Books like this should really offer a money back guarantee.
Why? It signals quality and enables speculative purchasing.
The quality signal I think is obvious.
The speculative purchasing is an incremental sale. Emotionally, I'm not going to purchase this book without a guarantee unless I've decided to commit time to read it. However, with a guarantee I can buy it on the chance that I might read it. It's not logical, I know, but it is how customers work emotionally.
Also, economically your guarantee is basically free. 99% of the time its not worth my time to request the refund even if I don't like the book. The 1% is if your book has made me emotionally angry due to its poor content (1 book I've ever read).
But, people will game the system? No they won't. At least not in sufficient volume to make it worth worrying about. If I want to scam a free copy of your book, it's likely I can find a pirated version faster than I can get my wallet and enter my credit card number.
Yeah, I don't get the downvotes. I guess this comment goes against the spirit of congratulations and encouragement in the rest of the thread.
Sure, money back guarantees work for lots of products. The late-night infomercials have proven that. And they work because they influence buying (it's no risk!) but don't cause too many returns in reality. Irrational human behavior.
But for $15, it's a really low investment for most people. If the price were a lot higher (even $40), it might be worth needing to offer a money back guarantee.
Does Starbucks offer money back guarantee on your coffee? If you drink the whole thing and didn't enjoy it, they'll give you a full refund? No. It's not for everything.
Money back guarantees are better for the consumers and better for the producers. There's still psychology involved at $15, and more than anything it's to mitigate loss aversion. If I spend $15 and the product sucks, I loose a lot more than $15 worth of happiness.
Its fine if these guys don't like the advice.
And, yes, Starbucks does offer money back guarantees, usually at the rate of "this one's free and so is the next one."
Thanks for the downvotes guys. Might be a bit better if you engaged in the argument, but hey, you're busy and you disagree with something. Wish I knew what that something was.
Why? It signals quality and enables speculative purchasing.
The quality signal I think is obvious.
The speculative purchasing is an incremental sale. Emotionally, I'm not going to purchase this book without a guarantee unless I've decided to commit time to read it. However, with a guarantee I can buy it on the chance that I might read it. It's not logical, I know, but it is how customers work emotionally.
Also, economically your guarantee is basically free. 99% of the time its not worth my time to request the refund even if I don't like the book. The 1% is if your book has made me emotionally angry due to its poor content (1 book I've ever read).
But, people will game the system? No they won't. At least not in sufficient volume to make it worth worrying about. If I want to scam a free copy of your book, it's likely I can find a pirated version faster than I can get my wallet and enter my credit card number.