Similar to the Nathan Barry situation, I felt that the Execute book (touted as a book about getting a product out the door in a week, written in a week, but not available in any other format than print for two months) was equally asking way too much for the lack of information given. I wrote out this huge response to one of the designers and posted it on Dribbble, but deleted it after his response was merely "Thanks, we might do that later."
Basically it dwindled down to "Why? Who are you? What have you done? You've proven nothing to me on this one page site, which isn't even attractive in itself. We don't even execute a product together, you tell me how you do it, but that assumes too much on my capabilities. Does this book expect me to know how to program? Does it expect me to know how to design?" Information on the book was spread across three different websites, the Table of Contents screenshot was just a mockup, and none of the sections seemed to be about actually doing something so much as "how it works for me." Well, I read enough "How x works for me," posts on the internet, and they are almost always pointless and subjective.
Just really basic stuff that would have helped convince people that they were making a solid purchase. If you're asking for money up front, especially if you don't even have any idea what the final product is going to look like (i.e. the author scrapped the book with three out of the seven days he'd slotted and rewrote it), this is a minimum of what I'm expecting.
Maybe I just don't want my readership to be suckers, I want them to be people who know what they're getting before they get it, as that will only help me spread the word and make more sales in the end.
Basically it dwindled down to "Why? Who are you? What have you done? You've proven nothing to me on this one page site, which isn't even attractive in itself. We don't even execute a product together, you tell me how you do it, but that assumes too much on my capabilities. Does this book expect me to know how to program? Does it expect me to know how to design?" Information on the book was spread across three different websites, the Table of Contents screenshot was just a mockup, and none of the sections seemed to be about actually doing something so much as "how it works for me." Well, I read enough "How x works for me," posts on the internet, and they are almost always pointless and subjective.
Just really basic stuff that would have helped convince people that they were making a solid purchase. If you're asking for money up front, especially if you don't even have any idea what the final product is going to look like (i.e. the author scrapped the book with three out of the seven days he'd slotted and rewrote it), this is a minimum of what I'm expecting.
Maybe I just don't want my readership to be suckers, I want them to be people who know what they're getting before they get it, as that will only help me spread the word and make more sales in the end.