How I used Hacker News to sell my eBook

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13 points·philipDS··6 comments

It's interesting to see Ruby Weekly visitors converted at 6.7%. I always like to see data like this. In this case, I'm quite impressed you got over 500 visitors that way too, as I only gave it a minor feature right in the middle of the newsletter (things like this perform and convert a lot better when featured at the top of the mail).

In my experience, conversions go through the roof when the editorial mention includes a recommendation. I hadn't seen the book, so I could only give it a casual mention. If you reach out further in advance and allow people to review it, you can get better mentions, not just in newsletters but on people's blogs and sites like RubyFlow, etc. This will increase conversions a lot.

When you finish the book, definitely hit me up. Assuming it's of the right quality, I think even more people will be more interested and I should be able to mention it again.

Thanks Peter! When the book is finished and we're nearing the final release of Rails 4, I will definitely send you an email (with an attached copy).

FYI - I'm revising the grammar, adding a few new changes and am working with a proofreader now as well.

I'm not sure how you handled pre-launch - you seem to have several "credibility-boosting" posts on your blog, but it doesn't look like you started to write early enough in advance about the actual ebook launch.

Check out this blog post by Amy Hoy, she seems to be onto something: http://unicornfree.com/2013/3-critical-non-obvious-ingredien...

You meant 'How I used Hacker news to barely sell my eBook"?

Or perhaps, Use...

Something like that, yeah.. could be a decent alternative title :P

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