[lutusp]

> Take a screenshot of this comment as witness, but I'm serious about refunding anyone who ends up not being able to raise their client rates.

Some advice -- you really, really don't want to do this. You don't need to guarantee results to sell a worthwhile book, and IMHO you shouldn't.

Here's why:

1. Let's say you have a profit margin of 20% on your book overall -- printing costs, promotion, etc. versus income.

2. Let's also say that 80% of your book's readers do increase their client base as you claim.

3. The problem is that the remaining 20% can take you at your word, demand a refund, explain that the book was lost in a fire, and succeed in wiping out your profit.

4. Worse, someone might say your claim moved your book from the category of an ordinary caveat-emptor purchase, to a guarantee of success, and demand consequential damages. Very bad, and you made it possible.

It works like this: Because of the First Amendment, an author can say virtually anything in a book -- anything. But when you make a claim about a book's contents to motivate sales, you short-circuit First Amendment protections -- you turn your book from a freely expressed opinion, to a method with a guaranteed outcome. Very bad idea.

> Paying for stuff that doesn't deliver value is dumb.

Not as dumb as making an unnecessary claim that has a potentially disastrous outcome.

Just my opinion, expressed in words, with no guarantees.

[patio11]

You believe something about people's behavior which is a testable proposition about the nature of material reality, like "If you push an apple off a table it will accelerate to the nearest cat." The scientific method exists. Have no worries, your apples and profits are both safe, because both those theories are absolutely false.

[lutusp]

> both those theories are absolutely false.

Here is a quotation from a page the cites the constitutional law on this issue:

URL: http://nationalparalegal.edu/conlawcrimproc_public/FreedomOf...

Quote: "Commercial speech holds a special place in First Amendment analysis. It is not an unprotected category of speech, nor is it afforded the same level of protection as non-commercial speech. In addition, there are sub-categories within commercial speech. Truthful commercial speech is afforded protection while false or deceptive commercial speech is not protected."

Here is another account that makes the same point:

URL: http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News&Templ...

Quote: "In 2004, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned Kevin Trudeau from appearing in any infomercial promoting any product except publications, which are protected by the First Amendment, provided he did not misrepresent the content of the publication."

What these rulings mean is that the contents of a book are protected by the First Amendment, but promotional claims about the book are not.

Sound familiar?

[lutusp]

Interesting that you would mention the scientific method, then offer no evidence for your theory.

I said what I did because I have seen it happen countless times in a long career that has included a lot of writing. I have the evidence. When someone makes a performance claim about the contents of a book, the book then becomes nearly irrelevant to the outcome, which hinges on the claim.

[patio11]

Money-back guarantees virtually invariably raise sales in A/B tests. I have never seen one decreases sales in a statistically significant fashion. I have never seen a guarantee meaningfully increase refund rates. (No customer of mine has refund rates worth mentioning. I will literally mail paper checks to people who bought my software five years ago and my refund rate is below ~2%.) If you have data to the contrary, I bow to the data.

As it happens, I have a product launch coming up. I will offer a money back guarantee, and I will do it in an A/B test. If I am wrong, and the guarantee statistically significantly decreases sales, I will a) have a cow and b) donate a cow to charity. If I am right, you don't have to do anything, because being consistently right at this sort of prediction makes propositional bets with authors a distinctly inferior way to increase one's income versus just being consistently right at this sort of thing.

[lutusp]

> Money-back guarantees virtually invariably raise sales in A/B tests.

The original poster didn't make a money-back guarantee, as in "If you aren't happy with my book, I will refund." Instead he made a claim about increasing the number of clients, i.e. a performance claim ("I'm serious about refunding anyone who ends up not being able to raise their client rates."). Here's the law on that issue:

URL: http://nationalparalegal.edu/conlawcrimproc_public/FreedomOf...

Quote: "Commercial speech holds a special place in First Amendment analysis. It is not an unprotected category of speech, nor is it afforded the same level of protection as non-commercial speech. In addition, there are sub-categories within commercial speech. Truthful commercial speech is afforded protection while false or deceptive commercial speech is not protected."

Here is another account that makes the same point:

URL: http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News&Templ...

Quote: "In 2004, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned Kevin Trudeau from appearing in any infomercial promoting any product except publications, which are protected by the First Amendment, provided he did not misrepresent the content of the publication."

What these rulings mean is that the contents of a book are protected by the First Amendment, but promotional claims about the book are not.

[jleader]

You keep talking about "commercial speech" being different from "non-commercial speech", as if that explains your claim that "If you aren't happy with my book, I will refund." (claim A) is a safe thing to say, but "I'm serious about refunding anyone who ends up not being able to raise their client rates." (claim B) isn't.

But both claim A and claim B look like commercial speech to me!

Both are promises to provide refunds under certain specified conditions. One, claim A, offers refunds under the broad and hard to dis-prove condition of "aren't happy with the book", while claim B offers refunds under a somewhat narrower and slightly easier to verify condition of "not able to raise rates". How is claim B more dangerous than claim A?

And comparing commercial speech vs. the contents of a book is irrelevant, since neither claim A nor claim B is contained within a book.

[lutusp]

> But both claim A and claim B look like commercial speech to me!

One of them offer a refund without making any kind of claim, the other makes a claim about the contents of the book and about what outcome purchasers have a right to expect. They are treated differently under the law.

But I can see you are simply not going to get this, no matter how many cases I quote for you, how many legal decisions.

> How is claim B more dangerous than claim A?

One of the statements offer a refund without making any kind of claim about the book's effect. The other makes a claim about the book's effect.

