I hadn't even thought about PDFs (especially online) as a way to bypass the nightmare of getting an imported book -- though I wonder how that would conflict with the foreign rights agents who want their own take out of the costs of selling to foreign publishers, translating, and so on. There are, after all, a huge number of English speakers who might be perfectly happy to pay $10 for an online PDF o' 300 pages rather than wait the year or more before a non-English printed version comes out.
Although I suppose some, if they loved the book enough, might then buy the hardcopy; I know I've read a few authors for whom that would definitely be in the works. The problem is that I doubt I'd remember those authors more than a year later -- other books in the meantime would get in the way.
I do that when purchasing music; that's the basis for my analogy about "staying in the front of someone's brain" -- I'll hear a song on the radio and think, I've always meant to get that band's CD. Then, when I'm finally at a music store (or on Amazon), I don't even remember that I'd wanted to get the CD. It's no longer at the front of my brain; it's been shoved out. So a writer selling PDFs online as a means to let English speakers overseas read, must remain, somehow, in the front of those readers' brains if the readers are to even think to snag hardcopies when the foreign rights go through and become available.
But I agree about the usefulness of other parts of CD-with-book. Gives me the idea that if I were to be able to talk a publisher into doing it (though I suppose they'd say to do it as a site), I'd need to do a flash presentation of DC, with pictures and video. Well, I wouldn't need to do it for you, since you've already had the tour! ;-)
no subject
Date: 21 Jan 2007 07:26 am (UTC)Although I suppose some, if they loved the book enough, might then buy the hardcopy; I know I've read a few authors for whom that would definitely be in the works. The problem is that I doubt I'd remember those authors more than a year later -- other books in the meantime would get in the way.
I do that when purchasing music; that's the basis for my analogy about "staying in the front of someone's brain" -- I'll hear a song on the radio and think, I've always meant to get that band's CD. Then, when I'm finally at a music store (or on Amazon), I don't even remember that I'd wanted to get the CD. It's no longer at the front of my brain; it's been shoved out. So a writer selling PDFs online as a means to let English speakers overseas read, must remain, somehow, in the front of those readers' brains if the readers are to even think to snag hardcopies when the foreign rights go through and become available.
But I agree about the usefulness of other parts of CD-with-book. Gives me the idea that if I were to be able to talk a publisher into doing it (though I suppose they'd say to do it as a site), I'd need to do a flash presentation of DC, with pictures and video. Well, I wouldn't need to do it for you, since you've already had the tour! ;-)