What's The Catch? Why Give So Much For Free?

I received a question today;

why are you NOT selling this like everyone else?

 

1. are you using some ‘ghost’ software to track people’s email/identity/personal info?

2. I am yet to meet someone who has written a book and doesn’t care to do whatever it takes to  get it sold. what is the catch?

It amused me that someone should think I was technical enough to develop or use some spy level software.  It is only two or three weeks ago that I realised I could make the quote above, stand out.

However it’s a question I get quite often.  It doesn’t really stack up.  The information is popular enough and of a high enough quality to go through the publishing process.  It has actually crossed my mind on a couple of occasions that I could take down everything I have already written.  Then present it, in a more polished way and sell it as a stress management membership site to company’s.  It would be lucrative and fairly easy to do.

photo credit: > N e o G a b o X <

So why don’t I do that?  

It’s a question I have touched on, but one that I’ve never fully answered or explained.  The whole issue of monetisation is one that I need to address in order to move up to the next level in my work.  So let me explain fully once and for all, the historical context and how I’m going to be working going forward.  

Let’s start at the beginning.  I used to sell my book.  In fact I’d just got to the point where it was starting to sell well.  But I didn’t feel entirely confortable about it.  For a number of reasons.

Reason One

Firstly, I felt that this was information that could help a lot of people.  Many have written and told me that it was what helped them get out of a dark place.  Yet, I would only give it in exchange for money.  That didn’t quite sit right with me.

At the time I was reading A Course in Miracles.  And I got to the bit that says;

Give all, to all.

In that section it talks about the need to give whatever you have, freely without requiring any reciprocal exchange.  It also says that there is no getting around or compromising this idea.  

I fought against this valiantly.  But after a week or so I realised I would have to go with what I felt was right.  So I made the book available for free on my website.  Initially I offered the book on the website for free and the PDF version as still being for sale.  Then eventually I just gave it away completely.

Reason Two

The second reason I didn’t feel comfortable selling the book has to do with my way of working.  

As soon as the book was done, I wanted to go beyond the ideas in there and come up with something deeper and better.  And so as it came around to selling what I’d already done, I was more excited by new ideas.  When I have done something, I’m done with it.  I don’t like to look back.  And so because the ideas were so old and ingrained in me, they seemed less valuable.  Although to someone new to the ideas they are just as valuable now, as they once were to me.  

For me, I can’t sell what I don’t believe in.  I just can’t do it.  

I find it impossible to muster up the enthusiasm or energy to do it.  Not when there are so many more exciting things to be done.  I see some people selling shoddy products and they are screaming ‘buy me’ to everyone, but I’m not built that way.  I like money, but I can’t get motivated by it. 

Reason 3

Reason number three had to do with the people I was dealing with.  

It was a very general audience.  What I really appreciate now with my writing is that I get an educated readership.  It’s people who are looking to grow themselves with new ideas and perspectives.  So now, I get specific questions, comments and expansions on what I have written.  It’s a more equal relationship.  

Back then, there were some of those people.  And I had some very rewarding exchanges and interactions.  But I also attracted a lot of people who were having a tough time and were looking for an all-knowing Teacher or someone who would just wave a magic wand to make it better.  Sometimes they went to the Clairvoyant who promised to make it all better with her magic powers and sometimes they came to me.   So I would get emails, along these lines;

help me be happy. Tell me what to do.

Now I’m always happy to engage with anyone and I don’t mind sharing my thoughts and opinions.  But these were people who believed the infomercial promises that tell you, you only have to do XYZ and the world is your oyster.  

The gist of these contacts was they wanted me to give them the XYZ formulas that would always work without really having to put any effort into.  They tended to communicate at a very basic level.  Their lives were a mess and they really didn’t want to engage with them, they just wanted intellectual alcohol to not care about the mess anymore.   

Another part of it, was that I was getting hate mail.  

People would write to me telling me what a scumbag I was for selling this information rather than giving it away.  If I had felt comfortable with what I was doing, these wouldn’t have bothered me, but they struck a raw nerve.  The irony was that most had sales messages in their email signature for the products or MLM opportunity that they were selling.  

So anyway, I gave the book away and felt bitter and resentful about it.  Because taking away the money meant that I had to make a living from other sources and so I couldn’t develop the other courses that I had been working on.

A Fresh Start

I stopped writing and spent the next six months trying to resolve this conflict.  Grappling with these issues caused me to upgrade my philosophy to a whole new level.  And so I developed the Live Without Conflict Philosophy, which I felt so enthusiastically that I had to share.  And so this site was born.  

photo credit: nateOne

Since writing here I have enjoyed sharing my ideas, more than ever before.  

I think that comes from the writing being based on wanting to share ideas and hone them through your interaction and feedback.  There hasn’t been the pressure to sell and so the relationship is purer.  

When someone buys this kind of thing on their first contact from a sales page, they are often buying, hope, from a place of pain or desperation.  Which is great for making money, but terrible for building a relationship.  It means someone has to trust one, before the other does.  For some Customers it works out great, but for others it wasn’t a good match for their needs.  Which is just brewing problems down the line. 

You see, now I still get the same Readers sign up for my course as before, but they get filtered out before I ever have contact with them.  They get my book and a sequence of other messages and those that don’t like my style or are looking for simplistic formula’s unsubscribe.  By the time they catch up to read something that I have just written and so actually interact with me, they have been through almost thirty messages.  So we’re pretty much on the same wavelength and we’ll get along.  

When people unsubscribe, there’s a box asking them why they are leaving.  Apart from people changing email addresses, the biggest reason why most people unsubscribe from my mailing list is that they have got what they wanted.  In other words they are over their rocky patch.  

Often I get very touching notes on the unsubscribe forms as to how my material has helped them.  It’s nice to read.  But we were on different wavelengths to interact comfortably in person.  They wanted a 2 mile taxi ride.  I’m wanting to explore the heights of Mount Everest.  So they can get what they need from what I have already written.  

photo credit: FALHakaFalLin

For the sake of clarity, let me sum up the reason why I give so much stuff away free.  

1.  It gives people that need it, a bridge.  Either from a bad place, to a plateau where they want to stick for a while, or a trail up to the ideas I’m currently working on.  That way they are not jumping in at the deep end, they’ve worked their way up.

2.  It weeds out those that aren’t commited to engaging with life or that don’t like me, my ideas or style.  I have no interest in preaching to or converting people.  I just want to find the few like-minded souls, so we can mutually benefit from interacting.

3.  My laziness and personality quirks.   

This has now developed into quite an essay, so I will post how I overcame my money conflict and the ‘State of Live Without Conflict’ address in the next post.