How Much will You Pay for Content?
Continuing the discussion on content…
In all marketing people pay a different price depending on the context of the sale. You’ll pay more for a glass of coke at a restaurant than a 2-liter at a grocery store. The same product can be packaged or labeled differently and the price will change significantly.
What about the pricing of content, like books? Look at this page by 37 Signals. It’s promoting their book, “Getting Real“.
Here are your choices: buy a PDF for $19, a paperback for $29 or read the entire book free online. As you can see the choices are side by side. So why have they sold over 20,000 copies of the PDF?
People will buy free content packaged differently. That’s why some bloggers have become authors based on giving away the book. It is counter-intuitive to a lot of people. Why would people pay for something they can get free? It’s the context and purpose.
Maybe this is why? You can read the book online but it’s not a pleasant experience. If you want to write in it or take it somewhere, you’ll buy and print a PDF. Or if you want it more permanent you’ll buy the paperback. I do think people appreciate the transparency too (choices and being up-front).
Note: Matthew set me straight. They didn’t have the free online version until they’d sold 20k of the paid.
2 Responses to “How Much will You Pay for Content?”
Leave a Reply
December 24th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Just a note -
As somebody who bought the $19 ebook, I know that they didn’t release the free version until they had sold their 20k. Once sales had slowed they released the free version to renew the publicity for their real world seminars.
December 24th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Matthew, thanks for setting me straight on the story! I’ll note this in the post.
Best
Janet