лллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллл WE GET LETTERS! лллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллл This section is devoted to feedback from shareware authors, vendors and subscribers to the $HAREWARE MARKETING $YSTEM or other readers wishing to express their views about the shareware industry or shareware marketing. Files or letters to the editor which are over 50K in length and which are accepted for publication earn a free one year subscription to the $HAREWARE MARKETING $YSTEM. One free offer per author. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of SMS and are intended to stimulate discussion about shareware marketing methods. Please note that older letters from previous editions of SMS, many with HIGHLY valuable marketing information, have been moved to the SMS archives disks. See the GOODIES section of SMS for information on ordering this archived material. ----------------------------------------------------------- Letter from Colin Haynes 9297 Siempre Viva Road, Ste. 14-60, San Diego CA 92173 ----------------------------------------------------------- Colin Haynes, an author of books on computing and other topics, has been researching the present and future of electronic publishing. He believes that behind all the commercial hype about CD-ROM multimedia, there is a unique opportunity for books on diskettes and bulletin boards to become the new wave of publishing - with shareware channels playing a crucial role in a truly historical literary development. Colin shares these research findings and views with SMS subscribers, and would welcome our comments. He travels a lot in Mexico, so the best way to reach him is by hard copy via his mail forwarding service at 9297 Siempre Viva Road, Ste. 14-60, San Diego CA 92173, USA ELECTRONIC BOOKS - THE SHAREWARE WAVE OF THE NEAR FUTURE A particularly significant aspect of the revolution in information processing in general - and in electronic publishing in particular - is that authors can gain much more control of the publishing process. Sadly, most authors are missing these great new opportunities - and so are the originators and distributors of shareware programs, who have created the marvellous environment in which electronic publishing to flourish. But authors are wasting unique opportunities to have our work published in the best interests of the two groups of people who count most in this word business - those of us who write, and our readers. I include thousands of shareware program creators in this author category because your on disk documentation demonstrates your writing abilities. I review a great deal of software, and the shareware manuals so often rival in written communications skills the expensively printed tomes of the commercial software publishers. Being an author can be hell! When the relationship between an author and publisher - perhaps with an agent involved also - works well, it can greatly enhance the author's working life. It can be very satisfying as a writer who has produced a work in virtual isolation, to then interact with members of the publishing team to improve that work and breathe life into it as it goes through the editing, production and marketing processes. But, too often, the author and the publisher either do not develop a rewarding, effective cooperation, or are in direct conflict. Every seminar, conference or other gathering of writers, and every issue of publications that are sincerely devoted to the interests of writers, contain depressing news and comment about the woes of conventional print publishing. Authors blame publishers for the problems and then, when you speak to people in publishing, they blame authors for a lot of their difficulties. Whatever the rights or wrongs, the formal surveys carried out by the Society of Authors, and the informal samplings of author opinions and experiences, reveal that we have become dependent on a publishing industry for which most of us have very little respect. With some exceptions, it is an industry perceived as treating its principal suppliers, the authors, badly, and failing to achieve adequate standards of efficiency and ethical behaviour. Turning words from a typed or handwritten manuscript into print on paper, bound into book form is such a complex, expensive business that it is best handled by professional printers and publishers. But electronic publishing is a completely different ball game that does not require the same technical or financial resources. Authors - for the first time - now have an alternative to their dependency on publishers. Consequently, we should stop bleating and start thinking and acting positively. We cannot use publishers as the scapeboats for all our professional, emotional and financial problems. Now that electronic publishing is here, the scenario is not one of gloom and doom, unless we allow the plot of contemporary publishing history to develop into a tragedy. In view of our collective expertise in all aspects of communications - including controlling plot development! -we are such a potent force that we can achieve meaningful results to harness developments in electronic publishing to benefit authors in many respects. It is now possible for all writers to publish and distribute their work with very little expenditure or cost. But unless we understand, guide and exploit the exciting social, economic and technical trends that make this possible, there will be a repetition in electronic publishing of all the woes of which we complain in print publishing. Those with little experience of computing - and that includes a surprisingly large number of writers - don't understand the many facets of electronic publishing. It is not a limited technical topic best left to those who are proficient in computing. This is the rapidly emerging mainstream of publishing, and so of direct concern to all of us who write - manuscripts or programs - and who are involved in shareware. I have been privileged to have an insight into this most stimulating development for authors. A professional writer for 40 years, with publishing experience also, I have been writing books about computing recently, giving me access to quality information and people in this field. My neighbours while I was