As I am constructing my site and planning my first product release, I am deeply involved in doing gobs of research here on the Dexterity forums and elsewhere on- and off-line.

As I do all this research, I have made copious notes on everything from generating game ideas, to setting up an e-commerce web site, to registering my company, to marketing my producsts, etc., etc.

And I think to myself, "Gee, this is sure a lot of information. I wonder if others might find value in it?" And I feel certain others would. But being Joe Nobody, I don't think a book publishing deal is going to drop in my lap.

So maybe I'll write an eBook and sell it on my site (or maybe even set up a special site just for it).

Have you ever bought an eBook? If so, what was it about? How much did you pay? Will you ever buy another? If you haven't bought an eBook, would you consider buying one? How much would you consider paying?

-daniel

I have purchased one e-book because it was cheaper than the published book price. The book was fine (it was about legal issues, software patents, etc.). But the downside was it was "e". I prefer reading a BOOK, not my monitor.

Will I buy another one? I dunno, it would have to be a really worthwhile book. I so much prefer to hold it in my hands.

I have an idea, setup a deal with Kinko's copies, or something. Offer a coupon to have a local print shop print and bind the book for $20 when they purchase your e-book.

Or just offer it in e-book and book form...I'm sure there are places online that handle manual/book making and ordering for you if you want.

I've bought a few ebooks, and while I was happy with the content, I don't like the practical reality of printing them out and reading them. I'm presently biased against ebooks for this reason.

My wife, who's a self-published author, did a survey on her web site to decide whether to create an ebook or to print up an actual book. The response was overwhelming in favor of a printed book, even if the price was a bit higher.

I don't buy e-books, but I do have a few I got for free. I can use my pocketpc to read them on the go, but in general, i find them unconfortable and nothing like the smell of dead wood on my lap. Most of the folks I know agree with me. The only e-books I may consider may be books that require me to be at a computer (like a training manual) at the time so i can go step by step on the damn thing.


Amazon has a program for you to send 2-3 books to them and theyll list them, and whenever those are sold, they will buy 2-3 more from you.


Note that if you are in america and intend to sell the book, it must have a isbn or something. There are companies that help you on selling your own book, but fiction wise, most authors are wary of using them. I think I have some of these sites bookmarked at home, I'll see if I can dig them up.

I've purchased a couple eBooks, mostly as a test to see how using an electronic reader (my Pocket PC) would work. I actually liked it, but I'm kind of geeky that way. I wouldn't want every book like that; it's a tough format for reference material. But for something that you go straight through from beginning to end, I think it's great.

I think the idea of purchasing an eBook and then printing it out is a little silly. Once you factor in paper, ink and the wear on your printer, you aren't really saving anything, and you're killing more trees than if you just bought a book. What is the advantage?

I own a Rocket eBook (old NuvoMedia model, purchased in 2000) and I'm fairly happy with it. It is way easier to read web articles or ebooks using it (easy on the eyes, and the handling is quite comfortable as well), so I can only recommend it to everybody.

Too bad the concept didn't caught on the masses (NuvoMedia was purchased by Gemstar and Gemstar announced ceasing of all hardware eBook operations).

Some other interesting eBook reader is Hiebook: http://www.ebookad.com/hiebook/
if my Rocket will die one day this is what I'll replace it with.

I never purchased any eBooks, though, mainly because I live in Romania and purchasing through the net is difficult; from what I've seen on the net, I can only say that eBooks are usually half price or less than the dead tree version.

But being Joe Nobody, I don't think a book publishing deal is going to drop in my lap.

You may be surprised about this. Joe Nobodys' make less money then Joe Somebodys' but, they can get published all the same.

Create a good outline and submit it to a few computer book publishers. If you have a good writting style and the time you may find a new career. Publishers need books to sell or they go out of business. Computer book publishers need lots of books.

... of course, computer books have to be updated and reprinted constantly as computers change, so this could probably work out well if you were willing to keep it going. :)

Originally posted by Dexterity
My wife [is] a self-published author...
Steve,

How does she manage printing?

I've thought about buying a workhorse HP with a duplexer and printing laser copies myself. But I understand that there are some pretty inexpensive on-demand printing services around these days that even provide full color. Do you have any pointers?

-daniel

She works with small-run printers and does runs of 300 books. Soon she'll be ordering her third batch. The first batch was about $4 per book, but she recently found a new printer that can do it for about $2.25 per book. This is for a regular paperback book like you'd see on the shelves, including a bar code and ISBN. Currently she sells through her own site, Amazon, and a few retailers.

