Would you pay a small price to learn?

[Welles]

I've never done a direct payment having established a limited fund debit card account for online purchases. This limits my vulnerability to theft to only that which I leave in the account. However, I like the idea of direct payment. Is this a normal option in US banking? Do the banks involved charge fees? I like the idea, particularly for international monetary transfers.

 

[wbiss]

Yep, direct payment is good, Mark!

For anyone who does their banking online, this is a piece of cake and, as far as I know, most banking institutions offer this payment method. At least, here in Canada they do. The service charge is equivalent to using the banking machine, but most people have a monthly service plan that encompasses this.

 

[ApWizard]

With this kind of payment can i "buy" Your tuts from Italy? It's work?! [confused]

 

[theKeeper]

Best way to find out AW would be to ask your bank. They'd be able to give you all the details you need.

 

[tranquil222]

I would pay about $4.00 usd per tutorial...i've found that mark's tutorials have taken me through areas that were really helpful and that i would not explore otherwise

 

[theKeeper]

Thanks tranquil, that's nice to know. [honesty]

 

[GeorgeF73]

I have never understood why a person should be ashamed of asking a price for his work. Especially a writer. Mark, the time you put into a tut is time passed and can never be regained. It is gone, gone forever.
Your tuts are outstanding and there is no question that you should expect to be paid for them.
Over time you will accumulate chapters which can be put into a book and sold as a single volume.
As a writer of sorts I have found that you don't make much on one book. The idea is to write many books and hope that some of each will sell.
Price is really based on potential market. If you have a very narrow limited market then your price will have to be higher. If your market potential is greater, than you can set your prices lower to capture as much of the market as possible.
I have certainly appreciated all the fine work gone into the thousands of free tuts and I have taken advantage of some of them.
Would I be willing to pay? Obviously if there is a clear choice of getting one for free or paying for it I will opt for the free one.
But if an outstanding tut were available only at a price then I would opt to pay for it.
Mark, go for it.

GeorgeF73 www.lulu.com/farrier

 

[theKeeper]

Wow thank you too George, that's some more good food-for-thought. I appreciate that. [honesty]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess i should let everyone know too now that i'm recovering from a major HD crash. Because of a faulty data backup program i lost all of my programs/custom files/settings and a lot of personal/business data. I did manage to save some data, but it's old. The personal data i lost included the tutes i've been writing for the past month and a half. All i have left now are the first 2 i wrote. Man that was a lot of good material... }P |

This has hit me hard at the moment, and will inevitabley slow down the start of this new venture; and i was just about ready to fly too... | Right now, i'm not in the mood or right frame of mind to redo the lost material... i'll get back to it soon... after i reBuild the machine.

So if you've been finding me a little on edge lately... that's why.

 

[Bobzworld]

Oh man, that really sucks Mark
Well don't dwell on it to long ya know... Stuff happens

 

[Bubble]

Mark, i feel for you, same thing happened to me recenly and lost 80 gig of material i'd been working on for the last couple of years!! And not two days later, i thought the same thing had happened to my other hd, but thank goodness it worked when i swapped it into my other computer - turned out to be the motherboard, add that to my 22inch monitor that blew | | | (gaming just ain't the same), but i'm trying to be very buddhist about it all

 

[Alistair]

hd crash.. that sucks. So... i am sure if you have already applied your mind into thinknig and making the tutes.. you could rebuild them with 100% corectness I want tutes To bad about the hd crash... i hope that never happens to me (just watch.. it wiill )

 

[theKeeper]

Well i do in deed plan to rewrite the lost material, but i'm just waiting til i finish up my plans more to expand the site in the near future here. It's a huge undertaking that i may end up pulling in some help for.

We'll see as it goes along.

Thanks for the encouragement Alistair.

 

[ranger72]

Hi There Mark!


I haven't been around much through the winter and recently I had to do a clean install and lost alot of my old stuff...but it certainly wasn't the earthshaking disaster for me that it may have been for you. But as a result I learned how to spell Zip Drive. Now I feel more confident that if I have a major crash I will have been backing up my data on a regular basis. |

Now more to the point...Some folks here at PSG are professional artists/photographers etc. and are either presently involved in making a living with their respective artforms and others are youngsters in school who are truly budding artists who will someday be making a living doing what gets done here at the forums.

For me it just became a hobby (computers) and I was never even online until about 2 years ago and it took me 6-8 months to figure how to shake and move on the web.Hell, I did'nt even know how to send an email! [confused]

Then one day while exploring the web I ended up in a forum and it was in that forum (which was newbie friendly) that I learned the basics of how a forum works and how to navigate in one.

It was in that particular forum that I heard about an application called Photoshop and people would post small triumphs and say "Hey Man, Look at what I made!" and I began to think about what was going on and what an incredible phenomenon this "Web Thing" is and it all began to fall into place for me when suddenly I realized That there is nothing on God's Green Earth that you can't learn about on the web once you learn how to use search engines :B

Well one day, I clicked on a link and found myself in the middle of www.deviantart.com and I spent about three weeks wandering around in there and it hit me like a ton of bricks what this 'Photoshop application" meant.

