Woodworking ebooks - would you?

[PAC1]

Steve
People do not make money authoring technical books in any format. Some do it as a marketing tool for the main business. Some do it just to pass on the knowledge. You simply will not sell the volumes to offset the production and delivery costs. Publishers on the other hand make money selling knowledge.
A good novel will make money so you better get moving on 50 shades of Maskery!
I have just bought the Studley book it is interesting but when you think four people spent four years working on it (not full time), it is not commercial but a labour of love.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Jacob - last of the big spenders, eh? This is the thing, you thought it was "quite a nice selection" and so you valued it at $2, which is about £1.20. I don't think it would come close to paying anyone for the time it took to create it, assuming it is all original material, let alone actually make any money. And big though my head may be, even I think it is unlikely that my fantastic work will ever go viral!

It is not enough to produce something excellent. I've already done that. My Ultimate Tenon Jig is better than any other on the planet. I did warn you about my head. Don't worry, I'm not trying to sell it to you, you are not my target market There are many aspects of woodwork where you know more, much more, than I do.

But you also have to persuade people to value information, and that, in my experience, is much, much more difficult, as your purchase demonstrates. It's worth less than half a pint of beer.

PAC, I think you are absolutely right about the labour of love aspect.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob - last of the big spenders, eh? This is the thing, you thought it was "quite a nice selection" and so you valued it at $2, which is about £1.20. ......

I didn't "value" it I just chipped in out of sheer goodwill! Like buskers - I drop a coin or two even if they are singing "Streets of London" or something equally dreary.

No it wouldn't pay for it but if 1000 people did he'd be into profit - with zero production costs after the first setting up, however many sales. Might need to pay for more bandwidth praps.

Selling on line is very different. Frinstance I just bought some pencils from on-line dealer who sells nothing but pencils (cheap). He has a rating in the high thousands so is probably making a living. You couldn't run a real shop on pencils alone.

 

[Steve Maskery]

1000 is a lot of sales for something that specialised. A lot.

The hairdresser I used to go to wrote an ebook about hairstyles. The sort where you have a pattern shaved into a very short crop. He was very pleased with himself when he had sold 15 copies. That's not a misprint, 15.

 

[petermillard]

1000 is a lot of sales for something that specialised. A lot.

The hairdresser I used to go to wrote an ebook about hairstyles. The sort where you have a pattern shaved into a very short crop. He was very pleased with himself when he had sold 15 copies. That's not a misprint, 15.

It's what they call the 'addressable market' Steve; how many people would be interested in a woodworking book at all, whether print or digital, at any price? Or a tenoning jig, come to that.

Probably not that many, sadly.

Pete

 

[MMUK]

Jacob - last of the big spenders, eh? This is the thing, you thought it was "quite a nice selection" and so you valued it at $2, which is about £1.20. ......

I didn't "value" it I just chipped in out of sheer goodwill! Like buskers - I drop a coin or two even if they are singing "Streets of London" or something equally dreary.

No it wouldn't pay for it but if 1000 people did he'd be into profit - with zero production costs after the first setting up, however many sales. Might need to pay for more bandwidth praps.

Selling on line is very different. Frinstance I just bought some pencils from on-line dealer who sells nothing but pencils (cheap). He has a rating in the high thousands so is probably making a living. You couldn't run a real shop on pencils alone.

I doubt your pencil dealer makes a full time living from selling only pencils. He/she is probably buying bulk from China and selling in their spare time. It's likely just a housewife topping up the child allowance.

 

[MMUK]

1000 is a lot of sales for something that specialised. A lot.

The hairdresser I used to go to wrote an ebook about hairstyles. The sort where you have a pattern shaved into a very short crop. He was very pleased with himself when he had sold 15 copies. That's not a misprint, 15.

It's what they call the 'addressable market' Steve; how many people would be interested in a woodworking book at all, whether print or digital, at any price? Or a tenoning jig, come to that.

Probably not that many, sadly.

Pete

I would have to agree Pete. I don't think I own any woodworking books at all. I don't really use reference material for guidance or inspiration at all.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Indeed, Pete, indeed.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob - last of the big spenders, eh? This is the thing, you thought it was "quite a nice selection" and so you valued it at $2, which is about £1.20. ......

I didn't "value" it I just chipped in out of sheer goodwill! Like buskers - I drop a coin or two even if they are singing "Streets of London" or something equally dreary.

