Comments on: Tony Hsieh Taps Groupon to Sell 1,642 Books in 3 Days

By: Tom Deans

Tom Deans — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:50:23 +0000

I’m all over of this!! Fantastic article. I’m self-published and print 20,000 copies at a time for $ .72 and sell for $19.95. After Groupon takes its cut and I pay shipping costs I’ll make about. $1.00. But here’s the rub. I have a perforated order form at the back of my book and I have a 22% re-order rate. If I set my minimum with Groupon at 1,000 copies I’ll make $1,000 from the initial sale and $3,570.6 from the 220 copies that I sell at full price for a total of $4,3570. I’m on this like a hungry dog on bone.
Thanks a million — literally!!

Tom Deans, Every Family’s Business

By: Leila Pirnia

Leila Pirnia — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:20:39 +0000

Great article. Your numbers probably aren’t too far off. Hsieh isn’t in it for the money, he wants to push his persona and his business.

We just launched a book-selling site in the style of Groupon, actually more like Woot, a few weeks ago. We sell nationally, not locally. The initial response and sales rates have been strong. We’re hoping to put more books in the hands of more people!
-Leila

By: Anthony Barba

Anthony Barba — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:18:59 +0000

Local workshop is a great idea. Is there a Groupon Type site exclusively for books? There is one for beer called beermenus.com

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:40:44 +0000

Hey Steve, yeah this is one of those scenarios where well organized self-published authors who are willing to spend a bit of money to make money may have a serious advantage.

By: Steve Miller

Steve Miller — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:55:34 +0000

I love Groupon (going rafting with my kids this Friday w/ a 1/2 price ticket!), but never thought about its potential for authors. I agree that if there were a way to break even, this would be huge, free publicity. Maybe we could tinker with a couple of those figures.

I’m taking the liberty of thinking that Groupon might work the percentages a bit different than your figures. But I wonder if something like this would be workable?

1) You’ve got a 250 page paperback for sale on Amazon for $16.00 + shipping = $20.00
2) You sell it for 1/2 price on Groupon = $10 (including shipping)
3) Groupon takes their cut of $5
4) I get copies for $2 per copy (I think this might be the ballpark for an offset run of 3000 copies of a color cover, b/w interior, 250 p. book. (See http://www.fonerbooks.com/paper.htm). If you hold the rights to your book (as I do with CreateSpace), you could do this. Print it locally so you don’t have to pay shipping.)
5) I pay three dollars for shipping via media mail (including the forty cent cost of my bubble mailer, which I order in bulk.)
6) I break even.

A marketing-minded traditional publisher would have likely paid about $1.25 per book for a print run of 5000 copies and just might give 2000 of them to the author at their $1.25 rate for this Groupon deal.

Is this possible?

J. Steve Miller
President, Legacy Educational Resources
Author of Enjoy Your Money! How to Make It, Save It, Invest It and Give It
“The money book for people who hate money books.”

By: Dennis J. Smith

Dennis J. Smith — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 02:12:12 +0000

I would rather promote the book myself then have a company make an insane profit off my work. I make a nice profit myself by promoting my book online and doing a little leg work. It’s already ranking on Google.

DJ Smith

By: Ed Gandia

Ed Gandia — Sat, 29 May 2010 13:56:44 +0000

Fascinating, Jonathan! As Siddhartha suggested, even if the offer doesn’t tip, you get the exposure to 3 million people. If your book has a potentially large target audience, getting that exposure alone might be worth it. But I agree that you have to have a product funnel already built for it to make sense — or some other well-thought-out strategy, not just bragging rights.

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Tue, 18 May 2010 09:53:24 +0000

It’s only vanity if that publicity is your end goal. Loss-leaders are a valid way to get a prospects permission to follow up (just like supermarkets will attract customers with heavy discounts and make it up on loyalty or other products), and the best-sellers lists are vital if you want to use the book to enter the speaking circuit where there is good money to be made (apparently, you would have to ask people who are earning actual good $$$ doing speaking, heh).

By: Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot

Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot — Tue, 18 May 2010 08:34:36 +0000

I understand the principle of why you’d eat a loss to get publicity but I’m still feeling a bit queasy about this. Is it vanity publishing at its extreme? You write a book and sell it at a loss so you can say you sold x copies/made a bestseller list or whatever…It’s interesting but not that appealing to me so far. Have to think about it:)

By: Erica Rueschhoff

Erica Rueschhoff — Tue, 18 May 2010 04:37:17 +0000

Hi Lewis – if you are looking to generate prospects and buzz locally with your next book, why not use groupon and include a free 1/2day local workship with the purchase of the book with some type of local group coaching or mastermind on the backend. I think there are many creative ways to utilize groupon.