Imagine you are a doctor, offering a miracle cure that is in the pages of a book. To one group you say, "If you're not happy with my book, I will give you your money back."

To the other you say, "My book provides a cure for cancer. If your cancer isn't cured, I will give you your money back."

The first pitch is protected under the First Amendment because it doesn't describe the book's contents or effect, and therefore it doesn't matter what the book says. The second doesn't have First Amendment protection, because it's commercial speech that makes a claim about the contents of the book. In the second case, the author makes the mistake of making a claim about the book and its contents in his promotion, outside the protection of the First Amendment.

How is that in any way complicated?

URL:

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-16/news/30523850...

Quote: "Trudeau insisted his First Amendment rights were being infringed, and began advertising books rather than diet supplements in new infomercials ... [but] the new ruling requires Trudeau to give back all the money he made from selling books during the infomercial ban."

The reason Trudeau lost his case, even though he was selling books, is because he didn't just sell the books, he described what the reader should expect from them in his pitches. It was on this basis that the court ruled against him.

[ahoyhere]

Are you seriously comparing a guy who says "Raise your professional service rates or your money back" to a guy peddling a snake oil cancer cure… or are you trolling to see what shakes out?

[lutusp]

The person's reason for speaking isn't the issue, the law is the only issue. My point is performance claims are actionable, but the contents of a book are not.

Do you really think people only initiate legal actions when someone has actually misrepresented something? That's naive. My point was the OP was taking an unnecessary risk, when he could simply have said "If you're not happy, I'll refund your money."

How complicated is that?

[lutusp]

>> When someone makes a performance claim about the contents of a book ...

> Money-back guarantees virtually invariably raise sales ...

It would be nice if we both were discussing the same topic. A performance claim is not a money-back guarantee.

[chc]

I'm doubtful about points 2 and 3 since it doesn't match my observations of how people really act†, but point 4 really sounds out there. Like, anybody can sue over anything. Does this meaningfully increase your risk? It's really hard to imagine some lawsuit-happy fellow who would sue you if you offered them a refund but not if you didn't offer a refund. Have you actually seen much of this?

† My experience is that people tend to be very lazy about things like mail-in rebates and and money-back guarantees, passing them up even when they're perfectly entitled.

[noahc]

You're #4 seems legally dubious at best. I can't imagine any court in the land upholding the idea that purchasing any education material with an implied promise of results grants the purchaser 'consequential damages'.

An easy smell test for this idea is the "get rich quick in real estate" infomercial.

[lutusp]

> An easy smell test for this idea is the "get rich quick in real estate" infomercial.

Yes -- and here is the law on that issue:

URL: http://nationalparalegal.edu/conlawcrimproc_public/FreedomOf...

Quote: "Commercial speech holds a special place in First Amendment analysis. It is not an unprotected category of speech, nor is it afforded the same level of protection as non-commercial speech. In addition, there are sub-categories within commercial speech. Truthful commercial speech is afforded protection while false or deceptive commercial speech is not protected."

Here is another account that makes the same point:

URL: http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News&Templ...

Quote: "In 2004, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banned Kevin Trudeau from appearing in any infomercial promoting any product except publications, which are protected by the First Amendment, provided he did not misrepresent the content of the publication."

What these rulings mean is that the contents of a book are protected by the First Amendment, but promotional claims about the book are not.

[bdunn]

Thanks for your thoughtful comment - the bit about making a guarantee that your product will do X really does make sense when put like that.

Ultimately, I realize a few things 1) relatively few people take up money back guarantee offers and 2) I do want to ensure that people are happy with their purchase. Maybe there's a better way of doing that than ensuring some outcome?

[dchurchv]

"If you aren't completely satisfied with this book I'll return your money, no questions asked" works for me.

No need to guarantee success, just guarantee quality information that you believe when applied correctly will lead to success.

[ahoyhere]

Does your position come from experience in selling an ebook or other educational product?

[lutusp]

Yes -- but my book isn't a traditional, mass-printed book like that under discussion. When someone orders a copy of my book, one copy gets printed and shipped. Unlike in traditional publishing, there are no piles of my book in a warehouse, awaiting sale.

And I have to tell you, this new publishing model is going to wipe out the old model (so-called "dead-tree publishing"). And pretty soon, even that model will fall before the e-book model, where no "book" is printed at all, ever.

But as a writer I've dealt with various aspects of the old-style publishing business over a period of decades, not all with respect to books.

[ahoyhere]

So you've offered a results-guaranteed return policy for your book, and you had a bad experience? I'd love to hear more.

[lutusp]

No, my reply to you wasn't about claims made in a book, only to say that I had some experience with publishing.

[ahoyhere]

I see. So where do your very strong assertions about the folly of money-back guarantees come from? Data? Experience? Do you have friends who've done it?

I ask because I have lots of experience with it -- with 4 products offering total money-back guarantees -- and have insight into more than 10 friends' businesses with similar guarantees, and not a single one of us have had experience with refund abuse like you describe. Nor is it ever mentioned as an issue among the larger communities which offer that type of product for sale.

As patio11 said, your statements are testable, and if you test them, you will find them false.

[lutusp]

> So where do your very strong assertions about the folly of money-back guarantees come from?

What assertion was that? I never said what you claim. I invite you to locate me decrying "the folly of money-back guarantees", anywhere.

Try to read more carefully, before objecting to something no one said.

> your statements are testable, and if you test them, you will find them false.

Great -- you invent something I never said, then try to hold me responsible for it. Definitely science in action.