

The $75 eBook: A True Story - mikecane
http://digitalbookworld.com/2010/the-75-ebook-a-true-story/

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patio11
Contrary to the title, this talks about how Aaron Wall transitioned from
eBooks to a resources/community site model with a recurring revenue component
($300 a month currently -- disclaimer, I moderate for his forums). This is a
subject he is very, very passionate about because he spent way, way too much
of his time and energy on pathological customers at the bottom of the SEO
market, which is filled with scum and villainy.

"Charge more money, get better customers" is a repeatable effect I've seen in
my business and in several other ones. My anecdotal sense is that every time
Aaron ups the price, the quality of his forums go up. I'm not saying that to
shill, its just that when folks got in for $50 we got a lot of "I have a
website about Nintendos how do I make $1 on AdSense A DAY?!?" and now that it
costs $300 a month it is mostly people with real businesses who have existing
SEO strategies and want feedback on improving them. This makes me happy
because it means I spend less time writing newbie advice and more time writing
intellectually interesting ideas for e.g. how to execute linkbait better.

I think this is probably applicable to most of the SAAS businesses here. Every
time I see stats published from a SAAS business -- every single time -- the
most revenue comes from the most expensive plan. That and the pathological
customer bit suggest that one could probably just ignore the $9 / month crowd
and concentrate on more well-heeled customers. Some people will scream bloody
murder: invite them to use your $9 / month competitors. Now they're somebody
else's problem.

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petercooper
About 8 years ago I helped a friend put together an SEO book he wrote (along
similar lines as the old SEO Book) that he went on to sell at $37 a copy -
title is "search engine optimization strategies" if you want to find it..
don't want to get accused of linking for profit :-) Revenues well into the six
figures by now and residual sales continuing. There's money in them thar hills
(though not for me, I got paid for my hours at the time only, oops!).

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adg
Successful online poker players have managed to sell their e-books for nearly
$1000 (see <http://www.balugapoker.com/books.html> or
<http://dailyvariance.com/let-there-be-range.html>, for example). I really
doubt they're doing the same volume this guy is; however, given the price
difference, they only have sell 1/13 as many books to break even with him...

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ja27
Interesting that he pointed out how Google suggests searches like "seobook
torrent". I've often thought that if I were selling things likely to be
pirated, I'd plant lots of broken copies my products out there. But you could
also SEO those terms and try to steer people to a different landing page
instead.

