

  International Day Against DRM Rails Tutorial discount - mhartl
http://news.railstutorial.org/international-day-against-drm-rails-tutorial

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rmoriz
awesome tutorials+videos but mixed feelings on your couponing strategy:

\- too many different discount coupons (20..30..50%)

\- in a very short time frame (2 weeks iirc)

So early adopters will be disappointed to see a much larger discount only a
couple of days after purchase.

Also 30-50% discounts are probably not a good sign in the early days of a new
release because you undervalue your product when it's still "fresh". If
liquidity is the reason for this strategy, you may want to offer some
recurring payment plans like 9$/month or something.

~~~
mhartl
Thanks for the feedback. The timing wasn't good on this, and I didn't know
until today that this DRM thing was happening. I hate DRM so much, though,
that I really wanted to do something. I may have gotten a little carried away.

By the way, the reason for the big initial discounts was mainly that the
product isn't finished yet. At launch, people who already bought the 1st
edition screencasts only got two new ones for their trouble. The problem was
especially severe for people who _just_ bought the first edition, so I gave
them a bigger discount. The discount for the final product will be much
smaller.

~~~
graeme
As a counter-point to the grandparent, this discount convinced me to purchase.
I hadn't heard about the previous discounts.

I bought the bundle. I didn't buy it before because I'm not yet certain
when/if I'm going to learn Ruby on Rails. Currently learning Python and web
programming with Udacity, and finishing up some other projects.

But I'd heard such good things about your book that I had already planned to
buy if I ever committed to learning Rails.

This discount tipped me over the edge. Having the book + screencasts on hand
is a strong inducement to work through them, and 40% is too good an offer to
pass up.

In my mind it hasn't reduced the value of the book at all. A discount for a
special occasion seems distinct from a discount for other reasons. I saw all
the other discounts on the HN front page and mentally lumped them together
with yours.

~~~
mhartl
Thanks for the data point (and for the purchase!). I hope you have a chance to
learn Rails. Python is great, but Ruby is better (IMHO) at making DSLs, which
is a big win in web development (among other places). Please let me know how
it goes.

