Hacker News Reader

Comment by enjo | Hacker News Reader

I plan to send out about an email a month, and have already started drafting some sample content. A lot of this stuff I had thought about releasing on kadavy.net, but it’s too valuable to just put out into the ether. I want to make sure only those who are really interested in it learn these secrets. Find out:

Just sounds like an infomercial to me.

View on HN

Maybe David's next project can be Infomercials for Hackers: How to Overcome Your Fear of Marketing-speak.

I think that a lot of people leave money on the table because they think that everyone else on the Internet has the same spam radar that they do.

Then again, if the audience is hackers, then the marketing has to speak to them.

Haha, I'm currently writing Self Promotion for Geeks which overlaps significantly into that area :-) (fueled similarly by some successes on HN)

I'm really interested in startup marketing for hackers and have been considering a similar writing project... I don't want to step on your toes at all but I'd love to bounce some ideas around. My e-mail is foobar at fooandbar.net :)

This sounds really awesome - can't wait to see it!

Thanks for reading that far - I'm not sure if I understand, are you implying that is a bad thing?

Programmers are a crowd that fundamentally hates marketing speak. So yes, infomercial tones are seen by most as a negative thing.

In my experience, programmers who are also entrepreneurs understand the merit of marketing, even if they instinctually dislike the wording you choose, so they'll be less judgmental (ergo your upvotes).

It was an interesting read until the heading "So, here we go." Then, it turned into a creepy infomercial about professional blogging.

I agree, it was my first time on the website and I genuinely liked the idea of "design for hackers", but when I read things like see "How 6 of my last 9 blog posts made it to the front page of Hacker News", I got irritated. Was this book and newsletter supposed to be about design? Maybe a refocus is in order here.

Thanks for the feedback from everyone on this thread. I massaged that part a bit.

I happen to think infomercials are pretty brilliant with marketing, but of course, they can be heavy handed. Thanks for caring enough to say something.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com