Re: What is a book in 2008?

DT

You are missing a format. In addition to your Kindle, eBook, print,
audio CD, downloadable iPod format, and possibly video (I can only
assume from the list that you are working on that as well), you *must*
offer the ultimate in nouveau-chic technology is the "author flies to
your house an READS your book to you!" Stay with me on this . . .

This service would be available to an elite cadre of clients, or
wealthy shut-ins and recluses. Figure about $15-$20 a page, meaning
$3-$5,000 + travel expenses and per diem if the stay will be
overnight. While the number of actual takers you get from this offer
would range anywhere from zero to three (unless you are SK or JKR),
being the first author to be so audacious as to actually OFFER to fly
to someone's house and read them your novel, or teach them hands-on
how to build a cabinet (as this still technically falls into the "I am
reading my book aloud to you/showing you how to do it"), the publicity
storm this would create if announced on a slow news day would be obscene.

So there it is. Add a super-expensive (but in the realm of "you know,
that is a reasonable price I might be tempted to do if I were a
millionaire" range) top-tier service that includes you having lunch
with your fan after reading your book to them, and suddenly $40 for a
CD set not only looks cheap, but the amount of people who now KNOW you
have a $40 audio Cd registers in the hundreds of thousands, not the
hundreds.

And the best part of this marketing strategem is that you still get to
retain your street-cred as an author, not an infopreneur or vacuous
marketer of words for profit. And talk about "it would destroy
traditional book retailing, how authors interact with customers and
somewhat change what it meant to be an author."

Dusty White
typing monkey and author of
How to Get ANY MAN to do ANYTHING You Want!

--- In [email protected], "dtpollard947" <dtp940@...> wrote:
>
> Today I made two of my books available on Amazon in Kindle version. It
> was very quick and both are available.
> 
>
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_kinc?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&f\
> ield-key words=d+t+pollard&x=12&y=21
>
<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_kinc?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&\
> field-keywords=d+t+pollard&x=12&y=21>
> 
> 
> What it made me think about is what it means to have a book out in
> today's market. One of my books is available in paper, audio download,
> CD set, kindle and another ebook format. Only one of those formats is
> the "classic" sign-the-book version. Pricing ranges from $39.00 to $6.
> 
> The marketing issues for each of the versions of the same book is
> slightly different. How does the ability to download audio or text
> versions of the same work change how it is viewed and valued?
> 
> If digital formats took hold and began to dominate, it would destroy
> traditional book retailing, how authors interact with customers and
> somewhat change what it meant to be an author.
> 
> www.DTPollard.com <http://www.dtpollard.com/>
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>



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