Chris Guillebeau is one of my favourite bloggers. He writes at The Art of Non Conformity, where he details his adventures of trying to visit every country in the world by the time he’s 35.
In this interview, Chris talks about some of his product releases. He has released 2 free ebooks, A Brief guide to World Domination and 279 Days to Overnight Success. He has also released four ebooks so far, including the Unconventional Guide to Working For Yourself and The Unconventional Guide to Art and Money.
You get your ebooks designed by Reese. How important is presentation when it comes to information products?
Presentation is very important because it gives new visitors an immediate impression of how serious you are. Of course, you have to have great content – the content is why people buy the product – but good presentation increases trust and shows that you have taken the project seriously.
You released your 279 Days report for free. It is such a valuable resource. Why did you decide not to charge?
I wanted to increase my influence and reach more people. Some of them may go on to buy a paid product from me, but lots of others don’t, and that’s OK. I’m flattered that it’s helped so many bloggers and creative types so far – getting emails from them is just as exciting as the emails that come from PayPal.
You purposely tell readers to avoid buying a product if they think it’s not for them. Do your readers appreciate this?
Yes, it increases trust and credibility, which are really far more important than any one sale. I’m really troubled by false scarcity and scare tactics in marketing.
Do you have plans to release further information products?
Yep! The next one is called the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web. It’s a partnership with Gwen Bell and launches on August 18. After that, more things are in the works.
You always respond to email. Will you continue to do this as your profile grows?
I certainly hope so, yes. In that practice I follow the model of Seth Godin. I figure if he can do it with a network much broader than mine, surely I can too.
Do you think there is an ideal stage for a blogger to release an information product?
The ideal stage is when you have an audience ready to pay for information that you can provide. What that looks like will be different for everyone, but it helps to have a decent base before releasing products. Alternatively, if you create a great product but don’t have much of an audience, you could also see about partnering with someone who has a bigger (but still related) audience to what you’ve developed.
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