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  • Nice update Shane. On Louis CK’s site, if you click on News in the navigation bar, he has a screen shot of his Paypal account. It’s these little things that gets me fired up and ready to put in some overtime on my business.

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  • Echoes of Napster … the CD business changed because of them! Yes, what Louis CK did was hugely successful, why? he had the eyeballs, the brand, the trust, instant TRAFFIC!

    The average blogger can only dream of that kind of traffic!

    Fran

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    • Don’t underestimate yourself! :)
      Sure, Louis had attention and celebrity, but he worked for decades to get those. No reason you can’t do the same, on a smaller scale (or even the same scale).

      Reply

  • Hey Shane–
    thanks for sharing this!
    pretty much what I’m thinking of doing myself–
    only I’m not famous, so where to get the traffic?

    do you know what sort of infrastructure he is using on his website to accept payments and then lead you automatically to the download page?

    I’m thinking of using fusionhq, but I recently ran across this free wp plugin to monetize content:
    http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cleeng/

    what do you think of using this?
    thanks a bunch, as per usual, for any insights!
    Rik

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    • George used PayPal and they allow you to configure a URL they will send your customers to once they paid. Your download page for example.

      George wanted to keep it simple. I doubt he even build a list. Affiliate Marketers neglect this sometimes too.

      If you want to do something like a one week membership for online viewing only, then it gets a little more complicated. There are programs out there though, that compile a video into a EXE-File with integrated viewer and allow some options of restricting the recurring usage.

      But as you mentioned yourself, TRAFFIC is your main problem. Get started with your project tomorrow by keeping it simple in the beginning and do NECESSARY upgrades when your project is PROFITABLE.

      Hope that helps,

      Uwe

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    • Really depends on how exactly you want to deliver your product.
      Ultimately, the technical infrastructure is completely secondary, though. If you have a good product and good marketing, people will buy from you, even if you have the worst payment process on the internet. If you don’t have a good product or marketing, then it won’t matter how brilliant your payment process is…

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      • I’ve no experience with that particular plugin. I’m sure Louis CK used some kind of a custom solution. I reckon he hired a web-developer to cook up his simple payment and login system.

  • Hi Shane – yes it’s interesting that those of us involved in Internet Marketing take this business model almost for granted because it’s the option that seems practical to most of us.

    Another good example of this is in the music industry where the majority of ‘undiscovered’ bands were at the mercy of the major record labels and music execs. Nowadays, these bands at least have the option to produce their own CD’s and music videos which can then be promoted online. Of course, this does not mean that they will automatically break into a major record deal, but at least they can get word-wide exposure!

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    • Yes, that’s a great example. It doesn’t necessarily make things easier, but it levels the playing field, to a certain extent.

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  • This method of publishing has already caught on – I like it.

    But as with books ther will always be a need for the traditional methods – I for one like to have that book in printed format – guess I’m a tactile person…

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  • Thanks for the Sunday update.
    Yes, I believe the internet can offer a different
    approach to some traditional business models.

    Stanley

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  • Hi Shane

    I think this would work for well known famous people, but not so much for the average Jo. I think you have to have a brand to make this work well.

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    • It’s all just a question of scale. You can’t start out and make a million, selling a $5 product. But making a decent amount of money with a small product really isn’t that difficult. And if you do it right, you can use that product to start building your brand and reputation etc.

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  • Hi Shane,
    the last couple of videos you did in a thick sweater as far as I seem to recall – this time not. At least Germany is suffering from some low temperatures the likes we haven’t seen in a while. Did you move once more, but this time to a warmer climate ;)

    Business has always striven to cut out the middleman whenever possible (Profit Optimization) and in modern times this is in some areas easier as ever.

    But what happens when this seriously threatens some BIG company. How creative will they became in retaining their original status!?

    Uwe

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    • It’s still pretty damn cold around here (and snowing, most of the time), but thanks to central heating, I’m not too much of a victim of this.

      What happens if big companies see themselves threatened? Well, if recent events are any indication, then my guess is they’ll try to censor the internet…

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      • The last sentence of my post was intended to be cynical – but I screwed it up. “How creative they than become in retaining their original status!” was what I had in mind. Seems like my keyboard has a mind of its own ;)

        Which reminds me, there are plugins that allow visitors to edit their comment even after they posted it. Would you consider implementing such a plugin? I need to use them quite a bit unfortunately, since I can’t seem to get into the habit of making a draft in notepad first :(.

  • Shane, you ask if this will change publishing, and if more artists, authors, etc., will begin to look for ways to implement this strategy. Personally, I think this is the future of publishing, but here’s a delightful talk by visionary Canadian author Margaret Atwood (with her own hand-drawn illustrations) on this very topic, and her thoughts about it. She says it a lot better than I can. (Lots of good information on where the money actually goes in traditional publishing, too!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6iMBf6Ddjk

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    • Hi Phil,

      Thanks for sharing that video! That was excellent and very entertaining as well. :)

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    • Dear Phil & Shane:
      Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 Yokohama, Japan

      Thanks for the delightful Margaret Atwood piece.

