Hacker News: jmeyers

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How to politely quit my job?"

jmeyers — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:01:11 +0000

I just went through this process with my last employer 3 weeks ago. I just finished week one at the new employer and it is great. Here is what I did.

Gave 2 weeks notice, I told my boss this opportunity was too good to pass up. It was something I really wanted to do.

Offered to do whatever was needed over the next two weeks to help with the transition. (Mostly documentation for the new guy and closing outstanding projects.)

Recommended that they expand a current contract they have with a service provider to help fill some of my roles while they look for a new employee.

I kept the exit interview and discussions with other employees professional and did not complain about the problems of the current job. Really no reason at this point to make a big stink on the way out, I don't like to burn brides un-necessarily.

I hope this helps.

Good luck with the new job!

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book"

jmeyers — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:10:58 +0000

No offense taken.

I will be the first one to admit that I don't know everything. It never occurred to me, in part, because I had misconceptions about the barriers to entry. Those misconceptions have been corrected because of this post.

Simply put, I thought it would be more expensive to publish on Amazon. :)

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book"

jmeyers — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:40:32 +0000

Thank you everyone, I think I have a rough draft of my plan now.

1. Sell my book via either payloadz or ejunkie. I want to investigate the reputation of each service, but I like the free account to start on payloadz.

2. If sales can cover my costs so far, and can pay for the cost of moving to Amazon, sell on Amazon.

3. If sales on Amazon cover my costs, add paperback print on demand.

How does that look for a business plan?

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book"

jmeyers — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:28:04 +0000

Would there be a way to set up Paypal to auto email the book to the customer? If I were a paying customer, I'm not sure I would want to wait to get my book. I think the expectation of buying an e-book is to get it instantly...

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book"

jmeyers — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:25:18 +0000

Excellent idea, it never occurred to me to try and sell this on Amazon. I think in the spirit of "bootstrapping" this would be step 2 or 3 on the list due to the start up costs.

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book"

jmeyers — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:02:15 +0000

I have not done testing to gauge interest yet. I was looking at what else is out there and the sites I have seen look like they are just there to make money. The material I looked at doesn't cover what I go over in class, so I think I can offer something new.

So how would I go about testing interest??

Ask HN: How do I bootstrap selling an E-book

jmeyers — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:32:58 +0000

I have a niche site in home wine making, www.frugalwinemaking.com. I have also been teaching classes on home wine making for about 2 years now. I've decided to create an e-book on how to make wine and would like to sell it from my site. My hosting provider wants 49.99\month for a package to sell E-books.

I've been following the discussions here on selling e-books (sorry don't have the link), which is part o the reason I'm doing this, but now that I'm thinking about implementing it I have a couple questions?

1. Is there a better, less expensive way, to start selling an E-book?

2. Do I need to set up a company to start selling e-books? (I'm located in Pittsburgh, PA USA)

This site is something I do to try and "find my passion". It is built on Wordpress. I don't have any illusions that this will make me lots of money, but I'd be happy if I could make enough to cover my hosting costs.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2031517

Points: 14

# Comments: 23

New comment by jmeyers in "I'm so impressed I want to pay you less"

jmeyers — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 13:15:14 +0000

Yes we do have casual employees, the term is "part time" in America. They generally work less than 20 hours a week, no benefits like time off or holidays, but they usually don't make more money than full time employees though.

New comment by jmeyers in "Today you, tomorrow me "

jmeyers — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:38:58 +0000

You have to get out of the the city a little bit. The last hitchhiker I picked up was on Rt 422 north of Pittsburgh. It was cold, dark and raining so I stopped to pick him up. We got to talking and he told me his story on why he was hitching. Seems his buddy was having a bachelor party and he wanted to go. His wife hid the keys and said he couldn't go so he hitchhiked to the party and back. I dropped him off at his house and I can only imagine the hell he got from his wife when he got home...

New comment by jmeyers in "Today you, tomorrow me "

jmeyers — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:05:34 +0000

I've had a very similar experience, its uncanny. I was in my 20s at the time and I was trying to fix a charging problem on this old truck I had. I decided to take it for a test ride to see if the problem is fixed. Of course it isn't and the battery dies while I am in the middle of an intersection. I have jumper cables so I pop the hood and I am standing there holding the cables trying to get someone to stop. I got people flipping me off, honking their horns, etc, no one stops. A Mexican guy stops, family in the car, pops his hood and gives me a jump. I didn't get a chance to talk to him because I had to get the truck out of the road, but I did say thanks. Ever since that incident I have been paying it forward. I've probably helped dozens of people since then who were broke down because that guy chose to help me. It's nice to see there are others out there paying it forward as well.

New comment by jmeyers in "Ask HN: I want to build a robot that cleans my bathroom. "

jmeyers — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 14:12:45 +0000

Scrubbing Bubbles has an automatic shower cleaner. http://www.automaticshowercleaner.com/index.asp

New comment by jmeyers in "Gmail: Trap my contacts now (warning when exporting contacts to Facebook)"

jmeyers — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 18:33:27 +0000

Maybe this can inspire the replacement for Face book.

New comment by jmeyers in "What platform to use to build a how-to site with user content and moderation?"

jmeyers — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 19:09:07 +0000

There are forum plugins for Wordpress. That might give you some of the features you are looking for. I have not used them myself, but I know they exist. If you know CSS and PHP, you should be able to mod something to get the feature set you need. If you want something that goes up quick so you can generate content, Wordpress is the way to go.