No it wouldn't pay for it but if 1000 people did he'd be into profit - with zero production costs after the first setting up, however many sales. Might need to pay for more bandwidth praps.

Selling on line is very different. Frinstance I just bought some pencils from on-line dealer who sells nothing but pencils (cheap). He has a rating in the high thousands so is probably making a living. You couldn't run a real shop on pencils alone.

I doubt your pencil dealer makes a full time living from selling only pencils. He/she is probably buying bulk from China and selling in their spare time. It's likely just a housewife topping up the child allowance.

He/she has over 125000 positive ratings I just checked. At say even 50p profit on each (batches of 12 etc) that's a lot of money. So if he has another line selling rubbers...etc

 

[RogerP]

1000 is a lot of sales for something that specialised. A lot.

The hairdresser I used to go to wrote an ebook about hairstyles. The sort where you have a pattern shaved into a very short crop. He was very pleased with himself when he had sold 15 copies. That's not a misprint, 15.

It's what they call the 'addressable market' Steve; how many people would be interested in a woodworking book at all, whether print or digital, at any price? Or a tenoning jig, come to that.

Probably not that many, sadly.

Pete

There are 7,509 woodworking titles on Amazon at the moment so I imagine there's some market for them.

 

[custard]

I'm not quite as negative about the prospects as that, the new realities of the media market may have closed some doors, but they've opened others.

The traditional print opportunities have been overwhelmingly biased towards North America for many years, it has to represent at least 70%, and probably over 80%, of the total market for woodworking books in print. Therefore a publisher will surely require a book to feel completely familiar to a North American audience. That would go well beyond simply quoting measurements in imperial, at a minimum it would require all materials and tools referenced or photographed to be widely available in the US and Canada, adherence to US safety legislation (ho ho ho), and project relevance to North American tastes. So the reality is that posit war UK authors will have always had a mountain to climb in order to get into print.

But equally there are advantages. I used to regularly work in the US and was astonished at the prestige attached to a largely mythical ideal of "Old World Craftsmanship". It was embarrassing, because I met many American and Canadian woodworkers, both hobbyists and professionals, who were exceptionally talented and often streets ahead of their British counterparts. But the fact remains that if you can convincingly trade on those heritage values then you've got a built in advantage.

The second opportunity is "narrowcasting", delivering a specialised product to a small, global, on-line audience at a price that reflects the rarity value of the information. As an example, I paid something like £100 for a self published "alternative" Felder machine manual. It would have still been great value at twice the price. The market dictates that most of the publications out there are targeted at the beginner or intermediate woodworker, because they constitute the great majority of potential sales. But that also means there's unaddressed demand for more specialised and sophisticated fare. Where's the book dealing with advanced (non Windsor) chair making? Or gilding, Urushi, and other specialised furniture finishing techniques? Or how to incorporate CNC work into furniture making? For that matter there are no more than a handful of furniture making books with Mid Century Modern central to their thinking, that's odd when contemporary taste is currently embracing Danish Modern style with open arms.

I suppose what I'm saying is trying to interest a publisher in yet another dull re-hash of "how to sharpen your chisel" isn't likely to bear fruit, but the hobbyist woodworking market seems to be growing at quite a clip, and that has to mean there's opportunities for salient and novel information delivered in a contemporary way.

 

[Jacob]

I bought "Woodworking in Estonia" some time back, on line about £30 ISTR.
Can't find it now - it's on one of my computers somewhere or might have been trashed.
But I see Schwarzy is bringing it out in print so I'll just have to buy it all over again!
http://blog.lostartpress.com/2015/03/24 ... 1918-2015/

 

[Jacob]

Thinking about this - it's the wrong question.
Perhaps you should ask;
a. how do I construct a web presence which will attract a lot of visitors? (if you can't do this you can't sell anything and it usually means a lot of free content).
b. how do I "monetize" this?

Selling "ebooks" is only one option.

 

[Steve Maskery]

You are, of course, absolutely right. But I wasn't thinking of selling ebooks, particularly, I was just trying to gauge the appeal of ebooks v. paper ones. I think that what people have said pretty much agrees with my own view. IF I write a book, I shall have to have it printed, and any esales are a bonus.

And if I knew the answers to your very pertinent questions, I wouldn't be in the position I am now.