If I could purchase all of my technical books as eBooks that were text searchable, I would. I moved recently, and lets just say that moving three full bookshelves of technical and programming books was not something that I found enjoyable. Much easier to move a hard drive than a mountain of paper.

Not to mention, having a technical book at the click of a mouse would be worth a paper books weight in gold. Having so many books, sometimes it's difficult to remember where I saw something. Reading books on the other hand, I'd prefer paper. I guess it depends on the material you're publishing.

I'm in the minority her ein that I much prefer ebooks over paper books whenever the subject-matter is computer-related. I almost always want to be by my computer when reading computer-related things anyways, so being in e-format saves an aweful lot of desk and keyboard space. However, I'm not big on ebooks otherwise, because I can't very well leave a historical book or novel in the bathroom by the throne.

However, I'm also far too broke currently to afford either electronic or paper media, so my opinion isn't valuable as a potential customer so much as a general opinion that other people may also share. ;)

I'm not sure I'm allowed to respond since my book on the topic of being an indie (see sig below) is due out in August... ;)

I have purchased one or two eBooks over the years. In general, I don't like to do it, though, because I like to *look* at books before buying them. And I don't like to do extended reading from my monitor. Just not comfortable. Maybe when I get a notebook computer I'll change my mind, but it seems unlikely. I just like books (and I have the stacks of them on my shelves to prove it).

-David

Originally posted by DavidRM
I'm not sure I'm allowed to respond since my book on the topic of being an indie (see sig below) is due out in August... ;)

I was actually hoping that you would respond! I'm actually planning on buying your book! The table of contents I have sketched out for mine goes in a completely different direction and really doesn't have much of anything to do with game development (or really even software development). Speaking of being published (which we weren't, but I'll try damned hard to segue into)... How did you hook up with CRM? Did they approach you or vice-versa?

Maybe when I get a notebook computer I'll change my mind, but it seems unlikely.[/B]
I doubt it will. I hate trying to read on my laptop. Or really on my monitor for much more than the occassional white paper or tech reference for that matter. Steve's helpful comment regarding pricing, along with the general consensus here (is "general consensus" redundant?) that eBooks are marginally valuable unless they're tech refs -- which my book is not.

I guess what I'll ultimately do is probably provide a PDF version of the book for purchase+download or a printed copy for extra $$.

I like to read some things on my monitor... but not pdf's. I find them awkward.

So my online reading activities are largely restricted to amateur fiction - printed in plain old unprotected html so I can bring them up comfortably in my browser.

Originally posted by DCoder
I was actually hoping that you would respond! I'm actually planning on buying your book! The table of contents I have sketched out for mine goes in a completely different direction and really doesn't have much of anything to do with game development (or really even software development). Speaking of being published (which we weren't, but I'll try damned hard to segue into)... How did you hook up with CRM? Did they approach you or vice-versa?

Sounds interesting. So you're focusing on the Web/ecommerce angle pretty much exclusively?

As for hooking up with CRM, it went like this:

1. I had the idea for "The Indie Game Survival Guide" a week or two after GDC 2002. For no real reason at all, I didn't do much with the idea until September rolled around. (I still kick myself about this; no excuse for it.)

2. Next fleshed out the idea into something that seemed like a book, with a short table of contents.

3. All publishers post their submissions guidelines on their Web pages, so I went to the Web pages for CRM and Premier (it's Prima now, I guess) and checked their guideliness out. I decided to submit to CRM first.

4. I put together the book proposal according to the posted guidelines, with a much-expanded table of contents "outline", and sent it in.

5. They responded and we went from there.

6. When I got their response about wanting the book, I scoured the Web looking for do's and don't's of book contracts, especially for first-time authors. There's quite a bit of it out there.


Last I heard, there were at least two books targeting indie game development "in production" (counting mine). There might be more now, but it's worth a shot, I figure, especially if your targeting a slightly different market.

If you want information about writing non-fiction book proposals, there are a couple of books available. I have one...but it's buried somewhere in my stacks of books...I think it's titled something like "How to Write Non-Fiction Book Proposals" ;) Look for it at your local library or bookstore. It's a good book. Very useful.

Hope that helps.

-David

Originally posted by DavidRM
Sounds interesting. So you're focusing on the Web/ecommerce angle pretty much exclusively? Yeah. I'm not certain there's much of a market for it, but realistically, I guess you would call it an "enabling book" -- it outlines a lot of web and ecommerce technologies and explains their uses, benefits and pitfalls. It's really a compilation of a bunch of different notes that I've collected for a bunch of different clients over the past 7 years or so.

-daniel