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Ask Slashdot: Funding Models For a Free E-book?
danspalding writes "I'm an adult education teacher in SF who wrote an e-book about how to teach adults. It will be available to download for free in January 2013. I Kickstarted enough money for editing, design and publicity, but not enough to pay me anything up front. I'm considering making a $1, $10 and $25 version available from Amazon as a way for folks to donate money to me, as well as a straight up PayPal link on my site. Is it possible to produce quality material for teachers to download for free in a way that's economically sustainable? Might readers accidentally pay for a copy without realizing there's a free download and get angry? And where should I host the free-to-download version?"
Is it free or for profit? It can not be both.
Either release it for free for the good of mankind and be happy or make it commercial and try and make money.
If you try to make money off a free book you will be sadly disappointed.
Either is fine. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money. We all need to eat, need to pay the mortgage, and all that shit. However you have to decide with various projects if they are to be free or not. Trying to mix it is never going to work out for you.
So far, Kickstarter has done its job: You got the money to do the project. That's all it really is for. If you deliver the project to your backers, you've fulfilled your obligation and they'll be happy. After that? Well that's up to you.
You can decide to make it free to the world. That's a nice thing to do for the world, but you'll get almost no money. Asking for donations generally doesn't result in much, people tend to donate their money to larger causes/organizations. Reactions from your backers will be mixed, some might be irked about having paid for something that is now free, others will like what you are doing. Either way doesn't matter, you met your obligation to them.
You can also decide you'd like money from it. The backers got their copy due to their backing, now the rest of the world needs to pony up cash if they'd also like a copy. Many KS projects do this. The Kickstarter is to get the shit up and running, then any sales after that are profit.
So figure out what you want more, and then go with it. It is all up to you. Just don't try to do both or it'll work poorly.
I noticed some back there's a mediocre rate of these Ask Slashdot Askers actually ever coming to post in their own threads. I feel insulted posting notes to questions when they are not read by the Asker.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
If it's already written, then you're ready to go viral. We don't want to wait until January. That's not how the modern release cycle works anymore. Release it as a "Beta", with further editing to come later. What's this about funds for "Publicity"? You just nailed an Ask Slashdot, so here we are!
And what's the license? I would like for once to see texts released in one of the Creative Commons licenses, and not the straight "Copyright ___". You say your text is about teaching adults, right? So why not go with the pure "By" (Attribution) license, where you freely allow mashups and chopping and all that fun stuff that used to be praised as "Active Learning". If you try to lock down your exact words it sends a chill related to the basic school methodology of "I am the teacher, so be quiet and listen."
Meanwhile, precisely why are you asking where to host it? Isn't that what Web Hosts are for?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Free ebook, paying print version. http://git-scm.com/book
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
Now I know many of these are not applicable to OP, but it's what worked for me before I moved onto writing GPL software instead of ebooks.
My view is that, if the book is the only thing you have, then, no, you cannot give it away in a way which makes money, other than asking (hoping) for donations. You may be able to ask in such a way that it encourages donations — I've no idea, but perhaps there's some research / advice on this — but, at the end of the day, you are still only requesting. Where you need to look, in my opinion, is how you could use your book to make money. If the book was one part of a wider means of making money, then you may well be able to make money from the wider model whilst giving the book away for free — the book becomes a piece of marketing for your actual revenue-making products / services.
Could you offer a printed version, at a price? Would some people pay for a hard copy version, rather than be reliant on something on their computer? If so, is there enough scope in the price of a printed version that, once set, produced, printed and shipped, there's still some money in it for you?
Does someone wishing to implement your book need any consumables which you could sell? Printed templates for class activities and so on? Access to a downloadable library of customisable templates, if not physical templates to be shipped to them?
Could you make money if the book was less free? Rather than releasing it "for free," you could release it under a partly-free licence (such as the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND), and charge for commercial re-use of the work (e.g. someone using excerpts in other textbooks and so on (where this would be more than non-infringing / fair use))?
Is there any value in offering your time/services to readers? Much like the open source support model, the code/book is there for free, but, if you need a hand with something in particular, such as working out how to implement your technique in a particular environment, or designing something for a particular school, even devising a taught course to train teachers, you pay for support. A consultation via Skype may well be desirable to some people, even running an actual course in person?
O'Reilly discovered that people will pay real money for a printed copy even when they get an electronic copy of the book free. "Using Samba" was and is distributed free with the "Samba" SMB server program, through the initiative of my editor, Andy Oram, and the book went from a distant third on the subject to one of the company's top sellers of the year.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net