First, I should make it clear that Web Warrior Tools is completely separate from Zen Habits. Sure, I will do an occasional post on ZH about a new ebook, but ZH readers are free to skip over them … and the vast majority of my posts will continue to be free articles packed with as much useful information as I can provide.

Second, after giving this a lot of thought (over the past year), I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of ebooks as an economic model. You would be right if a blogger turned his blog into a marketing tool for his ebooks — that would be horrible, and he would lose all his readers. But for my part, and for many bloggers I know, the blog remains a valuable source of information, not at all a marketing tool for ebooks.

I hope my readers don’t feel like I’m just trying to sell my ebooks, as that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I see the ebooks simply as a way to supplement the info I provide on the blog — a way to condense information into an easy-to-read package, to make things convenient and clear for readers, to allow them to spread the info to others if they want easily, without having to search for and provide dozens of links.

Many readers have found my ebooks valuable in these ways, but many more have ignored the ebooks and have just continued reading the free articles I have on my blog (that, again, are mostly free of ebook marketing — the ebook posts are rare for me).

I hope this has clarified things a little. I am in agreement with you, that if a blog becomes simply a marketing tool, it is headed towards death. I don’t want to become that, and I invite you to continue your feedback so that I stay on the right track.

Thanks again Jack!

Ebooks or bloggers’ books maybe condensed versions of blog posts or not, but that did not stop me from buying Darren Rowse’s Problogger book. Perhaps I could have followed link after link at his site and read comments to get most of that information for free, but I wanted a handy, all-in-one sourcebook and was willing to pay for it. I also wanted something to show my techie husband so he didn’t have to follow my link hopping either. As a writer, I value the opportunity to write because of a certain benefit that’s called “being paid.” I don’t see a problem with Leo, WWT, or blogs. Leo can take his blog anywhere he wants. Why would you want to try to control him?

I am no economist, but I can still predict that this system will be
unsucessful. The reason why most of these blogs are successful is not because
the information they contain are ingenious, but simply because it is free, and
hence not scarce. If I don’t lose anything by reading them (except for time,
which isn’t that valuable for most), and have a chance of gaining something,
why would I not do it? The bloggers gained money through revenues, but the
readers did not lose any money.

But then the authors got a little more greedy, and in an attempt to make more
money, they started publishing e-books. At first it seems like the worst case
scenario is that only a few people would buy the e-books, which is not all
that bad since producing them don’t have any manufacturing or distribution
costs anyway. But something else that is much more important than low profits
is at stake: your credibility. The smart readers now have a completely new
problem to think about.

For the bloggers adhering to your scheme, their main website would merely be a
marketing attraction to get visitors to buy the ebooks (like movie trailers).
If an author has a great idea for a post, he would be now be more inclined to
write it up as an e-book, since that would earn him more money than getting ad
revenue through visits. For the astute reader, this means that the free posts
on their web sites are second-grade ideas that weren’t good enough to make it
in an e-book. If, on the other hand, the author chooses to incorporate all of
his ideas as free posts, then the readers who do buy the e-books will have
been ripped off. Whether you call it up-selling or price discrimination, the
the readers always lose. The signal you are giving away is that the stuff that
is on the web page is unimportant, and that people need to pay to get the real
stuff. Is that

I am sorry Leo, but you are helping demolish what precisely made created zen
habits. If I were you, I would stop this business and retain your loyal
reader (or customer?) base. Which makes me think, maybe I should start a blog to
write my thoughts on why blogs are bad…

Zin as in the wine with a touch of Zen