Vintage Radios book - straw poll

[Aerodyne]

Hi All
As many of you know, I wrote and self-published 'VINTAGE RADIOS -Collecting, Servicing, Restoring' quite a few years ago. It is now long out of publication, though certainly successful at the time. It became onerous to print and assemble the books but at the time there was no 'print on demand' services available.

I have updated the book relatively recently and have it on offer along with others as an 'eBook', sent to buyers via email in pdf form. But I keep getting requests for a 'proper' book.

I'm considering putting a new version of the book together and publishing via Amazon's 'Createspace'. There are advantages to this method, one being the fact that provided the work is entirely done by the author (covers, editing, proof reading etc etc) there is little up-front cost until sales begin.

As you might imagine there is a great deal of work involved. What I'd like to know before getting seriously into a complex rewrite, is:
1. How many people would be interested in buying a copy?
2. If you were interested, is there a particular aspect of the subject you think could use special attention?
3. Presentation in colour, or monochrome? The former costs more.

No, I can't tell you a price except to say that another of my books on Amazon, a fictional effort under a pen name, 350-odd pages, sells for less than £9 (but it is only 6" X 9" monochrome). Obviously I'm not looking to make a fortune from sales as those who have had dealings with me over the years will hopefully testify, so the final cover price will be as reasonable as it is possible to make it.

Thanks for reading this far. If you would like to offer your thoughts on this message, please do so. Any questions can be PM'd to me.

Tony

Paul/Mods: if this message inadvertently breaks rules, please delete it an accept my apologies.

As an avid Kindle user, £3 for PDF £6 for Kindle format and £9 for a proper paper job.

[ValvoStef]

I certainly would be interested, price is not an issue, however I would like to have an 'in depth' guide to aligning AM and FM sets. Regarding to colour, I don't mind, the contents count not the presentation.

[andycapp]

Ditto to all.

[Mike. Watterson]

Real Kindles only do mono.
Colour on paper is a good lot extra.
PDF is obsolete and useless except on 1200 high or better screens, Kindle DX series. No reflow. It's a format really intended for printing.

Kindle £2
Paper (Mono only) £9

A full colour IMO only worth while for a "coffee table" book with all alternate pages a full colour quality image. For a "Hands on" book, Mono is sufficient.

[Phil G4SPZ]

Tony,

As a long-time admirer of your work and an existing owner of your printed book, with which I am highly satisfied and from which I learned a good deal, I personally probably wouldn't buy a re-written version myself. However, I think that your excellent descriptions of cabinet restoration, if nothing else, would benefit from being in colour when the Kindle version appears.

I agree that a price for the e-version of between £6 and £9 would be reasonable, and comparable with other specialist publications.

Good luck with the venture!

[G6Tanuki]

As someone whose interest is focussed on 'communications' equipment [think HROs AR88s and post-WWII Marconi/RACAL/Plessey/STC/Redifon/DECCA-KW gear] - for which the niche of Louis Meulstee's "Wireless for the Warrior" series is the benchmark - it would be deeply inappropriate for me to try and put a value on your work.

Nevertheless, sometimes it's nice to have a quality-bound, hard-copy book on the shelf to reach for when the rain's dashing against the windows, the wind's tearing through the trees and you just want to sprawl in front of the fire with a good book, a tumblerful of single-malt and a dog or two.

Have you thought of offering this? Amazon and a range of other e-book 'print-on-demand' providers will do this for you.

[Aerodyne]

Thanks to all for replies so far. A few points occur to me:
Merlin, have you tried to get a 140 page A4 sized book printed for a selling price of £9, including coverage of your costs but excluding profit? If you have, send me the firm's address.

Points taken, ValvoStef and Andy Capp.

Mike, we'll have to agree to disagree re the merits or otherwise of PDF. As for a printed book for £9, see above. You are quite right about the greatly increased cost of using colour.

Phil, an e-version for Kindle costs the author little or nothing other than effort in preparation, so yes, price isn't a problem. What might be more troublesome is viewing a page with diagrams, photographs and text on the little Kindle displays. I haven't looked into these areas as yet. If anyone can offer their experience of reading technical literature on the Kindle, please do so.

G6Tanuki (and everyone). I wasn't actually wanting people to suggest a value for a book; after all, the value will set itself, once the pagination, format and physical size of the book is finalised. The outcome will be the minimum price possible - a price which, it seems to me from the figures mentioned in some replies, will almost certainly be too much for some forum members.

I have to say it's provided me with food for thought and as things stand presently, the likelihood of a re-write and publication of the book is now more remote.

Once again, thanks for replies so far. Anyone else care to contribute?

Tony

[wireful3]

Tony, regarding reading technical books on Kindle. I personally find it a bit of a problem. As you say the small size of diagrams does not help but my biggest problem is referring back to a table or equation on earlier pages. Perhaps it may be my simple way of using Kindle. It is certainly not as easy as just leafing back in a real book. Perhaps there is a bookmark function I have not found but even then it is hard to recognise a particular table is going to be useful in a later chapter for instance.

