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)

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)