working in California included two of the best pioneering intellects in electronic publishing - Ted Nelson, the "father" of the hypertext concept, and Stewart Brand, the guru of creative information processing and communications technology. They are just two of the most visible elements of a great groundswell of activity in the U.S. that is changing how we authors can disseminate our words. Similar developments are starting in Europe also, but on both sides of the Atlantic authors - either individually or through their organizations - are not playing the necessary role if we are to protect our interests in the immediate future, and for generations to come. While the visual, tactile and intellectual pleasures to be derived from a well-produced printed book must continue to create a demand that can only be met by professional publishers, we can very much define the role that we will play in the new wave as, increasingly, the written word will be published on floppy diskettes, affordable CD-ROM disks, and electronic bulletin boards. Already many of us are being forced to create our words electronically. My American publishers now require me to submit manuscripts on disk or via modem in specific electronic formats. For my last book, I even had to enter, on my original MS, the typesetting codes for chapter headings and subheads, indented paragraphs, bold type, etc. It is a very small step - and a very easy one with the shareware programs available - for the author to create the whole book as a finished work ready for electronic publishing. I wrote the manual for such a program and could not believe how easy the electronic book production can be. Cheap, too! Once your text is computerized - which can now be done efficiently from a printed or typed copy using a scanner if it was not originally word processed - you assemble it into a professional electronic book with the equivalent of a cover, appropriate copyright notice and other end matter, chapters, and appendices, footnotes and illustrations as necessary. If it is a non-fiction work, then hypertext search facilities are added so that the reader can find references very easily. Also, of course, there is always the option to print a hard copy of the entire text, or sections which are of special interest to the reader. Electronic books that can be read - "used" is a more appropriate term - on most personal computers are already a reality. An author (or publisher) can produce as many copies as are required very quickly and cheaply. The printed book problems of initial print orders and cost, returns, remaindering, etc. are virtually eliminated. Marketing and distribution channels for electronic books are expanding at a rapid rate, and if you are an author with a book for a specific market that you can reach cost-efficiently, then self-publishing takes on a whole new meaning. This opens up many opportunities for authors - including ways to protect ourselves from dubious publishing industry practices. For example, one of my publishers was recently taken over by a big group, which picked the tastiest flesh from its bones, fired most of the staff, and then declared "out of print" any titles that did not appeal to the bean counters. One of my titles killed in this way was still fresh from the press and had not even gone out for review, let alone been distributed. The effort and investment required to purchase and try to market the remaindered copies of my book as a conventional hard cover trade title are prohibitive, as is trying to sue the publisher for breach of contract. But all rights have reverted to me, and there are particular niche markets for the book that I can reach economically through the editorial columns of a couple of trade journals. It may pay me to forget those piles of printed books in the warehouse, lick my wounds and consider the electronic options. It will take me only a few days to update the text - which I created on a word processor - and turn it into an electronic book using my modest home computer. The same computer can also duplicate the disks to meet orders as they come in. So I can give the book another chance without risking money on buying the existing stock, while my up-front investment in marketing and production are negligible. As recording and duplicating audio tapes to a high standard have now become very cheap also, I can create an audio book version. And I can test another niche market using part of the text as the basis of a business training program on disk using shareware software that turns text into interactive tutorials. Neither of these ancillary markets were of interest to my original publisher. I might well get more satisfaction and money from republishing this particular book electronically than from the original publishing deal - maybe electronic is the route I should have taken in the first place! Academic and scientific publishing will be revolutionized by this ability that authors now have to duplicate and distribute their work so economically, and customize it to particular target audiences. At the consumer/reader end of the process, the role of libraries will be transformed, and the written word will become far more accessible to the disabled and to those who cannot afford to buy expensive hard cover copies of books that they need or like to own. To reverse the communications maxim for the sighted, "a word in ASCII is worth a thousand pictures" to a blind person, who with a PC can turn an electronic book into sound or Braille. Updating of texts becomes so easy and economical that some authors may give away a first edition in order to build a database of subscribers who will pay to get updates. Similar concepts have worked well for computer shareware and to launch consumer magazines, why not for books? I co-authored a book a few years ago with a computer software engineer who gave away as many copies as he could of a program that he had created. He invested his savings in giving away his creative work! His name is John McAfee and now he has one of the most successful shareware businesses. His success is based on giving away Viruscan to people who find it so useful that they keep on sending him small payments to keep up with new editions. Authors now have opportunities to publish