RE: Herb of the Year for 2003

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Maureen,

            Forgive me if I bring up a improper issue, but I figured this group is always good for a good chat if the subject is difficult.  I am curious about your price for the CD being $50 with a renewal each year at $25.  The issue?  How to put a price of something we’ve collected and organized so we can at least make a little money for all that work, but not a price too high so we don’t make any money for all that work.  I have been collecting data on my computer since 1981, full time.  That is a lot of data.  Over the years I’ve proven my inability to be a good businessman on many occasions.  Going broke is one of my hobbies.  I was in videos – we charged $14.95 and then learned from a focus group that $19.95 would have been a better price; go figure.  Then in my CD debacle we were working with Toro.  We came up with the idea of giving away part of the database for free, on the belief that folks would love it enough to come back and buy the full story for $24.95.  It was a general yard care and gardening how-to package.  It was a complete bomb.  People liked the freebie, but were not interested in paying for the CD.  My second CD project was well along the way when the company we were working with went bankrupt.  They had a terrific line of very sophisticated and what I thought attractive products, but couldn’t sell them at any price.  Then comes the Internet, and I’ve found all kinds of ways to lose money in that sand trap. I remember 7 or 8 years ago a woman in the far Midwest someplace offered a CD with 18,000 tip sheets and fact sheets from County Extension offices from all over the county.  The CD came with a search engine that worked pretty well.  It had taken her three years to pull all the data together, scan the material, and load the CD.  She was charging $99 a pop on the argument that she needed to make some money on the deal. She sold very few.  The Internet arrived a few years later and what had been a good idea….died.

I am assuming you have a specialized market such as public libraries.  If 1000 libraries spent $50 apiece, that would take care of the beer money for a week or two.  If on the other hand you see your market as the average gardening consumer, then I would be wondering how you came to your price point?  I see CD’s in Staples or Office Max for $10.  DVD’s now include a movie, out takes of the movie, games for the kids, and concert with the music from the movie, all for $15. 

So since I am in the same business as you, trying to find a way to make money selling information that I compiled and organized in some way, I am curious about your pricing strategy.  Of course it is none of my business and you have a right to inform me of that fact.  If on the other hand you are willing to chat about it; I would be interested.  I really hope the product sells.  It sounds like a fantastic product and one that will just get better every year.  That is the wonderfulness of electronic databases. 

Jeff Ball

-----Original Message-----
From: gardenwriters-admin@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:gardenwriters-admin@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of HERBWORLD@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 11:56 AM
To: gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [GWL] Herb of the Year for 2003

I'm doing a little promotion here.  Our new Herbalpedia CD for 2003 is now available and has close to 1000 profiles of herbs/spices.  They normally range from 2-10 pages depending on how much information I've been able to scrounge up.  We include everything...history, cultivation, all uses (medicinal, culinary, aromatherapy, cosmetic, industrial), recipes for all the above, as many alternative names as I can find, toxicity, just about anything on a particular plant.  Originally, I got tired of looking through 20 books to find information on one plant and started creating my own database.  Then it became an obsession as such things do and Herbalpedia(TM) was born.  Some examples of profiles from previous Herbs of the Year can be found at http://www.herbnet.com/herbalpedia_final.htm along with ordering i nformation.  Price for initial CD is $48 in North America ($58 for overseas folks) and if you renew each year (we update old profiles and add a few hundred more), it's only $24/$29.  There are photos of most of the plants and I'm always looking for more pictures.  Since education is one of our main purposes, I don't mind if people use any of the material as long as we're given credit.   Also, Basil is the Herb of the Year for 2003 and I've got information in the same area.  It's so great after this year's Echinacea because basil is used for everything from great pesto to medicinal products to cosmetics.  We've got recipes too...including Basil Ale.  Please spread the word to your readers that if they want loads of basil info it's at our site for the taking.

Maureen Rogers
The Herb Growing & Marketing Network
PO Box 245, Silver Spring, PA 17575-0245
717-393-3295; FAX: 717-393-9261
www.herbnet.com  or www.herbworld.com