> From: Bill Brutzman > People can write pdf eBooks without losing their homes...
You're missing the "math" part. That doesn't just include the cost of paper and distribution. It takes time to write material, time during which an author isn't generating other income. That means near-term risk for a possible but unlikely long-term future return. During that time, where is the money coming from to pay the bills? And if that long-term return doesn't come in, who's paying the bills or the interest on the loans taken out during the period of risk? You can certainly assume that someone qualified to be an author is also financially capable of taking a month off to take a risk like this - but that's not a great assumption to make. "A month" you say? Yeah, at least a couple months really. It takes a lot of time to write quality material. You could assume that an author is gainfully employed and has a regular check to cover the bills. Maybe they'll do all of their writing in their "free" time on evenings and weekends. Fair enough, but most people I know haven't had any "free" time in years, especially not to spend on a risky investment. And writing a book in such "free" time is sure to extend the time out to several months. You can assume that people who get their hands on a PDF will not share it, and every copy distributed will yield an equitable return. I wouldn't bet on this either. You can assume that the author can make use of some form of security to protect the assets, but (without too much more math here) the cost and aggravation to implement security like this can be prohibitive unless you have guaranteed volume. (Aggravation can come from proprietary protection mechanisms, lost keys, lack of ability to move the media across devices, and other hassles for both vendor and consumer.) When faced with the number of problems that need to be solved, anyone motivated to write educational material can get easily demotivated. I'm just expanding on details above but I think it's reasonable to conclude that anyone who has considered writing a Pick book in the last 15 years or so has simply decided that it's too much effort with not enough potential return. T > From: Tony Gravagno > Related, there isn't a critical mass of potential buyers to > balance the income potential with the cost of writing and > publishing a book. Without getting into the math of > balancing investment vs income and the consumer price for a > book, it's just not worth it for someone in the Pick market, > nor a publisher, to publish a book for the Pick market > itself, or even for the outside world. _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
