4 ms·

I think that's taking the trend to a consumer-focused extreme that might not maximize the benefit to the author. I can see opening up your process for 50-250 "

I think that's taking the trend to a consumer-focused extreme that might not maximize the benefit to the author. I can see opening up your process for 50-250 "beta-testers" who need the information yesterday and are willing to put work into it. But for the most part, people willing to wait for and pay for a technical book are people who will trade money for decreased time cost. Hence a nicely packaged, structured, edited book. The bar of quality and trust is pretty high, because if either of those are compromised, then the reader is wasting time and might as well have self-taught. I'd probably buy at least 1 book/week at that price! I'm subscribed to the ebook deal of the day for O'Reilly (http://feeds.feedburner.com/oreilly/ebookdealoftheday http://feeds.feedburner.com/oreilly/ebookdealoftheday), Apress (http://www.apress.com/info/dailydeal http://www.apress.com/info/dailydeal) and Manning (http://www.manning.com/free/dotd.html http://www.manning.com/free/dotd.html) and I've purchased about 1 ebook a week this year for between $5-20 each.

wmat 16y ago
Perhaps you're right. I guess I'm being a little selfish in so far as what I've described is what I'd want, as a potential paying customer. I still want the structure and editing though, so I'm not sure how payment could be distributed to contributors, such as editors. Perhaps my model would be most applicable to those who self-publish without external contributors. I've looked at the O'Reilly and others deals-of-the-day and ebook promotions and they almost always are to expensive, or are stale.
- pchristensen 16y ago
  The ebook deals are about creating a new market (patient, price sensitive buyers)for existing products. Your proposal is for entirely new products, and I think it's unlikely that the existing publishing companies will change enough to produce them. There is something to the idea, and would probably best be done by the communities surrounding open source products. Don't let this idea die.

wmat 16y ago

Perhaps you're right. I guess I'm being a little selfish in so far as what I've described is what I'd want, as a potential paying customer. I still want the structure and editing though, so I'm not sure how payment could be distributed to contributors, such as editors. Perhaps my model would be most applicable to those who self-publish without external contributors. I've looked at the O'Reilly and others deals-of-the-day and ebook promotions and they almost always are to expensive, or are stale.

pchristensen 16y ago
The ebook deals are about creating a new market (patient, price sensitive buyers)for existing products. Your proposal is for entirely new products, and I think it's unlikely that the existing publishing companies will change enough to produce them. There is something to the idea, and would probably best be done by the communities surrounding open source products. Don't let this idea die.