I apologize to be like this but your approach seems like a really cool one.  I know the beginner stuff.  But this is the interent and I dont know you so i am sure you understand my concerns.  I feel like the beginner thing is a carrot.  it is relatively inexpensive.  I suppose i can accept that the rest is being developed but your youtube was published in November tooting the beginner stuff so it has been 9 months since that advertisement.  I could just see me paying 70 bucks for the beginner stuff i could teach myself and then the price skyrocketing on the good stuff.  SO i guess what i am saying is that your site looks like a scam.  Then you wont commit to telling when the new stuff is coming.  I believe that the advance etc access stuff is already made and you only release it once someone spends 70 odd dollars on the basic stuff.  (just guessing at the the combined price) Look I am a business owner.  I would rather someone be live with me than to just walk on by but you are probably making money hand over fist with this site.  So I wont be joining until i know when and how much for the stuff i really want.  In the mean time I will be shopping elsewhere and I am sure you really dont care but this is frustrating the way you are operating.  I guess i will have to take that class at college.  there is no way i am giving you my credit card number without knowing how much the other courses are and without knowing when they are coming.  I probably wont at all buttttttt i am sure there are some suckers out there.

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Reply from Richard Rost:

You raise some interesting points. Allow me to address your concerns. Are the beginner lessons priced low to attract new customers? YES. Absolutely. I basically give away the first level so people can see the high quality of my product before spending a lot of money on advanced lessons. It's what you call a "loss leader" in business... give the customer something free or cheap and hope they come back for more. I think it's good business, and it works well for me. I have an "information" business, so it doesn't cost me anything to give away something cheap or free to attract new customers.

Do the more advanced lessons get more expensive? Yes. Why? There are a couple of reasons, but most significantly is that as you go up into higher and higher levels, there are fewer and fewer students who buy the courses. I may have 5000 people buy Level 1, but only 500 people buy Level 10. So in order to justify the cost of making the more advanced lessons, I have to charge more for them. It's like at a college - there are a ton more undergraduate freshmen then there are doctoral students. Not everyone needs that much training. Many people take the beginner classes and are able to build databases to meet their needs just fine. But, I developer-level training available for people who want to learn more (plus, that's my favorite thing to make: advanced Access classes).

As far as the advanced lessons coming out, you'll see that I have a TON of advanced lessons already available for Access 2003. I'm slowly upgrading them all to Access 2010, but it's going to take some time. I'm trying to get at least one new class out every week, but other things come up (different projects, etc.) that take my time too. I'm pretty much a one-man operation, so I'm doing the best I can. If you really want to learn advanced Access, however, you can take my Access 2003 classes and most people don't have any problems following along with them. Once you're beyond the basics (the Ribbon, etc.) you'll find that Access 2003 and 2010 aren't all that different. The VBA and advanced stuff all works just about the same.

I'll try not to take offense to your statement saying that my site looks like a scam. I've been in business since 1994, and I've had 599CD.com online selling tutorials since 2002. In the 10 years I've been online, I've had about 30,000 customers buy my lessons. You don't stay in business that long running a scam. I'm hoping that a few of my long-time customers will post here and come to my defense and tell you what kind of a business I run.

I'm here to provide quality computer training at a reasonable cost. I'm not looking to get rich quick. I'm here to build a steady base of customers who enjoy my training lessons and look forward to more. I'm not making money "hand over fist." I wish I was. Sure, the site is profitable, but not outrageously so. I'm fortunate that I can do this as my full-time job because I really love what I do... and I hope it shows in my videos.

So feel free to enjoy my Level 1 lesson. It's only $5.99. You're not "joining" anything. If you like it and want to come back and pick up Level 2, then that's $9.99. And so on. If you don't want to give me your credit card number, that's fine too. I take Paypal.

Is my training going to be expensive for you in the long run? It could be. The beginner lessons are very inexpensive, but even with all of the maximum discounts, if you want to purchase all of my advanced Access classes you're going to spend over $500. However, considering the amount of training you get for that, it's MUCH cheaper than attending a college... and very few if any of my competitors go into the level of detail that I do in my advanced lessons.

Don't believe me, see my testimonials page, or ask my other students. Or better yet, Google me and see what you find. Any complaints?

(Help me out here, guys)