New Book Review: "Don't Just Roll the Dice"

Recently posted book review for Don't Just Roll the Dice: A Usefully Short Guide to Software Pricing, by Neil Davidson, Simple Talk Publishing, 2009, reposted here:

This white paper sized introductory guide to software pricing is very well put together. After Davidson walks the reader through some basic concepts from economics and marketing that specifically relate to pricing software products, he addresses some of the more advanced aspects of pricing that include areas such as versioning, bundling, and licenses. The discussion provided in the fifth chapter, "What Your Price Says About You (and How to Change It)" is especially well written.

The author reminds the reader that one should never forget that practice trumps theory, and that product pricing is as much art and craft as it is science: "Sure, it helps to understand the economics and psychology of pricing, but theory can only tell you so much. At some point, you need to make a decision and do it. Use the information in this handbook to make an informed stab at what a good price would look like, and how your customers will react, and try it out. The exact price almost doesn't matter – get it broadly right, don't screw up totally – and you can tweak it later. You're never going to know if you've chosen the exact right price or not, but you should experiment once you've set your initial price; not experiment in the scientific sense of forming a hypothesis, changing a single variable, and accepting or rejecting the hypothesis, but in the sense of changing something and seeing what happens."

Especially well recommended to those new to economics and marketing theory. Note that this book is currently available free of charge as a PDF document download at the author's "dontjustrollthedice" website.