Every Book Is a Startup

The title of this post isn't some witty phrase I came up with. Every Book Is a Startup is the name of a new short-form ebook (and soon to be print book) from Todd Sattersten. This project is much more than just a typical ebook; it's actually a collection of publishing experiments packaged as an ebook.

First of all, if you go to the book's catalog page you'll see that it's only 28 pages long and $4.99. That's because this is just the beginning of the project. Just like other startups who leverage the agile model, we're releasing the minimum viable product now and encouraging customer feedback for future updates and extensions of the project.

This minimum viable product release is short and low-priced but it will grow over time based on customer input. As it grows the price goes up. That's right. We're starting at $4.99 but as we add more content the price will increase. If you buy it now though, at $4.99, you'll get all those updates for no additional charge. IOW, we're encouraging early adoption of the product and at the same time we're seeing what we can learn from a dynamic pricing model.

As with every ebook on oreilly.com you'll find this one is DRM-free and available to you in all the popular formats. So your $4.99 purchase provides you with EPUB, MOBI and PDF plus all the updates going forward. I encourage you to check this one out and be sure to visit the Get Satisfaction page Todd has set up for community engagement.

Tell us what you think and help us shape not only the future of this project but the future of publishing as well!

P.S. -- If you're in the Portland area this Wednesday, 7/27, come see Todd talk about this model in person at our miniTOC event.

Comments

[SLClark]

John Locke treats each book as an *employee*, charting all sorts of data points, like review percentages, return on investment, etc. He uses this data to focus ever tighter on his target audience. One book cost him a 20% drop, and after some analysis, he found out why. He won't do that again.
-Steve