Then one day I saw Photoshop Elements 2.0 and it was available for $99US so I said "I got to get me one of these!"

About a week later I clicked on a link somewhere in Cyberspace and it brought me right here right into your playroom and I lurked here for a couple of weeks and had all these questions about my new PS 2.0 It was so confusing because not only was I not conversant with ps I was also not an artist an never have been | but I always admired the work of others!

So I found my way into the new users thread and said "Howdy"

and I was welcomed by Wendyand also by Suela Reefarooand this is when my photoshop adventure really began \:]

 

[ranger72]

ranger72 continued:

I could not believe how friendly all the old timers were and how eager many people were to help and I knew I had stumbled into a Goldmine of Learning Potential!

Little by little the mysteries of photoshop were opening up to me I learned about starfields and planets and geltext and glass buttons
and rollovers.... [confused] and I learned that there are many more applications for graphic artists and I purchased other programs and finally recently acquired Photoshop 6.0 \:]

I have been teaching myself HTML and recently started to learn Python...

It is my goal to build my own website from scratch and I know now that I will accomplish this and go on to other things. :}

I attribute these series of small successes to two things

1] a ranger never, ever quits once having started something!

2] The Photoshopguru's Handbook; The Keeper for having started such a place and the many, many fine volunteers who spend untold hours here learning and helping other people to learn 8)) 8)) 8))


Mark I wanted to tell you this about myself so that you will truly understand how much PSG has touched not only my life but I bet there others here with similar stories.

Don't ever underestimate the power of this forum!!!!!!!!!

I will support your idea of pay per lessons or projects and I would like to do this on an annual fee basis....I pay a fee up front for a years worth of access to any and all of your tutes!

This is the faith that I have in your continued success!


Perhaps this little diatribe will help folks to understand my "SIG"


Wishing you the absolute best in achieving your dreams!

Your pal,

ranger72 8)) 8))


I will be here until..........

 

[Alistair]

Very touching ranger


...
Where did you get that sign? Thats halarious.

 

[ranger72]

Hi there Alistair!


I had to go to Hell to get it!



Come to think of it I've been there a few times in my 28 years of serving my country! 8[


Be my guest Alistair and download it! Enjoy!

regards,

ranger72

 

[MsOz]

Everything worth having is worth paying for...

Mark, I personally would not pay for the knowledge, having found more than my fair share of learning for free on the World Wide Web, and being old enough to remember that the original design and purpose of the World Wide Web, and as a derivative, the Internet, was the free exchange and sharing of information.

That said, I would not have a single moment's hesitation in donating money to show my support of your efforts by helping to pay for what must be a growing cost of bandwidth, as more people access your site.

I am a donating member on several Forum sites that provide a sharing of knowlege. Not to pay for the lessons, but to help pay for the ability to SHARE those lessons.

My hard drive on my BigDog has just crashed again, if it were not for periodic backups on other PC's, I would be so totally screwed; as it is I am just inconvenienced for a few days/weeks... You most definitely have my empathy and sympathy!

I too, will take this moment to Thank YOU for everything you have given to this site and to those of us wanting to learn more about Photoshop, and will ask if there is an e-mail addy accepting PayPal, or a physical address to send a check to show my support for PSGurus...

Can we have a little flag, or checkmark, or something that appears with our name when we do support the site??? That would be cool, too!

 

[Joy Foraker]

Mark,

I had a thought about compensation for you for all your work on this board. Recently, I dl a application (Spybot) to test and the owner said, if you continue to use, I'd appreciate a contribution. [saywhat]

I think there are some students on board, where payment would be a problem but for those of us working in web development, judging by what has been said so far, everyone seems happy to make an annual contribution. [honesty]

It could be difficult for people around the world who don't have a credit card. And you would have the extra expense of a shopping card. Well -- the owner of Spybot solved this, he said use paypal or "just wrap the cash in aluminm foil and mail to me in Germany". 8))

Whatever works!
Joyful ;\

 

[lindaw]

Sorry to hear about the HD crash Mark | You know that many of the members here will do whatever they can to help you.

You put so much time into the forum/site and ask nothing in return. Having the option to contribute is a great idea. I don't agree with the option to have checkmarks or such by our names. If we give, we give out of friendship and appreciation.

I personally would purchase the tutorials and contribute to you for the time you put into this forum and to offset the cost of hosting fees, etc. There is no way we can ever give back to you what you have given to us with your knowledge and this forum. :} B7

 

[ljiljana]

Mark I am so sorry that this happened. Knowing how detailed your tutorials are ...that is a loss.

I admire your style and I am learning everyday something new from this site. Would not like to face the day that this site is gone.

Just say it.. contribution, I am in.