We’re excited to announce the release of Evernote Essentials, the first English-language Evernote handbook (e-handbook, technically). Huzzah!
This excellent Evernote overview was written by blogger, developer and avid tweeter, Brett Kelly. With Evernote Essentials, Brett has created a guide that shows new and experienced users alike the many ways to make the most out of Evernote. Each section comes full of easy to understand explanations, walkthroughs, tips, tricks, and ideas to help anyone become an Evernote ninja.
Brett sent us some early drafts, which impressed us so much that we hired him. Brett is now working on dramatically improving Evernote’s own documentation.
Evernote Essentials is not an official Evernote book. It is self-published by Brett. He owns all of the content.
A look inside
To give you a sense of what’s in the e-book, here are a few of the chapter headings from Evernote Essentials
- Evernote Anatomy
- Evernote Organization 101
- Evernote Search:Seek and Ye Shall Find
- Evernote, Email and You
- Tagging for Superhumans
- Evernote for Bloggers
- Evernote for Programmers
- Evernote for Foodies
- Evernote as an Address Book
- Evernote as a Task Manager
Get the book
Evernote Essentials is an e-book, available from the Evernote Trunk.
- Format: PDF
- Pages: 84
- Evernote proficiency level: Any
- Price: $25
Limited time discount
Brett is generously offering a 25% discount until August 8th. To get the discount, enter the coupon code “TRUNKLAUNCH” during checkout.
Tip: Evernote as e-book reader
As I sat reading Brett’s book in Evernote on my iPad, I realized “Hey, reading books in Evernote isn’t half bad.” Then later, when I was reading Brett’s book in Evernote on my iPhone, I realized “Hey, this whole Evernote sync thing makes reading e-books on different devices really easy.” It’s nice to share my internal monologue with the world.
Japanese books
As Evernote Podcast listeners may know, there have been seven Evernote book written in Japanese, many of them have become bestsellers. We have some catching up to do.
78 Comments
Lydia
I applaud the people who bought the book and give it thumbs up. Obviously, they can either afford it outright or justify its purchase at $25. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have that option. The price is too high. Ten dollars is about right, but I can imagine that you would attract a number of upggraded accounts or new premium members by offering it as a free incentive. Evernote, in all due respect, remember that appearances still matter and this comes across as more about increasing revenue and less about informing the people that got you where you are today.
David
I could easily afford the price for this book but I won’t drop a cent on it. Not because I’m cheap but because I think giving away this PDF would be a great way to promote the service to compete against the competition.
Daisy
It’s interesting book.
Bob
Should be free or nominal with premium acct.
David
I do not understand you guys. Here someone sat down, put his time in and created something of value for you that will easily save you hours of your time if you compare it to figuring everything out yourself and you are bitching about 25 Dollars?
Seriously, I can make more money working at MC Donald’s in the time any how to book can save me. (I think working at MC Donald’s is an honorable way of making a living, just not the best paid one)
The reason this seems expensive to you is that you do not understand it’s value correctly. Time is the most valuable ressource you posess because it is the only one you will for sure never get back. Once you utilize it to the best you can a lot of things become pretty inexpensive
All the best to you, have a great day!
JimJinNJ
David nails it. People seem to think everything on the web should be free. Some person or group spends endless hours developing Evernote, gives it away, and then people grudge them a little cash for the fast track. Is mommy still taking care of you toilet habits?
Don’t like it?…develop an alternative for the world and give it away. put Evernote out of business! yikes! spoiled, entitled ….
maybe you should move to Greece…lot of your kind there.
CEO
If $25 isn’t too high, how about $49. Or $99.
At some point, the market tells you what’s too high and what’s right. It’s not a question of if something’s valuable—I’m sure this PDF is valuable. My local vendor who sells me organic produce is valuable, and I’ll even pay extra for it. $3/pound for their apples I’ll do. $10/pound for their apples I won’t.
No, it’s a question of what price is the one that will make this disappear off the Internet shelf. Only the owners know if this PDF is selling like hotcakes. If it is, then they’ve hit the magic spot: $25 is it.
If it isn’t, they might see a quadrupling of sales by lowering it to $9.95.
They’d certainly get my money if they did that.
GK
What do you mean with your comment about Greece?
GK
pgillbanks
newbie premium user just asking if Evernote version for Mac OS X 10.4.11 is available?
Just hate to throw away a reasonably good G5 still cranking along!
