Hardcopy versions of Handbook and FAQ as BoD

There is a new publishing option available in Germany that
I believe could make sense for our project.

It is called book on demand (BoD) and is a service by
LIBRI, a publishing company and well established distributor to
around 3000 bookstores in Germany.

One pays a certain fixed amount for a print mastering,
depending on the number of pages.

The interesting thing is that the books will be available via
the standard book distribution (ISBN and everything) and are
manufactured on demand!

Customers can order it from their bookstore or via Internet
online stores that cooperate with this distributor.

Quality is announced as beeing indistinguishable from traditional
paperback. Different formats are available too.

The customer price for an 80 pages version of the FAQ I estimate to
be something around US $5, a 600 pages version of the Handbook
should be possible for around US$ 30. People outside of Germany
would have to be similiar extra fees like for a traditional
foreign book.

This will be a non-profit effort. I calculate prices so that they
cover production, I don't want to make money on this.

My first goal is to have some quality reproductions of the FreeBSD
documentation in a nice paperback format that is affordable for
every user.

I see this advantages:

- good quality
- reduced financial risk due to uncertain number of copies sold
- distribution (incl. money handling done by the BoD company)
- the process seems fast
- possible model to get a German translation in the close future,
  by adding an amount that would pay a translator
- wide availability (money stores, should be around for some time)
- the BoD company is allowed to make copies, but it has no
  exclusive rights

I see this disadvantages:
- quite a share goes into distribution (LIBRI, bookstore)
- I depend on honest user feedback to do proper calculation for
  reimbursing my print mastering expenses

So please e-mail me what you think of this and if you would be
interested in such books.

I will try to calculate expenses for typical orders
from Germany and outside and post them here soon.

Regards,
Marc

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Received on Fri 23 Jul 1999 - 16:02:14 CEST