Sharing our Knowledge
Part 7: Publishing Options
Sharing our Knowledge is a series of articles about the Historian Archives Project and how you can become involved.
If our “Preliminary Information” volumes are careful to only include information not already printed in our 7 bound volumes, we can use these books on CD to stimulate our printed book sales. When someone buys a Preliminary Information volume and studies the information, they are likely to realize that they’d like one or more of the bound volumes – and we’ll make sure they know where to purchase that bound volume! Meanwhile, the “Preliminary Information” books on CD become a new source of income.
Computer File Security
If our “Preliminary Information” books on CD are separated along the same lines as the 5 Strong Updates volumes, we can create a “value added” package to stimulate book sales. When you buy the book, we also include the CD with the Preliminary Information updates for that book.
Since a “Preliminary Information” CD is simply one or more PDF or media files, we can also make them available for sale online as an “instant download.” This option will particularly appeal to the younger generation, and saves the expense of creating and mailing a CD.
In short, as soon as we have good coherent well-organized digital content to publish, we have quite a range of options. We create a new source of revenue, and we stimulate our hardcover book sales to boot.
The digital content already exists. What we need are patient, knowledgeable, meticulous editors/compilers who can assemble what we have into usable form. The nice part is the nearly-instant gratification following a job well done. As soon as a particular Preliminary Update volume is ready, we can publish it. We don’t need to wait months or years for the publisher, or for the other volumes to be ready. We only need to put it through our own quality control and approval process, and announce its availability.
Please share your ideas!