Recently I’ve been on the hunt for some Ruby programming books to help familiarize myself with the language. One of the books that I’ve seen that is highly recommended by people online is a book called, Practical Object-Oriented Design by Sandi Metz. Peeking over on her site to learn more about her and checking out some of her other work, I discovered she also wrote a book called 99 Bottles of OOP.
What was fascinating to me about this book, wasn’t the actual book but it was the offer on her site. At the bottom of the book page on her website, she has this little offer.
Can’t afford the book? Send us a postcard.
On the offer page, it quickly states, that Sandi would like for you the buy to book from her and her co-author. Which I think is fair. I’ve once attempted to write a book and know what all goes into it. But if you genuinely cannot afford the book, they still want you to be able to get a copy of it.
All you need to send her is a postcard with an email and paragraph describing how you’d use the book.
I love that instead of making you sign up for a newsletter or follow on Twitter, it makes you be more intentional. You have to go out, get a post card, write what you’d do with the book and then buy postage and send out the postcard and wait.
It’s interesting because as an author of a book, the most you can receive from a customer isn’t their money. Obviously that exchange helps pay the bills, but what is more valuable is their time and attention. Sending the postcard is definitely an offer I would’ve loved to have seen more as a student with little money.
I’m inspired by Sandi’s offer and definitely want to do something similar some day when I have something to sell.