eBooks

[Tony Lukasavage]

Those of your selling eBooks as your muse, have you had much success? I kind of dismissed the idea initially since I myself would rather have something tangible and don't think I would ever buy an eBook. But then again, I'm not my target audience, but the average dieter, particularly those who have failed on other programs, is.

The lure of zero cost product is tempting, but I can't seem to believe that I can make a sale of something like that without something tangible. What do you guys think?

[wildsoul]

I buy ebooks sometimes. For REAL reading, I like REAL books. But there are absolutely reasons why eBooks are sometimes better...

People will buy an ebook, instead of a regular book for these reasons:

1. They need the info NOW (like they are working on a project, and bookstores are closed.)

2. The information may not be easily found online, or if it is, it's in multiple websites. eBooks provide all the info in one compiled format.

3. The information just doesn't exist in regular bookstores.

Did I leave any other important reasons out?

[final_id]

Another reason I might buy an e-book is that it's "clickable." A paper-and-ink book has only one arrangement of pages, which is fine if I intend to read the book from front to back like any average work of fiction. But if I'm looking into something that has a lot of here-and-there -- for example, a literary and cultural history of economics with added content about the context of the times in which the various innovations occurred -- I might prefer an e-book over a traditional paper-and-ink book because of the browse-ability of it.

[Tony Lukasavage]

Thats interesting final_id, perhaps I could use the electronic format as a plus rather than a minus to separate myself from others. I had already planned on including some content on CDs, perhaps the whole package could be transmittable over the internet, and then offered also as a CD (or CDs) at a higher price.

I'm hesitant as my first endeavor to get into the paper-and-ink buiness as you put it. The less I have to handle the better.

[final_id]

I think most e-books don't really take advantage of the fact that they are electronic. In general, I'd guess, the average consumer would think of an e-book as, simply, a more direct way for him to get access to text. You can order lots of e-books that are basically nothing more than average paper-and-ink books, except they have one difference -- the e-books are delivered immediately. Otherwise, there's no difference.

E-books can have great "clickability" advantages, and if your content is STREAMED rather than down-load-able, you gain the advantage of controlling people's access to it. So that your e-book then becomes a "subscription" to your product, rather than a single transaction. For example, continuing with my suggestion of an economic historical context, there could be a video about Amsterdam in the 16th century, clickable from the chapter in the e-book about the advances in double-entry book-keeping. But that Amsterdam video would not be down-load-able, but rather streamed to the user, and with a spoiler that suggests "other Amsterdam resources coming!" As you add content, people have to add time to their subscription.

Thus, the e-book becomes a "gateway" to your content, rather than a vessel for ALL of your content.

Or course, now we're talking about a major investment in computing and content-production, which might not be in line with your interests or intents for your Muse. But I'm just discussing the nature of e-books here, take it or leave it. Plenty of people spend plenty of money buying an e-book that has no difference from a traditional paper-and-ink book except that the e-book is delivered electronically instead of in a box via Fed-Ex or UPS.

It's an interesting innovation, the e-book phenomenon. I think you can tell from my preceding comments, that I feel like very few e-books are taking advantage of what an e-book can offer. It's kind of like during the early stages of printing, right after Gutenberg had invented the use of movable type. The first fifty years, or so, of printing after that innovation, saw nothing but a more efficient manner of making the OLD style of books. Pretty manuscripts of the Bible, except they weren't SCRIPTed by a MANUal method, they were printed. Then a few people started to get wind of the idea that this movable type could do something OTHER than just making books that looked exactly like the old style of books. Voila! The pamphlet was born! Enter the Protestant Reformation, oh dear.

Well, e-books are still in that cradle stage. People are using them as a more effective and efficient delivery method for the old style of book. That's all well and good, but it means that the potential other advantages of e-book-ification might be ignored or neglected.

Remember, an Archbishop once paid a clerk to proof-read every single copy of a book he had commissioned to be printed by means of movable type in the 1480s. Missed the concept a little bit ...

[squeegee]

I have bought 200-300 dollars worth of eBooks in the past year. I buy them because that's where the information that I want is!

edit: I also buy ink-and-paper books. In other words I am an info-fiend, so whether it's ebook or regular book is low importance to me.

If you want to be able to sell physical books without carrying an inventory, check out the on-demand printers such as Lulu.com . essentially you can offer your book for sale and when someone orders it, Lulu prints exactly one book and mails it out.