Oliver Brooks

Hi OLi,

Get the timing right and no need for the Alps…just a nice frost, some smooth soled shoes and the hill I live upon…watch out for the canal at the bottom!

Some good ideas here but we have to cater for those who are outside CN, the average punter. The incentive concept here sounds worth a good examination. I need to think more about this. However, an additional commentary section such as seen on the likes of Graham Hancocks site would be a useful addition. Comments from readers and answers from author…or other readers.

Bye the way, not wishing to step on anyone’s toes but there are some problems with the latest PDFs and the book streamer that require sorting. I have made some small updates to both of my books, a few typos and similar, but the latest PDF has great variation in colour to the previous, the earlier version was far superior. The book streamer has some illustrations virtually indecipherable with the latest version.

I mailed Anna about this yesterday but I suppose she hasn’t has a chance to read all her mail yet.

Cheers

Harry

Hi John,

Thanks for the comments. I think some way to be able to charge for content, whether downloadable or streaming online could be great. I will open a discussion about this soon and get everyone’s thoughts together.

Hope you’re well,

Oli

Hi Harry, Sorry for my late reply. I’m in the aweful situation of being in the alps skiing.

Regarding reviews, we would like to encourage feedback and reviews as they provide writers with valuable comments and readers with a (preferably) impartial view of the book. I think an incentive scheme for readers who provide feedback could work nicely. Part of the upgrade is to provide a ‘reputation point’ system. In exchange for useful discussions, reviews or support a user gets points which give them extra abilities around the site and also access to discount codes and competitions. Can’t go into it much here but that’s our thinking. If you can think of any good ways to encourage useful feedback let us know. Perhaps a way for authors to provide incentives or rewards to their readers?

Anyway, I’ll be back in the office next week and I’ll try to give a better reply.

Hope all’s well, Oli

Hi Oli, I just noticed Johns comments.

Regarding writing reviews, let us be honest, how many people would bother anyway? The majority have no interest in writing reviews, only in reading the material they have in front of them.
Again, most potential readers/purchasers are not involved with CN and would have no intention of doing so…unfortunately. They treat the web as any other store and purchase what they want, or read onsite.

Regarding the PDF download or e book, I just looked at a Waterstones advert and prices range between £2.60 and circa £11. Print on Demand is by its nature expensive compared to traditional bulk printing and hence cannot be a competitive for hard copy in small quantities but the e book scenario at CN would be totally comparable with Waterstones for example.

While for me there is nothing to beat the good old fashioned book, it is clear that the reading public is edging more toward the electronic format and hence as prices here are not a problem this is where we should be primarily headed.
Pay for reading over a set amount or timed, given the low cost of e books either would probably suffice as e books are cheap but reading in full for nothing is costing authors sales that I have no doubt would be gained at e book prices.

Cheers

H

Hi Oliver
Harry asked me to read through the debate about online viewing and lend my views.
I’m not really convinced there are many people who want to read my book online in full, but for those that do I would be in favour of charging in some way.
The best suggestions I have seen in the discussion were having a certain amount of pages as free content then pay for access to the full book. CN should take a percentage of this fee.
I agree that charging for pdf downloads or ebooks may mean that people are less inclined to come back to the site and give a review.
Getting a certain amount of time on the reader for free would not be so good, I for one am quite a slow reader and having a time limit to read something ensures that I cannot concentrate on it properly. I’m sure I am not alone here.

Just me tuppeth

John:)

Hi Janet,
Noticed your message about rading Life Is…

To read the book go to the book profile and click the ‘read online’ button which is one of the orange buttons along the top of the page. You should be able to see a reader which you can flick through the pages and have a good read.

Hope this helps. Oli

Hi Oli,

Having looked at the selection of suggestions I feel the most practical would be as follows

Ad supported…small non intrusive adds similar to Google or as the CN site currently displays.

Limited reading on site …possibly timed session

Price to down load PDF of book separate from printed book and much cheaper…say 1/3 price for author plus a little for CN? Gives authors a better chance to recoup something for their efforts. Here we could have a charge of whatever profit margin the author sets as a price plus a small commission for CN.

Supporting website attached for comment from outside CN as with Graham Hancock’s Author of the Month message board. Queries and answers /discussions

I feel that if these suggestions could be implemented authors would have more encouragement and get a better return than they do at present.

The ideas are relatively simple and cover most if not all the problems we are seeing at the moment.

Cheers

H

Hi,

Full of ideas, many thanks. I can see this working in one of many ways. We’re doing a bit of research into these ways at the moment.

• All free to encourage as many readers
• x pages free then pay per page with option to buy full book at discount half way through.
• ad supported – ads by side of page (author & CN split revenue)
• timed session – user gets x mins reading time (as per your suggestion)
• reward based viewing (can read more pages for helpful additions and comments)
• open access for first x advocates of the book, 75% for next y advocates etc to encourage early adoption.
• Donation box

These will of course be in addition to the paid content such as paperback/hardback/ebooks.

The website you mentioned is more of a supporting website. Is this blog and page creation facility something you would like to see? We have been toying with the idea of making an author blog facility so each book can have exactly this kind of content around it.

We’re working crazy hard on this update right now but as soon as it’s done I’ll get these ideas into some discussions.

All the best and thanks for the suggestions.

Oli

Hi Oli,

Another idea regarding the read on line scenario.

I have just been looking at the ‘Book of the Month’ for February on Graham Hancock’s website. This is a fascinating and new study of the Nazca Lines of Peru. The author,David Johnson of New York has a different approach to selling his work.

The site has a good description of the work, content and methodology and he sells on a CD. However he also does an on line internet version…for sale.

This is very much what I have had in mind. A decent book description and a price to read the whole thing on line [or download PDF]and another price for the physical printed book.

see http://www.global-learning.us/ for David Johnson’s page

Graham Hancock site relevant page http://www.grahamhancock.com/forum/JohnsonD1.php?p=2

This is an idea that covers most eventualities and would prevent the occurrence of people reading works that have entailed a great deal of time and effort for nothing. After all, they don’t expect a pint of ale for nothing so why should the product of many years work be any different?

Any thoughts on this?

Cheers

Harry

Hi Oli,

A further suggestion re the read online debate.

I have no idea of the technicalities involved but as an alternative to to the idea of paying to read, what about a timed reading session. One cannot go into a bookshop [which in effect is what we are looking at] and read a complete book without buying…one is expected to browse and buy…or not. Time is the governing factor so could it not be the case here?

Cheers

H