$5K in sales
by Nick HaskinsJust crossed over $5K in sales. It's been challenging because I don't have a large audience, and the book is on a tech that not a lot of developers utilize.
At any rate, I would consider this a success.
Some of the top feedback includes:
- "Your book is too expensive."
- "Your landing page needs some SERIOUS work."
0 refund requests.
Fuck the haters. Just do your own thing and ignore everyone else.
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Nick, fantastic job and definitely a great dedication to what you live to do. I have been looking at your webpage and a think it's pretty easy to read and understand. "Sometimes it's as they say keep it simple."
Let's keep in touch!Best Regards,
Milo-
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Thanks Milo!
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That's awesome. If you have no audience, I'd love to know how you drove sales?
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A lot of Tweeting, a lot of wearing my heart on my sleeve, and it's a great, well designed product (feedback says).
Twitter has been instrumental in the success.
I also did a pre-order phase, which went terribly because I launched it as Covid-19 was ramping up. But the great thing about doing pre-orders, was that you get to launch twice.
When the book actually launched, I had collected about 130 emails.
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Your sales per twitter followers is very good. I'd say you did well.
The thing I'm curious about though, is since your Blender Market business is at more than 200k MRR, what motivates you to sell a Rails book?
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Why you are using Mavenseed for ecommerce? They take 8% as a fee and support only bank cards. You can use e.g. payproglobal.com - their fee is 5% and they support over 200 payment methods (of course including bank cards, paypal, alipay, wechat, webmoney and everything else that one can pay with)
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Because it's free, and I built the platform! Why not support a fellow IH'er?
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Mavenseed takes 8% from your revenue, so it's not free for you.
If I were you, I would a/b test payproglobal in your case, may be (due to availability of 200 payment methods instead of 1) your sales will double!
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"your sales will double!"
LMAO LOLOLOLOLOLOLI don't think you get it.
I built Mavenseed. I'm a co-founder. I don't pay 8%. And why would I use some ecommerce platform I've never heard of instead of my own tools?
Nice try, but you're barking up the wrong tree.
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The fact that you've never heard about something does not mean that it's of low quality.
I'm selling software online since 2003.
From my experience, yes, just switching ecommerce provider can double your sales, I've seen that for a lot of projects. Just stop thinking that nobody lives outside of US/UK/Canada.Just curious, how do you accept payments in Mavenseed under the hood - what do you use for billing? Stripe? Anyway any billing backend that you use should charge you for at least 2%.
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" just switching ecommerce provider can double your sales,"
O.K. care to share a link with data that backs this?
Somehow you're still missing the fact that Mavenseed is my startup. I wouldn't use anything else. I use my own software so that I know what it's like for our end users. It enables me to spot bugs and issues first-hand.
We're using Stripe Connect. This means that each of our users connects and processes charges through their own Stripe account.
And just a word of caution, as a business owner and engineer, a low credit card processing fee is the VERY last of my concerns.
IMO you need to change your pitch angle.
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OK, so you pay 2.9% to Stripe for billing..
Just curious - why I'm not allowed to pay using AliPay for your book? Have you disabled it in your Stripe Connect account or what? according to list of Stripe features this option should be available. Same question about Giropay, Sofort, ACH and other payment options that Stripe provides - but all I see is input of bank card number.
Why I can't pay for it using paypal? Yes, I know that Stripe does not support it, but it's not my problem!
On your checkout page I'm prompted to enter bank card details. Most people who have a clue about computer security will be afraid to enter it, because the page runs on your website, so you (or somebody who hacked your site) can put a javascript code that steals bank card numbers and sends them to thieves. I guess only this fact drops your sales by 50% or more.
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It's a tough sell to get someone to switch away from their own product!
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Nick, congrats on launching the book.
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Awesome!!
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The beauty of building your own thing also means you are not at the mercy of anyone else.
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+1!! keep going!
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I had to look because of "the book is on a tech that not a lot of developers utilize."
-> It's Ruby on Rails. Ha! A TON of developers utilize it. It may not be as popular as it used to be, but it's a damn fine tool for the job.
Disclaimer: I use Rails everyday, and know a ton of people who do too.-
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I agree David! But unfortunately that's not currently how the state of the web is. Te reality is that most web devs opt for JS frameworks. I mean, just look at this thread posted just today...
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/anyone-using-rails-in-2020-44f53a6b0b-
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Look at all those "Yes'!" to Rails on that page- not many JS ones to be honest.
I agree in general (the curent state of the web) is more JS-focused, but there's always going to be a large amount of people using any given technology. You just have to find them :D
Oh- and congrats on the sales!
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Thanks David! Yep I totally agree.
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Hi Nick,
Very very nice! I'll definetly take a look at it.
Also, I've send you a PM.
Best regards,
Freddy -
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