Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:50:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121016/08073820716/humble-ebook-bundle-passes-600k-adds-five-awesome-webcomic-books.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121016/08073820716/humble-ebook-bundle-passes-600k-adds-five-awesome-webcomic-books.shtml massive success, they keep doing really interesting things to tweak those experiments to show how you can "under promise and over deliver" in a way that encourages people to (happily) pay more and get more than they expect. From the beginning, they've used the charitable component (you can designate whatever portion of what you pay to go to charity) to get people to pay more -- something studies have shown works well to get people to pay higher amounts. They've also offered special products if you pay above the average price, which encourages people to both buy earlier, when the price may be lower, and to pay more, to get over the average to get the "special" extras. Finally, they consistently add awesome new products later on, while the Bundle is still going -- adding those extras automatically to everyone who already bought (encouraging people to buy early) or making them available to new buyers who pay above the average (again, pushing the amount people want to pay higher).

This round is no exception. After raising over $500,000 for the first round of (great) books, mostly from sci-fi authors, they've now added a pretty awesome "webcomic bundle" to the batch: For everyone who's already ordered, or anyone new who pays over the existing average price, they now also get:

• xkcd: volume 0 by Randall Munroe
• Penny Arcade Volume 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
• Penny Arcade Volume 2: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
• Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weiner
• The Most Dangerous Game: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weiner

Of course, these are basically the three biggest names in webcomics, especially among the geekset who is probably already quite into Humble Bundle. It's yet another case of over delivering in a fun and exciting way.

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]]> under-promise-and-over-deliver http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121016/08073820716 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:38:16 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1457365982.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090824/1457365982.shtml can do that if they want, but that partners can and have sprung up to fill those roles. This is why I still think there's a big role for a "record label" to play, in handling much of that for the artists, so they can continue to focus on creating.

JLJ points out that a similar debate appears to be happening in the webcomics community, with Scott Kurtz, the author of PvP discussing the swinging pendulum between handing over nearly all control to a syndicate or marketing partner to a completely DIY model, and then hopefully back to some happy medium.

I think that's definitely what's happening in the music space -- but the nice thing is that it's not just a pendulum, but a spectrum, so that different artists can pick and choose what makes the most sense for them. Sometimes you come across artists who really want to be involved in the marketing and connecting and the selling. And sometimes, they don't. But the point is now they have the choice. And, even beyond that choice, within each aspect of the spectrum, there are many more options in terms of who to partner with and how to structure the deal. In the old system, you had a very small number of record labels or comic syndicates -- and, as such, they held all the power and could structure deals that were bordering on indentured servitude. But, with so many more options these days, the creators are actually taking back control. There's competition in the marketplace, and even if a creator wants nothing to do with the business and marketing side at all, it doesn't mean they have to sign a life sentence over to a business manager. And that's a very good thing for content creators.

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