I was pondering the question: "what type of books would I buy as ebook and what would I be willing to pay for them?" I think I would be willing to buy a 70- to 100-page ebook (more a booklet than a book) for a price range of $5 to $7.50 if I needed the information covered in that ebook. This is what I was thinking of when I talked about "chunky content" in previous posts.
As for subject matter of the ebooks, I would be interested in a wide range of technical "how-to" and tutorial topics, ranging from a quick introduction to C programming to setting up a secure home wireless network. Some of the topics may be time-sensitive. For example, if a new operating system upgrade is coming out, I might want to buy a 75-page guide to upgrading the OS as soon as the upgrade is available.
Ebooks can be sold in many different formats, but I would prefer a printable PDF file without any password protection. I'm just used to PDF and feel comfortable downloading and reading PDFs. I can always print parts of it, if I need to. You could say that my preference for PDF is a matter of user acceptance.
Why would I buy a PDF ebook for a subject—let's pick the example of "how to touch up digital photos in The GIMP"—even when that information may already be available in various free online resources. Well, for starters, I might not have time to do my own research. If I can browse a sample of a 75-page PDF ebook on "Photo Touchup with the GIMP" and I like what I see, I am willing to pay $5 to get the tutorial and spare myself the effort of searching and collating the information.
Where would I buy the PDF ebook? I won't feel comfortable buying PDF ebooks from just any Web site—it has to be some Web site like Amazon that I already know or an established ebook publisher with a catalog of related titles in that general topic (for example, lots of other photo retouching guides). In other words, it has to be an online shop with a huge catalog that accommodates the "long tail" or a niche publisher out in the "long tail." I might also consider buying directly from an author's Web site, if I have previous experience with that author's books.
Adam and Tonya Engst's Take Control series of Mac OS X books seem to fit the niche ebook publishing model nicely. They sell 60- to 100-page printable PDF ebooks for $5 and larger ebooks (up to 155 pages) for $10. They also offer free samples of each ebook. Peachpit press publishes print-book versions of some Take Control ebooks and these are available on Amazon (see, for example, Take Control of Your AirPort Network by Glenn Fleishman and Adam Engst).
Tags: ebooks epublishing trends long tail longtail
Naba, just wondering... What sort of device would you want to read the e-book on? I've read 3 or 4 books in PDF format on my PocketPC. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but it sure beat the heck out of lugging around the physical books. I could have read them on my laptop screen instead, and perhaps that would have made them more readable. I sometimes only take my PocketPC home and not my laptop though, which means the books wouldn't have been readily available. Would you primarily be reading these on your computer?
Posted by: Joe Wikert | May 14, 2005 at 10:53 PM
Hi Joe, I was really thinking of computer books that I'd use at or near my computer, so I could read them on the computer. For reading on the computer, I'd be happy to use PDF and I wanted the ability to cut-and-paste so I could try code/instructions etc directly from the PDF ebook. I agree that when it comes to ebook readers, it becomes more complicated.
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