dchurchv

"If you aren't completely satisfied with this book I'll return your money, no questions asked" works for me.

No need to guarantee success, just guarantee quality information that you believe when applied correctly will lead to success.

Yes, of course, I'm not making an argument that concerts and books are the same business. That would be dumb.

I'm saying rather, there's no obvious reason to not get paid for them the same way, as long as the audience is willing. If they're not willing, that obviously won't work. But clearly in some cases (like the OPs), they are willing.

So as an author, you'd have to be irrational to not want to be paid as early as possible.

As a purchaser, you're free to vote with your wallet, and not pre-buy anything you don't want to. But if you want what the author is proposing, and want to give him encouragement by pre-buying, why is that somehow bad or wrong?

And my fuzzy calculus aside, the first printing for most books will also be the last one. So better to get the volume right. If only there were a way to accurately gauge demand before doing a printing...

Ok, but you didn't address my point about concert tickets et al. Obviously you pay in advance of seeing the concert, or attending the conference, and sometimes these things get canceled.

It's reasonable to expect money back, or worst case some sort of "raincheck" in case of a cancelation or delay. Same applies to ebooks in my mind.

"Public enthusiasm" doesn't pay the deposit for a concert hall or conference center, right? Why should an author not get paid in advance of the effort of writing a book? [Hint: authors already figured this out a couple of centuries ago - thus the publishers' advance]

So it's not really a question of money changing hands, it's just whose money, and whose hands.

Not sure I follow this. Pre-ordering books is a pretty well established practice among publishers (yes, real ones, not just ebook authors).

Actually, it's the primary hack for getting on best-seller lists (pre-orders, then fulfillment in strategic batches designed to show consistent sales over time).

Or is this a more basic "No one should sell anything that doesn't already exist" argument?

If so, I'd point out concert tickets (usually 6 months advance sale), seminars, conferences, and most other large undertakings that need some sort of validated audience numbers as counter-evidence.

Why not all products, as long as there's no attempt to deceive, and the purchaser is clear that the product is not ready yet?

Agree with @jschlesser. I think app.net will evolve more like a backbone for other activity streams (private, public, internal), not so much as a standalone "niche Twitter", but it's fine that it will start out that way, and can be funded that way. Could be wrong, but I think that's what the enthusiasm is really about, not just finding another social network to play with.

For http://www.usermood.com, the most effective promotions (in order) have been:

1. Referrals, referrals, referrals. People loving the product has been by far the best way to promote it. I don't mean affiliate sales (where people are incented to refer), just the garden variety friend telling a friend kind. Nothing wrong with affiliates, of course, just a different thing.

2. SEO, to a smaller degree. When people say "SEO", I usually roll my eyes, cause it's often a non-answer. "Get lots of traffic by writing great viral content". Which is essentially a harder problem than promoting your web app. But having said that, at least from a search engine standpoint, it's something that pays dividends slowly, over time.

3. Banner ads/Google Ads - not particlarly effective, and something of a negative ROI investment, but this was good early on to get a feel for what kind of messaging worked best, and what sort of conversion rates were likely from direct ads. So I'd suggest using these to learn, not as a sustainable customer acquisition strategy, unless your price point supports it.

4. Press/bloggers - we got some writeups by a few bloggers, which generated some short term traffic (usually a week or so), then fell off dramatically. Again, good for SEO, and nice to get written about, but this hasn't been a consistent or reliable traffic source.

5. Web app directory/startup directory sites - good for short term launch traffic, generating awareness, etc., but these directories seem more noisy and less relevant over time.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the article - it's nice to see a counterpoint to all of the advice that focuses only on a "call to action" on the homepage and trying to get people to take it (yes, like like the rotated angled screenshot that points to the signup button :-)

Seems like the ultimate home page would provide everything a prospect needs to decide before clicking "Signup". Basically no funnel at all - Home Page ->> Signup. Nice.