出版与作家生涯2015practicaltypography.com
网络书籍的经济学：第二年
The economics of a web-based book, year two
导读
这篇是《Practical Typography》作者复盘网页书第二年经济账：流量来源、付费转化、读者为什么不愿或愿意付钱。对写作者的价值在于，它把“内容好”之外的第二半问题摆出来：如何让人看懂卖什么、顺畅购买，并让付费体验不比广告更麻烦。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
别把购买入口藏在正文里：用一个清楚的购买选项和 buy-now 按钮，让读者不用思考就能买。
- 02
写售卖文案先体谅读者：说明你卖什么、为什么值得买，避免把直白变成唠叨或暗黑模式。
- 03
把产品做成可感知的有形资产（如精心制作的 PDF），比模糊的“支持网站”更容易定价和转化。
- 04
如果靠读者付费，付费路径的便利性必须接近广告：越少折腾，越可能获得支持。
HN 评论精选
人类策展的付费内容比算法信息流更有价值，平台围绕点击流的优化不可持续。
我很喜欢这篇文字多么容易被引用。……随着我做程序员和互联网居民的阶段推进，我越来越愿意为人工策展的内容付费，而不是算法策展的内容，比如电子书。那段话正中要害：真正的社群和人际网络比“信息流”和“消防水管”更有价值；但真人不能被监控数据调味并打包成可转售块，所以 Google 和 Facebook 只能围绕他们能控制的点击流优化。越想越觉得当前方式不可持续：争夺眼球的底线竞争也是相关信息内容的底线竞争。
dkarapetyan查看英文原文
I really like how quotable this post is > It’s perhaps fitting that down the road from Apple, we have bottom-feeding behemoths like Facebook and Google. These companies are the sewage-treatment plants of the information age: shoveling the worst quality of human attention into piles, seasoning it with surveillance data, and packaging it into resalable chunks. But it’s an open question whether their skill is extracting hidden value from the web, or merely organizing its disappointments. As I've progressed through the various stages of being a programmer and a denizen of the internet I've become more and more willing to pay for curated content, not algorithmically curated content but actual human curated content like ebooks. That quote hits the nail on the head for why I've started to think about information that way. An actual community and network of humans is more valuable to me than "streams" and "firehoses" but actual humans can not be seasoned with surveillance data and packaged into resalable chunks so Google and Facebook work with the closest proxy that they can control (the click stream) and optimize their entire operation around that. The more I think about things like this the more I'm convinced that the current way of doing things is not sustainable. The race to the bottom for eyeballs is also the race to the bottom for relevant information content and that is obviously not a sustainable long-term strategy. Somewhere in that post he also makes the analogy with sub-prime mortgage instruments and unlike financial institutions that could be propped up by tax payers I don't think the sub-prime information economy has the analog of the U.S. government to keep it afloat.
售卖文案要体谅读者，购买入口要清楚，而不是藏起来或怕显得烦人。
我认为作者如果投入一些能体现同理心的文案，本可以多赚不少。他显然聪明、表达清楚、熟悉主题；但他对流量来源（比如 HN 存在的意图）的评论显示出明显缺乏情商。能连接读者的文案总会考虑读者。另外，把付款选项只用美元金额藏在段落里太隐蔽。他可能觉得更直白就会唠叨、烦人或使用暗黑模式；若真如此，很可惜。用心放置、意图良好的购买选项其实对读者是好事，尊重受众，也会提高转化。
nthnclrk查看英文原文
I think the author could have made significantly more revenue if he invested in copywriting that demonstrated some empathy. He is clearly intelligent, articulate and well versed in the subject-matter. Unfortunately his observations about traffic sources (ie. the intention of HN's existence) showed a rather pronounced lack of EQ. Copy that connects always considers the reader. Additionally, the placement of payment options with just dollar amounts hidden in a passage of text is far too obscure. I suspect from what he has written and the choices he has made to encourage purchases, that he believes there isn't a way to be more overt without being nagging, annoying, over-dramatic or using dark patterns. If this is the case, then that's a shame. Well placed, well-intentioned buying options executed with the kind care and skills that he has are actually a good thing for the reader, respect the audience and would increase conversion.
购买路径要简单明了：一个清楚的选项、显眼的位置、可感知的产品。
我很难理解作者到底在卖什么、怎么买。选项很多，他似乎乐于让人搞不清该买什么、怎么付。我建议重读 Krug 的《Don't Make Me Think》，哪怕只看标题。也许只提供一个购买选项，不要埋在正文里，并在更多位置出现；我还希望有一个 buy-now 按钮，交付精心制作的 PDF。那是有形资产，可以向读者收一个不错的固定价格。
lancewiggs查看英文原文
I really struggled, even now, to understand exactly what the author is selling (looks like the overall website) and how to buy. There are a lot of options and he seems to delight in making it difficult to understand what to buy and how to pay. I'd recommend a re-read of Krug's "Don't Make Me Think", if only for the title. Perhaps provide just one purchase option, not buried in the text and available in more places than an obscure chapter. I'd also like to see a buy-now button that delivers a crafted PDF. That's a tangible asset, and could command a decent (fixed) price from readers.
读者愿意付费，但需要最低摩擦；付费/打赏体验必须接近广告的便利。
如果列出转化最差的推荐来源，至少部分是为了让那些站点用户羞愧地给 Matt 钱，那确实奏效了，我给了他 10 美元。为内容付费很奇怪；我没有意识形态障碍，我买很多电子书，也订 Spotify、Hulu、HBO Go 等。但我看更多影视、听更多新音乐、读更多书，却付得更少。我倾向选择最省事、最少麻烦的方式，很少会为特定产品付特定金额。我希望 Patreon 和 Contributor 继续成长；我想要一个好内容靠纯收入支持的世界，但这不会发生，除非这些收入流的体验和数量赶上广告的便利与普及。同时，我鼓励更多优秀创作者用“内疚”逼我掏钱；既然我能接受 12 美元一杯鸡尾酒，也能接受为网络内容付钱。
jmduke查看英文原文
If the goal of listing out the worst-converting referrers was, at least partially, in order to shame the users of those sites into throwing Matt some money then it, uh, worked. I tossed him $10 -- not exactly a significant sum, but still > 0. Paying for content is weird. I don't have any ideological issue with it -- I spend a lot on eBooks, I shell out the monthly fee for Spotify, Hulu+, HBO Go, and a bunch of other things I'm probably forgetting. And yet -- while I'm confident I'm watching more TV + film, listening to more new music, and reading more books than I ever have before, I'm still paying less. Is that the way it should be, given that it's also a way better experience than it's ever been? I dunno. I think my tendency is to go with whatever is the easiest and of least fuss [^1] -- very rarely, this involves actually paying a specific dollar amount for a specific product. I hope things like Patreon and Contributor (https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/) continue to grow. I want a world where great content like Practical Typography can be supported with pure revenue, but that's never going to happen until both the UX and number of those revenue streams meet or exceed the convenience and ubiquity of advertisements. In the meantime, I encourage more great content creators to "guilt" me into giving them money. Given that I've grown comfortable with paying $12 for a cocktail [^2], I think I can grow comfortable with shelling out some cash for internet authors as well. -- [^1]: I suspect this is a habit shared by most HN'ers. [^2]: I mean, only so comfortable. But Canon is so good.
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