      Seems to me that there’s scope for a service that seamlessly integrates the writing, cum self publishing, cum promo process in the internet age.

      For example, thanks to Shane, I’ve been able to order an excellent article from The Content Authority.

      Clearly, sites like this are mini bite size cheese sandwich hubs.

      Now, if I want to produce my own piece I can of course self publish on Lulu or Smashing Words but as Margaret says my chances of gaining visibility are slim to none without a well organized multi dimensional promo campaign online including FB, twitter, Mp3, Videos and so on.

      Also, I can’t easily get editor karma as I produce my magnum opus using Open Office.

      Say, I want to write an e-book on American Foreign Policy but I don’t have a Ph.D in the subject area.

      I’d like to interleaf it with relevant photos/videos from historical archives and I ‘d like to have it featured in places like Pro Publica, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy.

      Could I successfully set up a Wiki and attract a small group of collaborators that would help shepherd the inspiration (editor), the online design Smashing Magazine type with infographics the pre publication wow factor, the self publishing envelope, the world wide rights process and the “make sure the product is up-to-snuff factor” (circulate the product to other subject matter experts in the field to ensure that the book meets standards?

      If I could engender/accomplish all this via a “Collab Wheel” and the resulting Sales could be divvied up on a Success Fee model it would be a cool way to create cheese sandwiches for lots of people in the online pub chain.

      To take it a step further, would there be any scope for a DuPont type.
      http://www.innocentive.com/ type site? I believe this site will pay a
      reward for solving difficult scientific problems.

      What I’m thinking about is an E-Bay type site that would feature Collab Wheels across info domains for New Greenfields info projects.

      There would be a bidding process as it is obvious that there are more prospective readers for say “how to be happy” info products than Victorian morals. ( collabers would register their expertise areas and bid to become part of the Collab Wheel for the topic domain. They would enjoy a negotiated Success % of the take at completion and also earn a fee per milestone completed as the project progressed.

      There would be a second part of the puzzle with micro investment into the work project at the outset based on the Project Prediction Model (see below).

      Seems to me that this is somewhat feasible as Malcolm Gladwell has already talked about a site that can predict Box Office take from various movie genres/ scripts….. can’t find the name of the company yet but here’s a relevant article: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2009-winter/50207/what-people-want-and-how-to-predict-it/

      To sum up, I find it hard to deal with all the piece meal outsourcing that most successful online marketers are advocating.

      Yes, I know we should be outsourcing using Fiverr, elance, odesk and a few people in Manila but even so doing all this does not in an of itself make for a coherent plan make it possible to Grateful Dead(ize).

      Just wondering how to make it easier to make cheese sandwiches for all of us.

      Appreciate any substantive feedback to these off-the-cuff comments

      Reply

  • Interesting but covered in “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson (essential reading), and Socialnomics by Erik Qualam (Boring and could be edited to about 25% if he did not waffle so much and he is completely wrong with his assumptions).

    Prefer more IM stuff really, for example you mentioned your failures, it would be great if you did a case study (you do not have to name details) and explained the lessons learnt.

    For IM you could relate it to lulu.com where you can publish your eBooks.

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  • Its interesting to see how the internet and electronic publishing is affecting different areas like this.

    It just reminds you it is ongoing and pervasive and bringing down the old ways of doing things.

    These people would have had large followings to start with, but I suppose it also applies to anyone.. you can start out small even.

    John

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  • It is certainly true that cutting out the middleman in publishing works if you already have a marketing constituency – who are keen to purchase your next product. However, the trick if you don’t, is to build up your constituency – and this is where step by step marketing comes in.

    My business is in providing romantic vacation rental holiday accommodation. I have only two properties, and we are about to enter our third year. I have worked hard to build my constituency, and have generated a list of 7,000 + people to whom I market free holidays. From amongst that constituency there are enough people who have got to know and like my product that we are achieving over 70% fill rate.

    So it takes time to identify your constituency (Your market), then how to access them (your medium), and finally identify the product that they actually really want.

    It appears to be a reverse engineering process. We began by identifying that there were people looking for romantic accommodation, then we worked on creating what they were looking for, then we found the medium to get the message to the market already looking for what we had created.

    So we have cut out the agencies, we pay no-one commission…..

    I am a fan of finding ways to get to the market directly & the internet has made this possible. And your site and information Shane is proving very very helpful – many thanks.

    And Shane, if you want to keep this in, here is a link to the free holiday site: http://www.hideawaywinners.com

    Michael

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