Kip
This really caught my eye. I’d love to get it, but I have to agree with the many others who say the price is too high. WAY out of line with what similar types of e-books on other subjects are going for. Hope the author sees the logic of lowering the price (10 bucks seems reasonable)and going for sales quantity – meaning more profit for him and getting his name known as an Evernote Expert to more people so his next book sells.
Benny
I have to agree with the majority of people writing here…
I have nothing against coughing up some money for a good productivity manual, but the price should be relevant.
$10 and I’ll buy a copy..
Kip
Let’s do a little math. There are about 6,000,000 registered Evernote users.
If only 1/10 of 1% of those users bought this book the author would make 6,000,000 * .001 * $25.00 = $150,000.
Now let’s say it took him 100 hours to write these 84 pages. (Seems like a lot of time, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt). That’s $150.00/hour. Or 300 Grand a year! Not bad pay in this economy!!
Now lets say he lowers the price to a paltry 5 bucks (the price of many e-books on the Internet). And he sells 5 times the number of books because the price is a good deal.
6,000,000 * .005 * $5.00 = $150,000. Well, how about that! he still makes a killing AND everyone who buys the book is happy!!
Sorry, I’d love to read the book, but $25.00 is way out of line.
Kip
Well, despite what I just wrote, I just spent some time on Brett’s blog and I think I’m going to buy his book – even though I still think 25 bucks is way too much for it. His blog is really good and he is obviously very knowledgeable. He does make a good point about time saved learning how to use Evernote effectively in a few hours rather than spending days or weeks learning it INeffectively from bad info on the Internet.
CT Joe
For all the adults out there. The ebook is great, a tremendous time saver. Worth every penny. Thx for spending YOUR VALUABLE TIME Brett. All you children who want someone to give it to you can go scratch.
Paul in little old Africa
The comments about the price moved me to add mine but I think “David” and Jin Jin” sum it up very well. I haven’t read it but will download it after I finish this comment.
NOTHING is more valuable than our time. Brett had the initiative and passion to give his time. From the reviews, he has done a great job. The Evernote tool will save us plenty of time and frustration. So to use it efficiently from the start, without having to re-invent the wheel, and maximising its benefits will have long-term ongoing advantages.
If just one of the tips in Brett’s book saves me 20 minutes of time over the LIFETIME of my usage, it will have paid for itself.
A night out for a couple of pizzas could cost $25. I know which is more valuable to me. I don’t care how much Brett makes from this – the more the better. He chose a good niche and took a risk and I’m sure thousands will be grateful to him for writing it (and keeping it updated.
Devin
In terms of price, if he wants and believes that it is worth $25 per copy then good for him. I agree with everyone who says that he should be compensated for all his hard work. However I am of a different mindset on where this compensation should come from.
Evernote should be paying for this (or at least subsidizing it). I am a relativelly new user and see no value in upgrading to a premium account a this time. I am still trying to learn how to use the program and integrate it into my life. I am by no means a brand advocate for this product. I have however heard from numerous friends/pundits/app reviewers that it is a fantastic product. So I am going to invest the time to decide if Evernote is in fact worthwhile for me. I am learning slowly but surely how to use it and integrate it and am now on the hunt for the next step (becoming a power user).
The basic Evernote service is free and they have done a very good job of ensuring that the basic documentation is up to snuff in terms of what I expect from a free service. However if I am paying you for your service (igher bandwidth,additional users, additional file types and cutting in the support line is just not enough of an incentive (at least not at this point). However learning how to truly use Evernote to improve my life/work habits/organization would be.
This is crucial documentation that should be included in the platform support. Several people have suggested that this be included or subsidized to a certain degree by the Premium price. I whole heartedly agree. If it is good enough of a book to be promoted on their website and their service is good enough to be paid for then the crucial documentation on “how to become an Evernote Ninja” should be included.
This would overcome two major objections I have:
1) Is the book “really” worth $25? heck is it worth $0.99? I don’t know. All I have is other peoples suggestions on it. Because its intellectual property I can’t review the actual content for writing quality, for content (what do I already know vs what I don’t), relevancy (is this all about using Evernote as a stay at home mom, is it about using it as a student, etc) I would feel incredibly burned if I paid $25 (the price of deep subject matter text book e-book on amazon.com) and found out this was a dummies guide to the basics covering everything that could have been discovered if I had googled just a bit more.
