonomics posts are more overtly "story" driven,
and even a fair number of the data-driven pieces involve interesting stories
as framing devices. Using data to explain and analyze is the primary mission,
but presenting that analysis in a compelling way is at least half the battle.

I have been fortunate enough to have written a few pieces for the Priceonomics
blog. I don't speak for the company, and my impressions are my own $0.02...
But if anything, my experience was that they'd ask me to tone myself down if I
was getting too dry, too wonky, or too data-centric. The data needs to be
there, as it needs to ground the analysis. But there should be a story behind
it, too.

A big reason why Priceonomics' blog is so good is that it's not just a data
dump. The team there has a very strong editorial focus. Believe me; there were
some articles I wrote where we'd hop in a Google Doc and collaboratively edit
for days and days on end, searching for the right narrative thread. Or the
right way to phrase something. Or the best way to break wonky topics into
approachable pieces, while still maintaining intellectual depth. I'd consider
their editorial process to be at least as rigorous as that of any national
publication I've written for.

"Questioning everything" seems a little much; I'd agree. It's not so much
about "questioning everything" as it is peeling back the layers, and
understanding why certain things are the way they are. Oftentimes, peeling
back the layers of an industry -- diamonds, wine, etc. -- reveals a healthy
amount of bullshit. Hence, "X is bullshit" is a semi-recurring theme in the
blog. The beauty of it, IMO, is not just calling out bullshit -- but using it
as the starting point, and explaining _how_ bullshit works in specific
contexts, and why it exists.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Now THAT'S an excellent review. Include the relevant disclaimer of having
written for Priceonomics, but even this alone, explaining the process of
getting the stories, is better than anything I've seen so far about the book.

Why the book? Why Priceonomics? Because this ^^^^

Well done.

------
ivan_ah
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
This model isn't that new. Webcomics and Tumblrs have been putting out coffee
table books for years.

~~~
ivan_ah
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.

~~~
a_bonobo
TopatoCo sells books and other merchandise from webcomics artists:
[http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=...](http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TO&Category_Code=ALLBOOKS)

Some of these, like the xkcd and the DinosaurComics books, are repackaged
webcomics, some of those are 'originals' that didn't appear online before.

The publisher varies between books - the xkcd book for example was published
by breadpig: [http://breadpig.com/products/xkcd-
volume-0](http://breadpig.com/products/xkcd-volume-0)

------
guiomie
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
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;]".

------
Paul_Dessert
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
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.

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

~~~
atwebb
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
Can't forget:

"I only read the title, but I entirely agree with everything in this book." \-
Internet Commenter

~~~
atwebb
I probably should've put that one at the top, just copied from the serialized
object in the page.

------
beggi
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
Did you even read the OP? They explain it.

~~~
Kiro
No, they don't. Their data crawling business is a pivot as well so it explains
nothing about the former pricing service.

------
talles
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...](https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/i/logo/rebrand/ppcom.svg)

[http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png](http://priceonomics.com/static/images/logo/front.png)

~~~
alaskamiller
Pricenomics actually has the same aesthetics as the city parking signs in San
Francisco.

------
the_cat_kittles
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!

------
meritt
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
> "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
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
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
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.

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

------
OrwellianChild
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/)

------
roma1n
Just curious -- how much of the book is based on blog content and how much is
new?

~~~
kqr2

      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
Great -- ordered!

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

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

------
ebspelman
Go Priceonomics! I really enjoy their approach to journalism.

------
ironicman
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
Email share just worked fine for me.

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

~~~
ccarter84
'wrong conclusion'

------
rondon2
Thanks for explaining that you get $6 either way (Hardcopy or Kindle) I would
have assumed you get more with the hard copy.

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

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

~~~
aluhut
You can get Calibre for free and convert it there.

~~~
dublinben
Kindle ebooks have DRM and require you to buy them from Amazon. Some people
prefer to avoid both when paying for books.

~~~
base698
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.

------
mrottenkolber
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
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.

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

~~~
devindotcom
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
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...](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)

------
marban
No iBook?

------
jonthn
Can I get this on iBooks?

------
dangliar
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.

~~~
coffeecodecouch
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.

------
blisterpeanuts
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?

~~~
coffeecodecouch
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.

~~~
alttab
Or expect to be able to shelter your children forever.

Source: Not a dad.

~~~
sp332
Yeah but that's no excuse for giving up without a fight.

