Humble eBook Bundle Passes $600k, Adds Five Awesome Webcomic Books

from the under-promise-and-over-deliver dept

Tue, Oct 16th 2012 11:50am — Mike Masnick

One of the general rules for successful marketing is to under promise and over deliver, and the guys at Humble Bundle seem to keep doing that. While they've become famous for showing how cool bundles of digital products on a limited-time "pay what you want" basis can be a massive success, they keep doing really interesting things to tweak those experiments to show how you can "under promise and over deliver" in a way that encourages people to (happily) pay more and get more than they expect. From the beginning, they've used the charitable component (you can designate whatever portion of what you pay to go to charity) to get people to pay more -- something studies have shown works well to get people to pay higher amounts. They've also offered special products if you pay above the average price, which encourages people to both buy earlier, when the price may be lower, and to pay more, to get over the average to get the "special" extras. Finally, they consistently add awesome new products later on, while the Bundle is still going -- adding those extras automatically to everyone who already bought (encouraging people to buy early) or making them available to new buyers who pay above the average (again, pushing the amount people want to pay higher).

This round is no exception. After raising over $500,000 for the first round of (great) books, mostly from sci-fi authors, they've now added a pretty awesome "webcomic bundle" to the batch:

For everyone who's already ordered, or anyone new who pays over the existing average price, they now also get:

xkcd: volume 0 by Randall Munroe
Penny Arcade Volume 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
Penny Arcade Volume 2: Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik
Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weiner
The Most Dangerous Game: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weiner

Of course, these are basically the three biggest names in webcomics, especially among the geekset who is probably already quite into Humble Bundle. It's yet another case of over delivering in a fun and exciting way.

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Filed Under: ebooks, humble bundle, pay what you want, penny arcade, smbc, webcomics, xkcd
Companies: humble bundle

19 Comments

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Rikuo (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 11:59am

I paid more than the original amount...even though the PDF comics won't work on my Kindle (and even if they do, they'd be shrunk so much it'd be impossible to read them).
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- Rikuo (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 12:00pm
  
  Re:
  My god, hasn't_got_a_clue/bob/failed_joe... a self-confessed copyright infringer who BUYS AND PAYS? With real MONEYZ?
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- Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 12:19pm
  
  Re:
  You aren't alone. I paid more than the what was required the day this launched. These added books are a great bonus, especially the XKCD one.
  
  I'm glad I also purchased Moon+ Reader Pro from the Play Store. It can handle any/all formats, so I can definitely enjoy these on my phone. Ditto my Nook Color.
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- Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 12:51pm
  
  Re:
  You can zoom and rotate in the Kindle...not that it isn't a pain to deal with.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 11:59am

XKCD book!?!?!
Thanks, I'm now buying the bundle!
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ClarkeyBalboa (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 12:05pm

Humble Bundle got my attention with this one. Might buy two copies so my brother can read some PA while overseas on mission. Amazing how they have taken products that are essentially given away for free over the internet by the creators, and found another way to somehow make money off it. Humble Bundle must be using witchcraft.
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- ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 5:09pm
  
  Re:
  "Magic for Beginners" is included in the bundle.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 12:23pm

I bought this weekend. I love this! I am a big fan of what they are doing but never participated before because I am not into games much and the music they offered didn't interest me so I am happy they ventured into E-Books. Can't wait to download this tonight!
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sehlat (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 1:07pm

Boosted my total to $70 over this
I figure adding five bucks a book is a good way to say "Thank you."
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Franklin G Ryzzo (profile), 16 Oct 2012 @ 1:18pm

I just picked this one up after seeing the email with the added bonus books. I'd been considering it, but XKCD pushed me over the edge. Now I just need to get an ereader to enjoy them... Suggestions welcome!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 1:21pm

Got the TechDirt article RSS feed before the HumbleBundle email notification of the addition to my bundle.

Yet another who has been accused of being a pirate and freetard who buys stuff.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 1:26pm

Cue the troll who calls SMBC garbage for making fun of the patent system...
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 6:46pm

Finally, they consistently add awesome new products later on, while the Bundle is still going -- adding those extras automatically to everyone who already bought (encouraging people to buy early) or making them available to new buyers who pay above the average (again, pushing the amount people want to pay higher).

Dang, I'm glad you mentioned this! I had no idea they liked to add stuff afterward.
Just redeemed my Steam code for the four extra games they added to Bundle #6 while I wasn't looking. Thanks!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Oct 2012 @ 7:26pm

Congrats to them for their success on this one. The numbers are a bit lower than the other bundles, but it is a different market.
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Ninja (profile), 17 Oct 2012 @ 3:26am

Epic win as always.
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Anon, 17 Oct 2012 @ 10:04am

I wanted to buy Randall Munroe's XKCD ebook but prices on xkcd.com seemed a little steep for a single title. I bought the entire collection at higher than avg. just for the extra!

I'll probably never read the others (or xkcd since my fev comics are always bookmarked). Am I a shopaholic?
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ahow628 (profile), 17 Oct 2012 @ 1:08pm

Heads up
Thanks for the heads up. Bought this last week and didn't see they added the webcomic books. A great deal just got better.
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tanlimbo, 11 Nov 2012 @ 11:53pm

Get Free eBooks!
I will bookmark this one so that i can visit every time i want. and pls do visit my site for some related topics form your page. so that we can share some idea. thanks. :D
Just click my link for a visit Get Free eBooks!
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ibirkinbags, 19 Nov 2012 @ 12:30am

Thanks.
Thanks for sharing these free ebooks.
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