June 11, 2008 1:18 PM
An interesting suggestion came up yesterday in our Satisfaction customer service forum. Aileenf suggested selling digital editions of our books that are designed to be printed.
So far we've designed and tested our digital editions with the goal of supporting on-screen use. That means a large typeface for readability, no need to scroll within pages, and a bunch more screen-friendly features. Not surprisingly, it also means very long page counts. And though we've tried to make our digital design printer-friendly by removing toner-thirsty colored backgrounds, it's still no fun to print 400+ pages.
So, we could expand our offerings to include digital editions optimized for laser printing. This would certainly help our overseas customers who are concerned about shipping costs. But many questions remain:
- Would we cannibalize our paperback sales? (We've already spent lots of money printing thousands of copies of our beautiful four-color interior nicely-bound paperbacks.)
- How many pages to print is too many? Our two paperbacks run between 250-300 pages; is that so much better than printing 400 pages?
- Would it make sense to offer a printable PDF only in combination with an on-screen PDF? While offering options is a good idea, three or four variations of a product, as well as combinations, can quickly become overwhelming to customers (and difficult to develop from an interaction design perspective).
Those are a few of the questions we'll be mulling over; any feedback, suggestions or (egads) even more questions would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
Put your PDF through www.yudufreedom.com - it's FREE and comes with a host of features.
The PRO version www.yudu.com also allows you to protect (and sell) Digital Editions.
Hope that helps.
Les
Posted by: les Csonge | June 11, 2008 4:29 PM
As a soon-to-begin publisher of ebooks, I am interested in the same issue, and have come to the conclusion that I neither want to read something onscreen for too long, nor want to print more than about 20-30 pages. So I am sticking to shorter pdfs that can be both read onscreen and printed.
It's a tricky issue for you if your printed texts are already quite long.
Perhaps you could offer a selection of each printed text as an ebook, perhaps even for free, as a tempter to get the whole printed book. That often works on me!
Posted by: Arem | June 13, 2008 3:59 AM
Hello,
I just bought mental models and I must say I really like the paper version, the paper used feels very nice and the print quality is excellent. I appreciate the PDF version for reference or re-reading a part of the book and it is easy to carry around.
If I have the option of buying a printed book I'll do that rather than print my own mediocre version. I don't see much value in a "print it yourself" pdf version. Very few people can print with a satisfying quality and printing yourself does not sound efficient (it takes time) for a rather poor result.
I have just bought one book (which I have not finished reading) but I am quite satisfied with the current offer.
ps: if i may make a suggestion having cheaper shipping to europe is more important to me :)
Posted by: Arnaud Limbourg | June 13, 2008 9:35 AM
Thanks for the comments folks! Quick response to Arnaud: we're actually subsidizing our shipping to most locations outside the US. It's typically a bit more expensive than what we're charging. We're pretty much at the mercy of shippers (and the price of oil); we're exploring distribution alternatives, but this is a pretty difficult situation (and a major reason why we're considering offering a print-optimized PDF).
Posted by: Lou Rosenfeld | June 13, 2008 11:18 AM
@Lou : that is tricky indeed, I do love the quality of your prints and I'd rather read a real book rather than onscreen. Maybe having a printing done in europe ?
Posted by: Arnaud Limbourg | June 13, 2008 12:20 PM
Arnaud, it'd be great to print in Europe (and in Asia), but we'd quickly go out of business! Distributing in those places is another idea altogether. We are exploring options along those lines, even though there are likely other problems with this approach. For example, when you order from Rosenfeld Media today, you'll get excellent customer service (from yours truly). When you order via a distributor, there's absolutely no guarantee that will be the case, although you'll pay less in shipping. So there are pros and cons for both approaches. Again, we'll see how our options shape up; we do try hard to satisfy our overseas customers, and I'm sure we'll do better in the future. But we just can't do much about the price of oil. ;-)
Posted by: Lou Rosenfeld | June 16, 2008 1:25 PM
The rule of thumb I've heard -- which could be true, or just outdated market assumptions -- is that works of fiction are better candidates for soft copies. It sort of makes sense to me because you might be more likely to read a Grisham novel on the plane, but you'll refer to a technical book over and over again (if it's good) while you're working.
Of course, I'm drooling over a Kindle in part because it seems so easy to make notes, which would also be an advantage to the hard copy. So if you have a tech-savvy audience, they're highly mobile and they have the right tool to make the soft copy appealing to them, you might reach people who would otherwise not buy the hard copy.
I heard a stat that something like 80 percent of the people who read the Washington Post online do not read it in print. Perhaps you'd find the same with your books?
Posted by: Colleen Newvine | June 18, 2008 4:54 PM
Hi,
As a reader my first preference is to have a book of my interest as early, but I also like to read a book in printed format rather than e-book and if I had a e-book in fair printer friendly format I would love to buy because for me getting knowledge is important.
Posted by: Tracy Olivia | June 27, 2008 2:23 PM