Regular readers of ProBlogger will be familiar with Leo Babauta who has written several guest posts for me on this blog. In fact Leo is a serial guest poster and has consistently produced great content on numerous blogs for some time now – as well as on his own blog Zen Habits – a blog about many things including productivity and organization, simplicity, happiness and health.
Leo has managed to build his blog to be very successful in many ways. He’s got over 21,000 subscribers, is currently 61 on Technorati’s Top 100 and has an Alexa ranking of around 12,000 already (pretty good considering it’s age of around 6 months).
Anyway – onto the reason for my post.
Leo has released an ebook
Leo has just emailed me to let me know that he’s taken the monetization of his blog in a new direction – he’s released an ebook called Zen to Done (the ultimate simple productivity system).
Leo describes his ebook as follows:
“Zen To Done takes some of the best aspects of a few popular productivity systems (GTD, Stephen Covey and others) and combines them with the mandate of simplicity. It makes things as simple as possible, and no more.”
I am excited about this ebook for a couple of reasons.
Firstly – it’s a great read and right on topic for me as not only a ‘Pro’ Blogger but a very ‘Disorganized’ Blogger. I’ve started reading it already and on what I’ve already read have set aside some time tomorrow to read the rest – I think I need this book!
Secondly – I’m fascinated to see how the release of this ebook goes for Leo. At $9.50 USD it’s very affordable and with a readership (and influence) as wide as Leo’s I think he’s got the potential with the release of Zen to Done to rake up significant sales.
The key will be to see whether he’s able to convert those 20,000+ subscribers into paying customers. Definitely one to watch! I’ll attempt to get an interview with Leo in the coming days to see if we can get a little more info on how it’s gone for him.
This post contains affiliate links.
I will be sure to check this book out. Leo has always been one to watch and doesn’t come over as having an ego that needs attention like many of the other “top bloggers”, don’t worry Darren, you are fine too ;)
Sunny
http://www.TechMilk.com
Nice work Leo, will definitely head over for look.
Surreal.
Wow, so successful in such a short time. I can’t believe it.
I think that is great for Leo, but honestly, I think he is setting his sights too low. IMO he should be looking for a print-book deal. This would elevate him to the status of ‘published author’ and I’m sure that would do more for him than the sales of this ebook.
Still, maybe that’s still to come :-) Kudos to Leo!
I agree with Caroline. There’s enough idea to get this set for a proper print run. Now that WOULD be great!
That is cool, I notice he has lots of different topics
Well now he has you advertising his ebook, so that should help. Selling a book is all about support and investment. With support, you can virally penetrate the blogosphere to attract the widest possible audience. With investment, you can pay for advertising or PR.
Maybe something like 37s’ Getting Real setup where you can buy either the PDF or a lulu dead tree version?
Like Darren said though, conversion stats would be really interesting.
The price is very affordable I have to say. Love their latest redesign.
What would be interesting is if Leo uses this free ebook as an introduction to talks, workshops and seminars that he conducts. People who found the book useful would be dying to meet him and hear him give an actual talk on the subject with FAQ and case studies.
This is a great site. I myself am doing the same type of blog and can definitely learn a lot from this. I’ve only been blogging about 2 months now, but Leo has some great ideas!
Congrats to Leo on his success. Simplicity always succeeds, and he has just proved it.
This is great! It makes me want to write my own e-book. Just thinking about writing a book and having it for sale is a ways off though.
Leo is a honest blogger and marketer, he explains well on his blog that everything that you can find on the ebook is all written on his blog spreaded across.
Unless you are looking for a handy and much easier way to read a chapter by chapter book, then buying one is a must, and it’s only $9.50 for an ebook.
Responding to some of the comments,
I question how someone with a solid blogging base
is going to do better launching in print first.
Blog readers read online.
These often early adopters also read eBooks
and spread word of mouth.
Once that has been done
THEN he can launch in print,
secure that the demand has been built
(plus flip the money earned from the eBook
into the costs for print publishing).
Seth Godin does the exact same thing.
And I hear he’s done pretty well for himself.
Oh, I should disclose that this is exactly my plan for my novel launching in May.
I will definitely have to check it out. I am new to GTD. I read David Allen’s book after reading an article about him in Wired a few months ago. I have modified some of his suggestions since I don’t have a delegate option and only a mobile desk environment. I would love to find out how Leo modified it for his use. Maybe it will set some of the issues I have straight.
Hi Darren,
I am looking forward to the interview with Leo. Wish him good luck specially in turning 20,000+ subscribers into paying customers!
Cheers,
Mido
Leo should probably give the book away for free, as an e-book, and hope for a pay-off on the lecture circuit.
The Economics of Free — Free content -> Attention -> Free product -> Lock-in -> Paid bundled services -> $$$.
More thoughts on why Leo should probably give the book away for free — The Economics of Free.
I too appreciate the honesty of his comment about the content of his eBook. No misleading statements or dishonest marketing puts his reputation at the highest level.
I think the price he choose is a great marketing decision, $9.50 makes you think “under 10 bucks”, not to much and well worth the information provided.
I also would love to know how much conversion he can do with his subscribers.
Congrats to Leo on his new e-book.It appears to be something of interest to many as the comments here show.With a subsciber list of over 21,000,and the promotion from other blogs like here he should make quite a few sales.
I do not believe the sales will come close to the numbers of his subscriber list,but he should do very well.
Steven
Just bought the book. Haven’t read it yet, but I’ll be sure to comment after I’ve read it.
Go Leo! That’s fantastic.
I too think it would be a great experiment to play with pricing on this one. I know Leo is not trying to get rich off this book and his pricing is a very fair exchange. But I’d be curious to see what would happen with a higher price.