I interviewed Jason Fried of 37 Signals on my site. He told me that his ebook made hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think his margins were even better than mine.
What margins like these don't take into account is the years of work that came before them.
In my answers to Neil, I tried to keep my explanations simple. But I don't mean to imply that I found a way to turn nickles into dollars by salesmanship alone.
Let's be clear: I'm not teasing you for your business model, nor suggesting that it was easy to do what you did. I also don't care that you bought something for ten cents, and sold it for 30x more than that -- that's capitalism. You exploited a market inefficiency, and made a lot of money from it.
I am teasing the OP a little bit, because the comment that "execution" was responsible for your success is basically useless. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the critical ingredient wasn't the quality of your virtual goods or the writing in your newsletter, but the timing and novelty of your approach.
Timing is part of execution, sure. But when people toss around the "execute better" cliché, the implication is nearly always that you can make your product better and succeed, even if your timing is abysmal and your approach is unoriginal.
This story isn't about making the better e-mail newsletter. It's about a guy who recognized that he could arbitrage traffic for massive gain.
What margins like these don't take into account is the years of work that came before them.
In my answers to Neil, I tried to keep my explanations simple. But I don't mean to imply that I found a way to turn nickles into dollars by salesmanship alone.
Thanks for bringing this up timr.