2) Is Evernote premium “really” worth $45? what if I end up finding out I don’t need all that functionality. What if its just too darn complicated? And wait… I can “cut in the line” for support at premium levels??? Does that mean I am going to have to be in a support line? Heck I don’t want to need any support for a product that is supposed to be a support structure for me. Am I really going to use all that additional functionality? Is this going to change my life or is it going to be another in a long line of bad tech purchase descisions like the Samsung “smart phone” I purchased in 2001 or the Sony Discman I purchased in 1995, relegated to the dust heap of broken promise and technology tears?
How about it Evernote its $5 a month for premium and $45 for a year. If you included the e-book at $5 more with a year long account I would upgrade tomorrow. And you can quote me on that (or bill me whichever you prefer) if you included 3 months at Premium for free with the $25 e-book purchase I might do that too.
Either way, I just bet your upgrade timing from free to premium would shorten considerably and you would have a whole new legion of Evernote Brand Advocates telling people to use it. (and able to explain why and how it changed their lives for the better)
Will S
What a bunch of sniveling.
DR Crunk
Blah Blah Blah.. what-the-F-ever. Even at the $5/hr your time is probably worth, you just wasted $25 worth of time writing that useless snot-rant. Do you realize you can upgrade for a month for $5 and get all the premium benefits for whatever is in your account at the time… forever? So you could spend $5 (not $45) – and have Evernote index all your scanned .PDFs that won’t normally index with a free account. Downgrade again after a month. Do it again in 6 months if you need to. They don’t take stuff away once it’s in your account. Great company with a great community philosophy IMO. For me, $5/mo for what this app does is not even worth thinking about – it’s a total no-brainer. You’re probably wasting more money than that daily on your Bohemian Latte-Cappa-whatever from Starbucks – or whatever.
Elena
Don’t know what the fuss is about. People spend more for a haircut than what the asking price of this book is. This book was recommended by a professional writing coach. Information is valuable; time is money. The man put in the research and development. Actually cheap for the time and frustration it supposedly saves in my professional life. Happy to pay the price.
Richard Jones
I’m not a blogger, a foodie, or a programmer, and I am already happy with my contact and task management. That means that half the book is not going to interest me. I agree that the price is too high, but maybe if a sample was offered–a killer tip or two–it would make me see the value of buying the book. But buying a $25 ebook pig in a poke? No thanks.
Roger Davis
If an enterprising individual bought a copy at $25 then offered copies of it for $5 each, then according to Kips figures, that’s
6,000,000 * .005 * $5.00 = $150,000. That’s $150K for the me, I’m happy – and $25 for Brett
Simon
is the book good or not?
Gitarre-Lernen-Online
People, seriously. I don’t see where the problem is.
If you don’t want to (or can’t) spend 25 bucks on a book on productivity and have time to write a comment of >500 words (used MS Word’s word count, didn’t count myself), then this e-book surely isn’t for you (yet).
But that’s fine. Who knows who or where or in what situation you are. But then you may have the time to find out about the tips and techniques yourselves. Google for free tips and tutorials, fiddle around with Evernote and your skills will increase. Brett didn’t write the book as a member of the dev team. So maybe, theoretically, you could find out about the same things yourselves (but maybe it will take you ages).
But then there are people who are happy to pay 25 bucks to save time on research and trial+error in order to gain advanced knowledge with Evernote.
USD 25 is about average for an e-book (yes and for a haircut, as Elena said). If Brett wanted to rip you off, you’d have to pay more. But he could indeed offer a free excerpt so undecided people can have some kind of trial, I think Richard’s tip could really make sense for customers and Brett.
Is the book good? I don’t know yet and there is always a risk when buying something you can’t really return. But the Evernote team recommended it. They gave us Evernote – an awesome, hugely useful tool. So when they recommend us Brett’s book AND he now supports their team to “dramatically improve [...] Evernote’s own documentation” then Brett must have some skills. And then the e-book can’t be that bad.
’nuff said. I’ll happily buy. You decide what’s best for you but stop complaining about paying a (small) fee for productivity boosting knowledge for an awesome productivity tool that’s free and that doesn’t require a paid handbook in the first place (I understand that its content is for advanced users, and those are the ones who’ll be happy to pay to save them time).
Or try another software if you feel ripped off (maybe try “ON” for $63,99!)
Cheers
Dave (Gitarre-Lernen-Online)