Bounce an idea off you guys

I'm looking forward to reading your books, I thing there is a definite interest in the field.
Especially in the projects you mentioned, you will become what Baston is for the press.

Electronic vs paper is a difficult decision, digital will be pirated more, and paper is more expensive to produce, store, and ship.

Either way I would try to use that tendency towards piracy your advantage.
It is now known as...sharing is caring...
Be sure that you include all your contact information on all the drawings and sections to help drive traffic to your websites and store.

Quality,Pricing and availability are factors in piracy.
If the market believes that you are priced too highly, it will be copied with little remorse
(ie. Microsoft)
If you are known to be unresponsive to emails and orders, they will find a way around you.
If it is cheap and simple and fast, many people will just buy genuine copies because it is not too much trouble (IE. iTtunes distribution model)
instant, cheap, no shipping charges or time spent on your end.

this on demand printing sounds promising...
 
I like having a knifemaking library on the bookshelf, and can only applaud your decision if you should publish one of your own! It will probably end up on my shelf as well. I feel much more comfortable reading from a page than off of a screen; you can't read your computer too well in bed (ok, ok, laptops...) or while you're on the can. And those are two of the best places to read IMHO. Not to detract from e-commerce and the undoubted economy of virtual storage space, not to mention the benefit of not using a lot of paper... I think, though, that many of us who are even partly self-taught makers have learned a great deal of what we know from old fashioned books and don't mind learning more that way. Now if you could just laminate all of the pages so I don't smudge them all up like the rest of my books that travel to my shop?
 
Sounds good Stacy. One short coming I have often found with hard copy printed material that digital stuff usually surpasses, is cross referencing and indexing. If you had thorough table of contents and indexes (typically very weak or completely missing in DIY books) that would be great!
 
Phil,I agree that navigability is important. The good thing about writing and storing documents on computer is the ability to index by search. If the index item is martensite, I would search the document for that . All hits will list. Reference the index with the page numbers. So if martensite is in HT, basic metallurgy, hamons, and sharpening....all will be listed in the index. A good glossary and set of tables and charts is a must IMHO, too.

Karl, That site would be good for high quality photo books, but for such needs as we have in shop books, the price can be a fraction of theirs. Here is a good link on self publishing:
http://www.morrispublishing.com/Default.asp

My basic plan as of now is to make an initial run of 100 soft cover books ( all hand signed), unless pre-orders indicate I need more. If response is good, I can reprint in both hard and soft cover. Reprinting is fast now days. If the knife suppliers want it ,I can talk to a publisher, if I need to. I have a good friend who writes Scottish Historical Novels ( and sells a lot of them) and he has all the contacts. He started this way.

After the first book, and determining how well it worked, I may try the second one in both print and electronic media. This will allow entry into the electronic book market at much less risk, as I will already know if I have interest, and built ( albeit small) a customer base. It may indicate which format will be the most popular.

My reservations on electronic media are based on the fact that it is the information, not the process, that many buy a book for.
Most of us have several pocket knives, several pair of shoes, lots of different pens, and often two or more cars.....but we never have a second hard copy of a book we like....even our favorite one.
However, we may have the same file on three different computers and a link to a tutorial stored on twenty different Favorites quick links. This demonstrates the low value electronic media has mentally- not worth wasting time looking for it,so we place multiple copies everywhere. I realize that it also demonstrates how easy it is to use and access. That will be the trade-off that will need to be discovered. A long as I sell enough DVDs to make it worthwhile, the linking and pirating won't be such a big problem. But, if most folks find it easier to just link to a pirated and posted link,than purchasing their own copy of the DVD, that would be a big problem.
Stacy
 
Steven Penner said:
Electronic vs paper is a difficult decision, digital will be pirated more, and paper is more expensive to produce, store, and ship.
<SNIP>

Either way I would try to use that tendency towards piracy your advantage.
It is now known as...sharing is caring...
Be sure that you include all your contact information on all the drawings and sections to help drive traffic to your websites and store.
<SNIP>
Quality,Pricing and availability are factors in piracy.

