I also think, no offense, that HN is a terrible, terrible market to sell to. Among many other signs: if the price point a hypothetical customer goes to for "Actionable advice which stands to make my business a lot of money" is "thirty bucks", I have negative a billion desire to be in a business relationship with them. No offense intended to anybody here. Instead of spending six weeks writing and then a year wheedling people to part with their $50 as if that were a meaningful amount of money, I could pick up a phone tomorrow morning, call one of a couple CEOs, and say "So, still want my help?", and then do six weeks of consulting. There would be very little wheedling over $50 involved.
You make the initial investment in your pajamas at home, and then apply your own advice to promote it. I'm certain that it'd make far more money than BCC.
Perhaps the value of my suggestion was lost in its specificity. It doesn't even have to be an e-book priced at $50. Do webinars/courses a la Frank Kern. Charge $1000-2000, and accept only up to 100 people. Record the all thing, and then sell it on DVD at a cheaper price, when the live course is over.
My suggestion was to capitalize your "fame" to make some serious money and in the process help a great number of companies. Consulting is one way to do it, but there are less stressful, and more scalable ways in my opinion.
PS: I only replied to clarify the scope of my suggestion. I don't want to convince you or interfere with your plans.
Please write an ebook for $49. I will buy two of them.
Love,
Your consulting client who now feels like he overpaid.
If it's the latter, is 4k karma enough to join? ;)
I have the karma of a simple country boy. As a HN reader, I read many of tptacek's comments, and in particular his invitation in his profile to "Don't apologize for contacting me! I'm happy to meet you." So I ran into him at HN Chicago, we talked, one thing led to another, and now I work at Matasano.
So you know about the club by reaching out to anyone you find interesting.
I am not a member of any other group that is as friendly and accessible as this one here.
tptacek and patio11 probably met here, both have Chicago connections, met in person and now have done business together.
tptacek and cperciva are both in the security/crypto world. Don't know where they met but get the impression that they would have some connections regardless of HN.
Not sure about any connections outside of HN with jacquesm.
The way I see it, the HN "elite" spend a fair amount of time here, build relationships based on similar interests here on HN (maybe eventually in real life) and then appear to everyone else as if they've always know each other.
Also, to your parent, pretty much everyone I've ever emailed from HN has been friendly, and the ones I've met in real life have been great, too. Familiarity is the way that community is built. I've emailed all of those HNers except Colin before, when appropriate, and I still randomly know cpercival's name.
I know I'm connected with tptacek by one degree and linkedin tells me I'm connected to patrick within two degrees through two different people.
Someone should write a six degrees of HN app :-)
I like Colin and all, but have never met him. We tend to talk to each other a lot because we have very similar interests. You're as likely to see us bickering with each other as not.
I don't really know Jacques at all.
Any time you're in Chicago, look me up; I'm happy to buy coffee (we're on top of an excellent coffee shop downtown). I met a different HN person every other month or so just doing that.
I prefer to call it debating. :-)
But as other people have said, it all comes out of seeing each other's comments here. There is no secret cabal, unless you count the YC founders mailing list (which I'm not part of).
A book can contain actionable advice, but it's still somewhat limited and generic. The value of a consultant lies in his ability to apply his knowledge to your specific requirements. It's a personalized service that no book can replace.
In fact, writing a book usually leads to more consultancy gigs and higher rates.