If so, have you had any luck buying and using e-versions of workout books?
I've heard nothing but bad reports from NROL and BOM readers who bought the books for their Kindle. I don't know if any of the new readers will be any better.
The reason I'm asking: NROL III comes out in January 2011. I'll be writing it in the next four months. It would be great to address the e-reader problem up front, and format the print version of the book so it's equally useful for those who buy it electronically.
Thanks for any tips, experiences, or insights you can share.
I have a 1st gen Kindle and bought a hard-copy version of NROL4W due to the charts and pictures I saw when I was flipping thru the book at B&N. I know that the Kindle DX does a MUCH better job at images since it's designed for textbooks but have no idea how the 2nd gen Kindle/Int'l Kindle would perform. You might want to go to the Kindle forum which has a lot of authors there and you might get some good advice.
Don't have a kindle (do have kindle's iphone app, but not a book with pics).
Do have the Stanza app for my touch (iphone app) and it basically reads all kinds of ebooks and pdfs and does just fine with pics/diagrams of the couple books I have on it that have such (they're pdfs). Not sure that's helpful, but *shrug*
I have a second generation kindle. I love it but it doesn't work well for any of the workout books I've tried. Like was mentioned, it's not real good with pictures. The book that's worked best for it that I've tried so far is combat core. It does an OK job at showing the pictures. The thing that is most annoying with workout books is I generally do a lot of flipping back and forth multiple pages which the kindle doesn't do a great job at.
For things like articles on T-muscle and non-picture books its awesome. Reading on the computer is uncomfortable.
You can still get a lot out of the workout books on the kindle (especially the text) but its just not the same. Anyways I'm a big fan of the kindle so if you want me to try anything out that would help you with it I'd be happy to do it.
I have a first-gen Kindle and I love it. It seems to do better with illustrations rather than photographs. I wonder if it would be possible to do illustrations of the exercises rather than photos for the ebook? Just a thought.
I have a first-gen Kindle and I love it. It seems to do better with illustrations rather than photographs. I wonder if it would be possible to do illustrations of the exercises rather than photos for the ebook? Just a thought.
It's an interesting thought, but the expense would be prohibitive.
The photo shoots for the books are pretty elaborate productions. I acquire the space, hire the photographer and models, put them up in a local hotel, pay for meals, etc. And for all that, the actual cost is between $35 and $40 per photo.
If I hired an illustrator, I'd have to pay at least $100 per drawing, and what would the drawing be based on? At some point I'd still have to hire models and shoot them doing the exercises.
With this book the photo shoot is going to be even more elaborate -- we'll be using two models, a male and female, and shooting simultaneous video of some of the exercises.
The perfect-world e-reader would allow integration of the text and videos, and then allow printouts of the training logs -- or, even better, some way to record results right into the text of the training log in the original book.
But that's a long way off, if it ever happens at all.
It's an interesting thought, but the expense would be prohibitive.
The photo shoots for the books are pretty elaborate productions. I acquire the space, hire the photographer and models, put them up in a local hotel, pay for meals, etc. And for all that, the actual cost is between $35 and $40 per photo.
If I hired an illustrator, I'd have to pay at least $100 per drawing, and what would the drawing be based on? At some point I'd still have to hire models and shoot them doing the exercises.
With this book the photo shoot is going to be even more elaborate -- we'll be using two models, a male and female, and shooting simultaneous video of some of the exercises.
The perfect-world e-reader would allow integration of the text and videos, and then allow printouts of the training logs -- or, even better, some way to record results right into the text of the training log in the original book.
But that's a long way off, if it ever happens at all.
It's rendering images of photos that are probably the issue. You can photograph actual people and have some Photoshop genius convert them into things that look like sketches and drawings. Even cartoons!
It's an interesting thought, but the expense would be prohibitive.
The photo shoots for the books are pretty elaborate productions. I acquire the space, hire the photographer and models, put them up in a local hotel, pay for meals, etc. And for all that, the actual cost is between $35 and $40 per photo.
If I hired an illustrator, I'd have to pay at least $100 per drawing, and what would the drawing be based on? At some point I'd still have to hire models and shoot them doing the exercises.
With this book the photo shoot is going to be even more elaborate -- we'll be using two models, a male and female, and shooting simultaneous video of some of the exercises.
The perfect-world e-reader would allow integration of the text and videos, and then allow printouts of the training logs -- or, even better, some way to record results right into the text of the training log in the original book.
But that's a long way off, if it ever happens at all.
Dude I will do it for $20 a picture. I will even wear a wig for the girl ones...
Danny
__________________
Limitations are for people who have them.
I'll throw in the suggestion that people have "official" images they can look up online that are the images from the book, so while they won't have while reading, they will at least have access without purchasing a paper copy.
Lou,
I think you should offer an ebook version and let the consumer choose what format they want to read it in. I can see how a an ebook would be inconvenient for a person who is not familiar with all the lifts but for anyone who has some lifting experience the convenience of being able to purchase an ebook might far outweigh the downside. In either case the consumer is king.
I am a new Kindle2 user - let me offer this. It isn't just the photos. Any charts or forms or graphs that might be in a book are unreadable on the small screen. Small fonts can be enlarged, small pictures - well there is no "zoom in" option.
I've looked at samples of several IT books that would be handy to have on an e-reader but I can't see the figures well enough to make it worthwhile.
