Rich Dad the next Radiohead?

By • Sep 3rd, 2009 • Category: 26th Story, Business

Conspiracy of the RichLast year we blogged about the success of Radiohead’s pay-as-you-wish album In Rainbows. Looking to the music business as a model, publishers and authors are also starting to grapple with the concept of giving content away for free. It was a nice surprise to see in PW Daily the other day that Robert Kiyosaki has done a similar experiment with his upcoming book Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich. 

While not exactly a pay-as-you-wish scheme, what he did was release the book in one-chapter installments as free downloads on his website over the course of a year. Now that all the installments are in, the book will be released as a paperback by Grand Central on September 8 with a first printing of 150,000. The jury may still be out until real sales numbers come in, but so far, with over 90,000 registered readers on his website, it sounds like Kiyosaki may end up as the next Radiohead success story.

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  • http://www.danholloway.wordpress.com/ Dan Holloway

    Hey, I'm kind of going to start with a plug, because I've just written a guest post for Loudpoet inspired by In Rainbows (its use of “free” anyway – I'm always writing about Radiohead in other contexts :-) ):
    http://loudpoet.com/2009/09/03/freemium-for-wri…

    Having been at Reading on Sunday, I want to say, to kick off, NOTHING will ever be the next Radiohead.

    It's nice that Harper Studio are coming to the table. I've long been extraordinated how long it's taken writers to come to this party – and how hostile the reaction has been to those of us who've been at it a while. I've nearly finished writing my interactive free novel The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes – what I'll be selling isn't a version of the novel, but a souvenir of the experience. If we really want to think like bands, we need to start thinking of using our writing as the attention-grabber and making our money from merch and gigs – and yes, that IS possible. I found a wonderful example on Deberry and Grant's website:
    http://deberryandgrant.com/

    Good on you, Harper Studio.

  • http://robertwahl.blogspot.com/ robert wahl

    Yeah, I've spent a lot of my life lookin' for my real parents. My tastes, hobbies, travel proclivity and Yacht preferences all speak to a person who was *born into money!* Alas, I haven't found them and I've settled for peanut butter and jelly, mumbly peg, trips to the dog walkin' park and a eight foot plastic duck boat! I know, whoever they were, they must have missed me too…

    Just thinkin'… maybe it was a Conspiracy of the Rich to keep me from my real parents! Well, here's my French for that… Say la V!

    Haste yee back ;-)