Why is no one buying your ebook? As I describe in more detail in the video above, there are two reasons many writers overlook:
READING A BOOK IS A HUGE COMMITMENT
Lost in the discussion of ebook pricing is the fact that even if you make your book free, you are asking a reader to spend 5 or 10 hours or more to actually read the book.
Kevin Smokler equates this to a “2nd or 3rd date.” That the level of commitment you are asking is deeper than the $2 or $5 or $15 you pay for the book. That you can hand a book to me in a moment and with a smile, doesn’t mean that it won’t take me 5 or 10 hours to read it.
Richard Nash made a similar point when I heard him speak recently. This is why slush piles exist. Why many of us have our own piles of books next to our beds. Our DESIRE to read doesn’t equate with our RESOURCES to read.
WE PERCEIVE THE VALUE OF OUR OWN CREATIONS AS GREATER THAN OTHERS WOULD
Oftentimes, we feel such a pride in the work that we create, we place a higher perceived value on it than others would. Derek Halpern recently discussed this with Dan Ariely, citing studies that illustrate this.
There is a lot of discussion going on about taking the time to produce a book of the utmost quality vs “just shipping” and getting your book (and the next one and the one after that) out there quickly. Last week, I heard Corbett Barr reference one of my favoriate interviews ever – where Ira Glass discusses the process of creating GREAT stuff. That it takes time. That you need to be brutal about throwing out “good” stuff in order to give “great” stuff a chance to be born. Here are the four parts to the entire (amazing) interview: #1, #2, #3, #4.
I dig into all of this with more depth in the video above.
Thanks!
-Dan