I'd agree with Aoife - some external source for any figures, charts or illustrations. It might be annoying while reading on the e-reader to have to skip over and then remember to come back online to see the graphic, but having it available from the outset would appear very forward thinking to me.
I use my iPhone as my e-reader and it works well for text. I can read PDFs okay on it and since it has easy zoom in/out capabilities PDF graphics are easy to make out.
Maybe just sell a PDF version along with the hardcopy book?
__________________
"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -- T.S. Eliot
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."-- Aristotle
Another Stanza/iPhone ebook reader here. The only fitness ebook I've read on it is Wendler's 5/3/1. It came as a pdf, iirc. The charts & tables suck in a most sucky way. No problem with the pdf on my computer, though.
Guess I made it sound like 5/3/1 itself sucked in the charts. Not so. Loved it on the computer (adobe reader) and all was fine. The charts just got funky when I read it on Stanza on the iPhone.
sorry - didn't mean to make it sound like that's what you meant.
I acutally meant that I liked using the Adobe Digital Reader for the regular pdf better than using the generic Adobe Reader. I like the features better.
Lou,
I think you should offer an ebook version and let the consumer choose what format they want to read it in. I can see how a an ebook would be inconvenient for a person who is not familiar with all the lifts but for anyone who has some lifting experience the convenience of being able to purchase an ebook might far outweigh the downside. In either case the consumer is king.
I attended a webinar yesterday on ebook technology. Most of it was over my head -- when you don't even know for sure what XML is, it's hard to appreciate how easy it easy to convert XML to .epub -- but the impression I got is that every single format has conversion issues with charts, graphs, and photos.
IOW, as soon as you stray from straight text, you need a professional ebook wrangler to reformat your charts and graphs for each particular ebook format.
The problem with publishing a book in the .pdf format is security. For a publisher like Penguin or Rodale, there's an enormous up-front cost -- staff, production, printing, and marketing, on top of the millions of dollars they pay authors like me and Dan Brown. (My next book is called The Lost Symbol Workout.) The margins are thin. I don't know how many sales we'd lose to file sharing, but we're in a business where every sale counts.
That said, I'd love for people who buy the book to be able to download the workout charts so they can take them to the gym. At Rodale we did that with Book of Muscle -- people who sent us proof of purchase got a CD-ROM with printable workout charts. That might be something Alwyn and I can pull off.
Instead of a CD, could you just send them to a password protected site after they prove their purchase? Maybe part of the site security includes POP?
Jamie, thanks for the suggestion. I didn't mean we'd send out CDs -- we only did that because the files were too big to email, and the technology for password-protected downloads wasn't available to us.
It's still a year off, so I have time and a good web guy on my side.
Jamie, thanks for the suggestion. I didn't mean we'd send out CDs -- we only did that because the files were too big to email, and the technology for password-protected downloads wasn't available to us.
It's still a year off, so I have time and a good web guy on my side.
I do machine embroidery. Some of the purchases I make bundle a CD and book together. I didn't think I'd like it at first but it's actually very nice rather than purchasing the designs separately.
I would pay extra for a fitness book from you that included a CD with printable charts and videos of the exercises. I realize there's a lot of videos available on line but sometimes it's hard to separate good examples from bad ones if you're new to a particular exercise.
I don't have an e-book reader yet but do plan to purchase one soon. However I doubt I'd use it much while working out. It would be one more thing to lug around and I'd be worried about theft or dropping a dumbbell on it or accidentally stepping on it as I'd have to set it down somewhere while lifting. I do however use my I-Pod during workouts and if you were to put out an I-phone/I-Pod app I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
The problem with publishing a book in the .pdf format is security. For a publisher like Penguin or Rodale, there's an enormous up-front cost -- staff, production, printing, and marketing, on top of the millions of dollars they pay authors like me and Dan Brown. (My next book is called The Lost Symbol Workout.) The margins are thin. I don't know how many sales we'd lose to file sharing, but we're in a business where every sale counts.
There is not a one to one relationship between illegal downloads of copyright protected media and a decrease in books sold at retail. Illegal downloads don't result in realized negative margin but providing an e-book WILL result in realized incremental margin.
For me the decision is simple but I am only looking at it on the surface. If your publisher is charging such a high price to e-book your work they should be able to provide you with the expected impact on sales revenue. I am sure they have a close enough relationship with Amazon or other places people buy ebooks to determine how much incremental revenue ebooks generate. I am sure they could provide category specific data. They may be very forthcoming with this type of info because they are trying very hard to push the Kindle. Its been on their home page for a least a year. You know how much that ad space is worth? If you accept their analysis as fact its as simple as a little math to determine if doing it is a go or a no-go.
I cant wait for the next book digital or print I will buy it
And I do agree with others comments. Kindles and other such readers will be obsoleted by smart phones. I have an iphone and read books on it all the time. In a year or two this will be more prevalent especially as the ebook readers for smart phones mature. Here is a real world example... Lets say I and doing Strength I in NROL. Scrolling to page 132, or whatever page its on, is a real pain on the iphone. This is a simple fix and a problem I chalk up to first gen ebook readers. Who doesnt bring their phone to the gym? Now if you had an ap to track my workouts and progress that would be real cool. I would even pay extra for it.
smart phones won't replace e-book readers unless they get the ink technology. I hate reading stuff on computer type screen because its hard on the eyes. Thats why I like my e-reader so much. You can also lay down on the ground or get in the recliner and read using the e-reader as opposed to sitting in this uncomfortable chair and trying to keep your posture good.
E-readers
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