CD-ROMs with Books -- Worth Your While?

An anonymous submitter sends: "I'm working on a new book which would have the Open Source/Linux/BSD/etc community as its target audience, and the editors are very interested in having a CD-ROM included with it. I personally feel that a CD only adds a few bucks to the cost for negligible benefit, since the code is probably outdated by the time you get it. What are your thoughts? Do you get something out of having the code on CD, or would you rather have references in the book or online and download the software yourself? (And lest you wonder why I'm posting as AC, this is a serious question, not a PR attempt.)" I have several technical books with CD-ROMs. I've never used any of them. I'd rather the book have an accompanying website to provide code and errata. But maybe other people feel differently.

Comments

Depends what's on the CD

[Linux_ho]

If it's just code samples or small applications, I'd definitely rather have a link to an online resource. I've never used most of the CD's I have gotten packaged with books. There are two notable exceptions:

1) when the subject material requires access to an application larger than 20-30 MB (big enough so that downloading the latest version isn't practical for some people)

2) a searchable reference. Whether the reference is supplemental to the book or is the exact same material as the book, having it in a searchable electronic format can be very nice.

Depends on the book

[babbage]

Of the books on my shelf in front of me right now, most did not come with CDs, and of the ones that did I actually have used all of them: The Complete FreeBSD, Unix Power Tools and The Perl CD Bookshelf. In two cases, I bought the book specifically for the media, and for the Power Tools book it was just loaded with sorta-but-not-critically useful stuff scattered all over the internet in one useful bundle. Of the books not right on my desk shelf, the portion with CDs is somewhat higher, but of those other books I've barely used the CDs that came with them.

Why? Well, what use is a four year old copy of Python when I can download a current version just as easily? I'd have been happier if that one was a couple bucks cheaper, just as I was happy about the blurbs on the back of Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing and Mac OS9 Missing Manual saying that avoiding the cd keeps costs down while allowing you to get more up to date software. As a paying customer, I appreciate that sort of consideration for my needs and my wallet. So to me, it's kind of a tradeoff among several factors. In no particular order:

• Having the media for a large set of software like FreeBSD is good, because it can avoid a huge download and I can live with a complete but outdated version of things, for a while anyway.
• Having the media for the CD bookshelf is good because it gives you the text -- in this case, of several books -- in searchable digital format.
• Providing the media for smaller, rapidly evolving material like a programming language or major application is less appealing when downloading is a viable alternative.
• Providing a central website is a great way to keep updated while saving some of the publishing costs, but the risk there is that you could lose ready access to the material if the site disappears or moves (like for example the FreeBSD book, though of course that's available elsewhere too; that isn't always the case of course).
• Obviously, the shelf life of a lot of CD-ROMs is limited, and people aren't going to be happy about paying for something out of date. Even if the material happens to be current, if it can be downloaded for free then there's little benefit in having the disc.
• On the other hand, sites obviously aren't eternal but discs come close enough for most purposes (even if their contents don't hold up as well), and download size is a factor to consider.
• Copyright is another angle that your publisher will probably want to have some control over, and no one likes having to go through arcane, tedious hoops to download some tools [I'm looking at you, Apple -- your Developer's site is a royal pain in the ass...], and no one wants to be the victim of an abandoned product
• If you're going to include a CD then you might as well fill up all 600mb or so of available space: if there's room for it and you're not afraid of copyright infrigement, include the text of the book, otherwise throw in a Linux distribution, tools like Perl & Apache [for Unix, Windows, and Mac], pad it out with DeCSS code, etc. In short, make it worth the customer's extra cash. (Slight counterargument: you probably don't want to take on support liability for anything you include, so don't forget whatever legalese would be appropriate there.)

Deciding what way to go is a matter of looking at factors like these & others, and evaluating what you're trying to provide for your customer and what their expectations are likely to be over time. If the digital material is just a supplement to the book, and can be easily downloaded, then most customers will probably appreciate it if you save them a few bucks & don't include the CD. On the other hand, if the book is really a supplement to the discs, and the digital material is difficult or impossible to download (for bandwidth, copyright, or other reasons) then including the CD media is a good idea. Find out where things seem to balance and make your decision from there.