Making Jeff some money

[PaulCunningham]

Hey guys, I know I'm not the most prolific poster here. I lurk a lot and post as often as I can, but with very young kids and a day job and all that, well you know.

Anyway, typical of me I'm way behind on my podcasts and RSS feeds so only just saw Jeff's post where he already changed his mind about charging for this forum. Phew.

Jeff, nice idea but I've got to be honest, Problogger can do it because its a huge existing community and for $2/mth people will get a lot of value out of that walled community (you'll note he first tested the model with his 31DBBB forum and by starting the LinkedIn group, just to see what level of discussion people would get into).

Anyway, the point of this thread. You said in your post its hard to monetize because you have no product to sell. Lets solve that problem then.

WP Tavern community, what do you think about the idea of collaboratively putting together a "Get started with WordPress" (or similar) ebook for Jeff? I figure a handful of guys contribute a section each (heck, recycle some blog posts if you want) on the bits you're good at (installing, choosing good themes, good plugins/widgets, security...) and someone (happy to do it myself) cleans it up a bit into an ebook and gives it to Jeff (you could and should write a section or two yourself, say the intro or the history of WordPress or something about the GPL ).

Jeff, you can stick it on e-junkie, set up an affiliate program, and then we are all free to promote it ourselves with the dual benefit of getting our cut via the affiliate program and you earning money too. You know enough high profile bloggers now to get some good exposure for it I'm sure.

Our ongoing contribution to the WP Tavern site is then to chip in and help with any necessary section updates that once or twice a year that WordPress changes enough to make the ebook content out of date (most often it would just be screenshot updates).

I understand some guys may not want to help if they have a competing product out there already, which is fine. Its all voluntary, and only needs a few contributors anyway.

So thats my idea, typed out spur of the moment with no particular critical though applied. I'm off to bed now, would love to see people's opinions on this when I wake up tomorrow .

[andrea_r]

Well, I recognized your avatar, so it hasn't been too long.

Actually, I was thinking some sort of ebook or product of his own that Jeff could sell. WP-related ebooks seem to do pretty okay. Also, you can cover a LOT more than you could in a series of blog posts.

[Otto]

Or sell T-shirts.

Hey, everybody wears shirts.

[JohnM]

Ebook wont work, cause WP will come bundled with them.

T-shirts + WP beer mugs. Make it the cult WP beer mug. Ask Matt& co for rights to sell 1000 copies of WP beer mugs to support WP-Tavern. The WP logo is what might make it sellable at WordCamps and online.

Random beer mug supplier: http://www.showyourlogo.com/custom-glass/beer-stein.htm

[andrea_r]

Ebook wont work, cause WP will come bundled with them.

Do you mean the handbook they're working on? Were they going to bundle that?

[JohnM]

Yes.

Jane Wells:

Once it's up to date and pretty, the plan is to a) get the end user handbook included in the WP core download and link to sections of it from the help tab (and/ or display text there, hopefully), and b) make it possible to print a nice PDF of the handbook for those who like to have a printed page sitting next to them on their desk while they're learning how to use applications.

[andrea_r]

Although awesome, I still think there's going to be a market for things the handbook may not cover. included in the core will only cover core functions, not extra snazzy stuff.

And, you know, Jeff can do both. :D He doesn't have to pick one. Right now I could go for a warm hoodie.

[JohnM]

Thats not 100% correct Andrea, there will be 5 Handbooks covering everything from newbies to theme designers and CMS [sic] users. ( If it really happens, its moving slow )

Jane Wells: ...handbooks will be available for several types of users: End Users,
Theme Developers, Plugin Developers, Sys Admins, and CMS users.

The End User Handbook will be the most basic, and will focus on how to
set up WordPress, use the admin interface, and interact (on a very
basic level) with theme files and plugins.

http://lists.automattic.com/pipermai...st/002034.html

btw, while checking out the TextMate clone E-texteditor I came upon the idea of OpenCompany, an idea to contribute to a company like in OS contribution.

[andrea_r]

Good to know.

And yes, I expect it to happen slowly. :) I think my point was closer to I don't expect any of the handbooks to cover much beyond what is in the core. know what I mean?

There's also wordpress books out there and in the works. They may cover more than the official handbooks. Even software with extensive official documentation still has room for others to write more.

[PaulCunningham]

Yeah the handbooks are coming one day, but they're not here yet. And I've always felt that they won't kill the market for ebooks, books, tutorials etc. For example, the handbook might say "this is what a plugin is and how to manage them" but it isn't likely to say "here are the 10 killer plugins a new site should install, why, and how".