[vidjoman]

For me a PDF seems the best way. Easy to download etc. I can print an odd page if I want to and it can be in colour at no extra cost. If needed in another format that conversion shouldn't be a problem to those that want it. Cost would be up to you to decide, but most of the charge does end up with you and not in production of printed copies/profit of Amazon.

[Aerodyne]

I must admit that as electronic text reading goes, my preference is for PDF*. I find the conversion from Word to PDF simple and the results high quality, easy to read on the computer. too. I haven't ever used a Kindle so can't comment with any degree of certainty, but John's comments about Kindle would seem to me to be a fair assessment.

Vidjoman, I've been supplying books for some years in PDF form and never had any complaints and of course you are right, the electronic 'books' when supplied from my website do not swell the coffers of Amazon.
That said, there is still a need for real as opposed to virtual books and it's hard to imagine a time when the printed word, diagram, graph and image do finally bite the dust. Perhaps not in my remaining years.
Tony
*OK, it may be an age thing... but if it ain't broke...

I agree the Kindle isn't ideal for tech stuff, great to read in bed though (it saves the page when you drop off). Also the Kindle PC programme (called an ap now) lets you see all the diagrams in colour and at high resolution (assuming they where in high resolution and colour in the first place).

[dave walsh]

Whilst I agree it's the "content that counts" in one sense [knowledge is power] I lean towards Tanuki's post 7* point about the enjoyment of owning a quality Hard or Soft back [in colour] when that option is available. This would apply particularly to to Tony's efforts and realistically, something like £15-£30 will
probaly be the range for the full Monty!

I've gained the impression, at Swapmeets etc over the years, that often out of print limited hardback editions, eg "The Setmakers" are often snatched up for the reason of scarcity-sometimes feeling a bit guilty if I've got there first
Dave W

[Aerodyne]

Good points, Dave. I agree that a well-produced printed book for me still surpasses other form of reading material.

And you are right about scarcity value. It might be hard to believe, but the book I've been considering updating - my first, hand-produced effort - has been seen on Ebay and Amazon (both used of course) at prices over £50!

Good luck to the sellers if they get it - original price including UK postage was £14.95...
T

[timewave]

I agree with vidjoman #10.
When I'm working on something, I like to have the circuit or alignment procedure etc propped up at the rear or alongside the equipment. I feel sure that Kindles don't bounce very well, appreciate solder splats or enjoy having tools dropped on them.

John G4IJD

[Station X]

I have one of the original Kindles with a black and white screen and a keyboard. It's great for storing vast numbers of novels which have no pictures. However when it comes to non-fiction books with drawings, diagrams and pictures it's useless.

So were I in the market for this book, which I'm not, I'd want a paper version.

[Mike. Watterson]

I swapped my small Kindle for the 9.7" Kindle DXG. It's needed for R&TVS. Traders, PDFs etc.
But pictures do work in Mono even on small Kindle, if NOT a PDF and properly authored.
Almost every PDF I ever received is not convertable except to images. Its a format DESIGNED for PRINTING and LARGE screens. eBooks internally use HTML so that the text reflows like a responsive web page. Images for eBook need good design and have size constraints.

For a book like this paper is far the best. But I have converted MS Word to HTML (Save as Filtered Webpage) and by setting the Word HTML Export properties for Image DPi properly, care with size of tables and images, it does all work on the small kindles. The same HTML can import into an ePUB creator for Kobo readers.

The small kindle is no good for existing documents not properly designed for eBook. That's why I got the Kindle DXG (only on amazon.com but there is an international purchase link).

Paper is best for it.

P.S. I do have Vintage Valve Radios (paper format) marked (Christmas 2011) time flies!

[Dickie]

Re post #8, as a comparison, the book "Ekco Sounds", published a year ago, has 147 pages of (slightly larger than ) A5, and a cover price of £9.99.

[richrussell]

I've got a lot of technical manuals in PDF format (mainly car workshop manuals), and the big advantage they have over paper books is the ability to search for text. I often will be using my laptop for some associated activity (eg reading car diagnostics, programming Arduino etc) so they're already to hand.

I too don't find Kindle great for technical books (I've got a Paperwhite), however it is small enough to put in a pocket when lugging a laptop about isn't preferable. I just dump the PDFs on it directly. I've even got some technical books on the Kindle app on my iPhone - as well as hundreds of novels and other books of course. The Kindle Windows 8 app isn't bad though for larger diagrams and so on, but not as flexible as a PDF reader is.

My preference for this sort of book would be PDF, though having a paper copy to leaf through when not looking for something specific can be handy.

[Aerodyne]

Well, seems like the overall consensus is that a printed book is probably to be preferred over a Kindle (ebook) version. I should point out that it is quite practical to offer in both formats; it simply means more work for the author/publisher/book designer (Me, in this case).
Such a book would - again, based upon the comments here - be monochrome and of an adequate size for easy reading, probably 10" X 8".
It follows then that I personally have doubts about the suitability of Kindle for the type of book we are discussing.
Thanks again to all who contributed to this discussion topic. Anyone else care to add a comment?
Tony