According to my admin page I've had the current incarnation of the www.robives.com website up for 19 weeks and 22 hours. My aim in building this website has been to build a place where I can share my enthusiasm for paper engineering. In the process I'm aiming to make a modest living, entirely from this website, so that I can follow my interests and enthusiams and work on the projects I choose. At the moment I'm working on paper design projects for other people as well as running the website. Ultimately, I aim to be designing solely for this website, at the current rate, it shouldn't be long.
The process of building the www.robives.com business has been fascinating. I've had to learn all kinds of new things from web database programming to online marketting. From graphics design to the intricacies of copyright and creative commons. There is no template to follow, no book on running a website selling paper model designs. I've spent a lot of time talking and emailing friends all round the world, receiving wise and knowledgable advice but in the end. I'm making it up as I go along.
One of the things they don't tell you, in these non existent books, it pricing. Just how much is a downloadable model worth? How much for an ebook? How much for a subscription? I fixed on £14.95 for a 12 month subscription more by informed guess work than anything else. I decided after some chatting with friends, that I should open with a special price of £9.95, to test the water and encourage the first subscribers. The initial phase, the £9.95 bit, went fantastically, I have had literally hundeds of subscribers and have had some very positive feedback, even when, through my own mistake, I managed to un-subscribe everybody!
At the start of the new year I put the price up to £14.95 and although I'm still getting a satisfying number of new subscribers, I have also been receiving some emails which gave me pause. I've had emails from people saying they were enjoying being subscribers but were sorry to say that they would be leaving after a year as £14.95 was just a bit too much. I've also had emails mainly from educators and students asking if there would be an offer price again as they would love to join but just couldn't afford the new higher price.
This all got me thinking. To a degree the £14.95 price was plucked from the air. I ran though the numbers a couple more times and, as you may have already guessed by the graphic at the top of the page, have decided to revert to the original £9.95 subscription fee. For those people who signed up for £14.95, don't worry, I'll be refunding the difference. you should have you money back within the next ten working days. Any, I hope this helps the waverer and the undecided and I look forward to welcoming new subscribers to the website!
