Publisher’s Weekly had an interesting article about the ‘value’ of books – hard copy/paperback vs digital.
http://bit.ly/r8pkuI
At a conference a number of years ago, a participant was complaining vociferously about the fact that the instructor of a seminar charged a whopping $10 for two sheets of paper (which happened to be double sided and crammed full of information). Her complaint? The cost of running off those 4 pages/2 sheets was approximately 50 cents and she’d been royally ripped off.
Obviously she was putting no value whatsoever on the information contained in those pages. The conference refunded her the $10 and took back the sheets, which was apparently of no value to her.
As I prepare to convert Magic into digital format I am faced with a similar conundrum – will people value the digital version? Obviously I have spent a great deal of time and money publishing Magic in the first place, and should have recouped my costs by now, so why should I put anything other than a low value on the digital format? OTOH, I will have spent hours more converting the files to digital, including paying someone else for their time and technological skills.
I know that not everyone is enamoured of the digital format. Personally I also prefer to have pages between my hands rather than reading on a screen. But at this point in time it’s either nothing or digital. So I will continue to work on the conversion and hope that enough people will be receptive to having a digital format, burned onto a cd, to make it worthwhile for everyone concerned. Ultimately people will be able to print out which pages they want in hard copy, and they will still have the entire file on the cd should they experience a computer crash or lose the printed out pages. Or, as some people have mentioned, they like to print out pages and make their own notations on the sheets without feeling like they are ‘wrecking’ the book by so doing.
If anyone is interested in a cd/digital copy of Magic when it is ready later in the fall please email me and I’ll give you a head’s up when it is ready. I’m ballparking the retail price including shipping at $20 to $25 Cdn. Final price will depend on the shipping charge at the time, currently running around $7.50 postage for a small packet.
Currently reading Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny (which takes place mostly in Quebec City, which having recently visited there is very vivid in my memory – thanks to Anne Marie for the driving tour – wish my ankle hadn’t been so sore so we could have walked the cobblestone streets and visited some of the shops, etc!)