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I’ve now shipped signed and numbered copies of You, Version 2.0 to eleven countries. About half of the books went to the US, and then there were multiple copies to each of Britain, Australia, Germany, and Israel. The remaining countries (Spain, Norway, France, Switzerland, Poland, and the Netherlands) have only had one copy sent to each.
Over the last week, I kept forgetting to turn off the shopping cart option that lets people request a custom signature, even though I’d meant to leave that offer open for only 48 hours. But people kept ordering, so I figured, “what the heck”. Also, I found this post which convinced me I should maybe leave the offer open a few days more, just to give everybody a chance. So, “what the heck”, I’ll leave the custom signature offer open through Sunday.
I haven’t done the detailed numbers yet, but I think I may have almost broken even at this point. That is, I think I may have received enough dollars in sales to pay for all the initial costs of setup, printing, credit card charges, packaging and shipping. At least it’s getting real close. So, now I need to sell the rest of the books so that I can actually get some money for myself. 🙂 That’s the downside of being your own publisher: you have to put up all the money and take all the risk. But at least at this point if no more books were sold, I would only have lost a little money and a lot of time. (Ouch.)
Speaking of risk, I was originally planning to have this article delve into the dangers of cost accounting for small business management, explaining why the amount of capital at risk and time-to-payback are much more impactful on a small business venture than per-item margins. But you probably don’t care about any of that unless you’re running a small business that buys or produces inventory and sells it. Like, oh, say, a publishing company. 🙂 Still, some of the cost accounting fallacies are relevant for almost any kind of business, and understanding how to use simulations to “run the numbers” is important for any investment.
But I’ve had a pretty busy day today: I’ve been using my new multitasking skills to work on personal projects as well as on professional ones. The last few evenings I’ve been spinning off software packages out of PEAK into individual projects (as you might’ve seen via PyPI if you’re a Python programmer). So I’m going to take the rest of the evening off now, and save the capital-at-risk and Monte Carlo simulation stuff for another time, assuming anybody’s even interested in that.
So have a good one, and don’t forget to order your copy of You, Version 2.0 now. 🙂
As someone who’s involved with doing a t-shirt order for a club, I am very interested 🙂
Speaking of books, could you put up a page with your book recommendations? With the stuff you read that inspires your articles. I think you can make money off recomendations too.
See the books page. Currently, it’s just the books that are cited by You Version 2.0, but I may add more later.
I’ve still been thinking about ordering the book, but one of the sticking points for me is the price. I can afford it, but $30 is steep for what’s basically one new essay. Hit me with a $12-15 paperback and I’m there. It’s still steep for one essay, but I’ve enjoyed reading the rest of them and am sure I owe you something.
One other thing that I’d think could help sales is a better description of the physical book – is it hardcover?
Come now, $30 may be steep for “an essay”, but how much is changing your life worth? You’ll only have to pay for the book once, but what you’ll learn and the changes you’ll make with what you learn will last you a lifetime.
But if the price bothers you that much, think of it this way: it’s really only about $1.28 per essay, including US shipping. Are you really going to say you haven’t been getting a lot more than $1.28 of value out of my essays?
If you haven’t, you must not be applying what you read. Which then makes sense, because you’re basically trying to compare the book against the cost of entertainment, not the value of improving yourself.
Finally, note that psych researchers have found that the self-esteem boost that people get from buying self-help products is proportional to the price they pay for them, because it reflects a conscious decision for how much they value themselves. A bigger investment means you’re valuing yourself more, resulting in a corresponding boost to your self-esteem.
And that’s just one of several reasons why this book is actually the *least* expensive self-improvement product I plan to create. I find it hard to imagine what I would ever sell for $12. A one-page list of bullet points, perhaps? 🙂 Nah, that kind of super-concentrated condensation should cost extra. 😉
Well, I guess that’s the difference – entertainment vs self-improvement. I find the blog interesting in a Mind Hacks sort of way, but almost certainly haven’t been applying the principles – I guess I’m satisfied with my life as it is. If I come around to feeling the need for improvement, I guess I’ll have to cough up $30 plus or come to it the hard way (i.e. repeat your derivation of the formula, which I suspect is the only way these things stick, anyway).
Good luck with the venture, and thanks for the blog.