...
Click to expand...
I would have to disagree, digital piracy is a direct result of an entitlement generation which has absolutely no respect for intellectual property. Digital media based intellectual property is not chained down effectively so they steal it
I know some musicians whose retirement was based on royalties of songs they recorded, digital piracy cost them those royalties, so they lost their retirement

-Page
 
bladsmth said:
My reservations on electronic media are based on the fact that it is the information, not the process, that many buy a book for.
Most of us have several pocket knives, several pair of shoes, lots of different pens, and often two or more cars.....but we never have a second hard copy of a book we like....even our favorite one.
However, we may have the same file on three different computers and a link to a tutorial stored on twenty different Favorites quick links. This demonstrates the low value electronic media has mentally- not worth wasting time looking for it,so we place multiple copies everywhere. I realize that it also demonstrates how easy it is to use and access. That will be the trade-off that will need to be discovered. A long as I sell enough DVDs to make it worthwhile, the linking and pirating won't be such a big problem. But, if most folks find it easier to just link to a pirated and posted link,than purchasing their own copy of the DVD, that would be a big problem.
Stacy
Click to expand...

That is my oppinion,too.

Imitation is flattering....stealing is insulting.
Stacy
 
I agree with your disgust with stealing and your concerns about the ease of digital piracy but it might be worth keeping in mind the advice of Brad Wardell, CEO of Startdock Software:

But…but…what about those hundreds of thousands of pirates? Yep. Demigod is heavily pirated. And make no mistake, piracy pisses me off. If you’re playing a pirated copy right now, if you’re one of those people on Hamachi or GameRanger playing a pirated copy and have been for more than a few days, then you should either buy it or accept that you’re a thief and quit rationalizing it any other way.

The reality that most PC game publishers ignore is that there are people who buy games and people who don’t buy games. The focus of a business is to increase its sales. My job, as CEO of Stardock, is not to fight worldwide piracy no matter how much it aggravates me personally. My job is to maximize the sales of my product and service and I do that by focusing on the people who pay my salary – our customers.
​
 
so you make it easy for someone to pay Stacy or his distribution network $29.95 for the paper copy. there might be a disc of digitally formatted stuff in an envelope glued in to the back which is useless without the book, but the bulk of the info should be in the book on paper. Someone will if they need a section on their workbench xerox that couple of pages for their own use, kinda like me making a cassette tape of a song off an album to play in the car. I bought the album, the cassette is for personal use and will not get distributed, it is basically so that I can play the music in the hostile environment of the car without damaging the recording I bought (a use sanctioned by the RIAA by the way and similar to photocopying a couple pages for bench reference in application)

That way you are making it easy for legit customers to get the info ("Hey Stacy I want to buy your book, here's my money, <money and book are exchanged>Thanks!") and not putting a whole lot of effort into fighting piracy ( most pirates don't have the work ethic to systematically scan and copy a real book that had to be paid for to distribute it to a bunch of freeloaders)

-Page
 
I'll keep you guys posted as things develop.

No need to belabor the worry about pirates. So far there is nothing the rip off ( yet).

I am shooting some photos tomorrow at work.
I'll post a few when they are cleaned up.

I appreciate you letting me bounce this off you, and your comments.

Stacy
 
I would definitely be interested in your books. I am not sure about the media though.
I like paper for step-by-step documentation, but I prefer electronic for reference information. Since it sounds like your books would be a combination of these two things it makes me wish I would have my cake and eat it too.

One thing to note on the piracy topic is that I have recently seen links to many knife making books in PDF format that to the best of my knowledge were only ever released as print. Not offering a digital version may only be an inconvenience to your customers, but not the pirates.

In any case I always follow your forum posts with interest, and will do the same with any books you release regardless of the format.
 
I said I would post a few closeup photos to show the detail the book(s) will have. These are some shots of the bezel fabrication on the Sgian Dubh, plus one of my orchids. The photos are:
1) flush fit and careful placement of the joint .
2) laying the solder snippets in place.
3) heating from the other side of the joint to draw the solder through.
4) heating from the top of the joint to complete the solder flow.
5) Phalaenopsis orchid in my greenhouse.
Stacy
 

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