On 2004-07-14, Mike Rivers wrote:
In article
writes:
My two cents : some of us don't live in North America. Paper has
its drawbacks, especially when it must be shipped across an
ocean.
I'd suggest that you and/or Scott compile your papers into PDF
or DJVU format and sell them for half the price, and no shipping
costs.
But sitting on the couch or in the tile reading room and reading from
paper is just so much better a way to read technical articles. Do you
really want to waste all of that paper and ink printing it, and then
not have something that's nicely bound?
I don't systematically print things. And, when I do, it's 2-up
with a small font, so paper wastage is no more of an issue that
it is with traditional publishing.
As for the bindings, short articles get "bound" with a staple in
the corner, which suits me fine. Large documents can be bound
with a plastic comb, which is arguably a much better binding
than anything else this side of sewn. The book will lay flat
without having to break the spine. If done right, i.e. with a
comb big enough than you can turn the pages without folding the
paper, a plastic comb binding is very durable, unlike wire
bindings and glued bindings.
I live in a small flat that is cluttered with, among many other
things, nine bookshelves, all overflowing. The only reason why I
haven't bought one or two more shelves is that I wouldn't know
where to put them. As you can imagine, anything that helps
reduce the amount of paper I have to keep is welcome.
I've been working on a book about the Mackie hard disk recorders and
I'm torn between putting a copy of it in PDF form on the accompanying
CD. Part of me says that people might want to keep it on their
computer in the studio and search for things in it, and the other part
says that once a PDF gets out, people will e-mail it to those who
would like to have it but don't want to shell out the cash for the
book (just like music).
Yes, that's the problem with electronic publishing. However, my
perception is that people are more likely to make illegal copies
if ;
a/ the author is a faceless stranger,
b/ the product is expensive,
c/ they know that most of their money is going to pay for overhead
like retailer margin, advertisement or the salaries of the
marketing team.
If you sold your book in electronic format for the margin you
were hoping for ($5, IIRC), you'd certainly pass the "cheap"
test. I don't think there are many people who will put several
thousand dollars into a piece of gear and yet are so cheap as to
try to get a $5 manual for free. But then again, I see people do
stranger things than that every day.
--
André Majorel URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/
Respect for government [...] and its symbols is fundamentally fascist.
-- William Sommerwerck, on the subject of ****ing on a national flag.