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SourceBeat Anyone?

First a few questions. What is the best way to sell technical books? print vs pdf? owership vs leasing? What is a reasonable price? What is the lifetime of a technical book? Is it more than 1 year?

I ask because I have been recently looking at SourceBeat's sales model. I don't know about anyone else, but I think the $29.99 per book per year from SourceBeat seems a bit steep. While I agree 100% that the authors should be compensated for their great work, $30 for something that isn't tangible and its service expires after 1 year seems like a bit much. I much prefer the Manning approach where around $20 and plus the option to purchase the real book for full price less what you paid for the pdf. This offers the consumer the best of both worlds. This gives the reader greater flexibility at a more reasonable cost. Until Sourcebeat charges around $15 per year or moves to a full subscription based service, I will have a hard time purchasing their material. Of course, I say that now :)

Why the rant? Im very interested in Matt Raible's, Spring Live book but for the reasons mentioned above, I'll probably be waiting for Spring in Action from Manning.

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Posted by Mike Shoemaker on October 18, 2004 10:35:17 AM CDT #


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Re: SourceBeat Anyone?

Comment from Matt Raible on October 18, 2004 12:20:00 PM CDT #
I can definitely respect your opinion that $30 is steep for a PDF. However, now that you can get the book printed, I think things have changed. Also, the difference between a SourceBeat book and a traditional "printed" book is that you get updates for a full year. With Spring Live, I plan to add several more chapters - and you even have a say in what I write about. In that sense - it's almost like two books for the price of one! ;-)
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Re: SourceBeat Anyone?

Comment from Mike Shoemaker on October 18, 2004 1:20:45 PM CDT #
Thanks for your comments Matt. If I buy the printed copy, do I still get the pdf updates or are they separate deals.
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Re: SourceBeat Anyone?

Comment from F. Augusztin on October 18, 2004 2:02:17 PM CDT #
The books doesn't expire after a year. Only you don't get updates after that year if the membership is not renewed.
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Re: SourceBeat Anyone?

Comment from Mike Shoemaker on October 18, 2004 2:39:34 PM CDT #
I realize that the pdf doesn't erase itself, it's the service that expires. My gripe is that if I by a book from the local Borders, it's good forever. I realize that the content will go out of date before forever but that's another story. It seems that SourceBeat's plus is that the content can change over time and your book will stay up to date with fixes and additional content. This is great but the frequencies for updates are not guaranteed. As a matter of fact, as far as I know updates are not guaranteed. The only way this works out in favor of the consumer is if the author adds additional content over your 1 year "lease" and also only if you buy the book during an early release i.e. 1, 1.1, 1.2, etc. By release 2.0 or 3.0, it's hard for me to imagine why they would want to add significantly to the book. At that time, it make's more sense for them to write another book instead. Please keep in mind that I realize this is my opinion and may not be true with all authors.

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