works which are not at present perceived by publishers as attractively profitable to be printed on paper, or which are blocked in other ways. The repercussions of this can be enormous. For example, the peer review process which dominates so much academic and scientific publishing will itself have to be reviewed. In some fields it has already fallen into disrepute because of professional rivalries and money motives. Now the scientists and scholars who have to publish to advance their research or careers can get more control of the publishing process - and may even make some money out of it! Books that challenge rigid academic establishment thinking can now be released to stimulate further study, instead of effectively being suppressed. In my current research for a book on the Shakespeare authorship issue I have come across so many cases of genuine people with interesting ideas and theories who became so bitter because their efforts to be heard were dismissed so harshly by publishers and peer reviewers. Now you can publish and get feedback, whether you have cracked a cypher in the First Folio that proves Bacon was Shakespeare, created fusion in a test tube, or have strong political or religious views to communicate. You risk ridicule as well as recognition, but at least you have a chance to be heard that traditional publishing may not give you. The authors of some kinds of work will have great opportunities to make more money, or achieve other objectives, through electronic publishing. But the dilemma for many of us is how to use this exciting new medium to be recompensed for our work. Sponsorship - public and private sector - could be one solution. Or Britain's experience with public library lending rights might provide an international example of how authors can be compensated when people borrow instead of buying creative works. Fundamental charnges are taking place in how we, as a members of an increasingly complex society, communicate with each other. The changes will be particularly significant in how we regard information and writing as intellectual commodities, with tangible values for which the consumers must pay the creators in a free market environment. Authors and experts in the shareware medium must participate in discussing these changes and influencing the directions taken. Let's get talking about this exciting scene, exchanging ideas and experiences for our mutual benefit. There are only a few electronic books circulating through shareware at the moment, but some of them are very good, like the series on cats, the Star Trek parodies, and the briefings on particular technical computing topics. But the numbers will keep on growing, especially as more flexible, portable hardware on which to use electronic books becomes better and cheaper. If you take information seriously, you should take electronic publishing seriously, not as just a technological gimmick, but as a major development in the evolution of communications. ----------------------------------------------------------- SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTION SERVICES P.O. BOX 52 EL PASO, IL 61738-0052 PHONE (309) 527-8579 FAX (309) 527-8579 BBS (309) 527-4232 ----------------------------------------------------------- ATTENTION ALL AUTHORS OF SHAREWARE: Looking for a way to reduce your mailing cost? Tired of sending your programs to vendors who do not exist or never respond? Would you like more time to design those new programs or improving what you have written? Shareware Distribution Services (SDS) is the place! We can give you major savings on mailings and reduce your time spent on distribution of programs. SDS was created for authors so they could distribute their programs at a cost they could afford. Listed below are some of the many services we have to offer. These are only points about the services. If they interest you please send for the complete package that explains all of our services in detail. ******************** PROGRAM MAIL SERVICE ******************** Will cut your mailing cost by as much as one half. We have no set quantity of vendors you must mail to. We only charge for the space a program takes an a diskette. We maintain a database for each of your programs we send. We show who listed your program and who did not. We maintain this for any updates you may want to send to vendors We have a database of 2000 plus names of people dealing in shareware in some way. We offer mailings to diskette vendors or clubs at this time. You pick who you want to mail to or you can mail to both. We can mail to our list, mail to your list or your list plus some of ours. We grade each vendor we mail to. This ensures your programs are sent to vendors who list programs and respond. A vendor response form is included with each mailing. You are informed by us what each vendor did with your program. We do not charge you for bad addresses we just resend the program. Using our mail service your programs are added to our catalog and rebate program. Yes rebate you make money from the catalog also! We are able to handle special needs such as putting the vendor name on your registration form. ******************** DISK CATALOG SERVICE Each author using the mail service will have their program added to the catalog. Each sale of your program we give a rebate back to your mailing account. You can make money from our catalog also. We can furnish a list of who purchased your program from us. This could be used to send out a letter asking why a person did not register. The input from that could be put into a upgrade to make them register. **************** PROGRAM REGISTRATION SERVICE You can send us your registration forms and we will input them to a database. We maintain the database for future needs like notification of new versions or what ever you would like to do. We can do mailings to your registered customers. For a small processing fee we can also send out a authors registered program and printed material. ************************** IN CLOSE These are only three of the many services we have to offer. We are able to meet the needs of most authors and very open to any ideas authors may have. If you who would like to cut your mailing cost in half. Make money from our catalog. Have more time to research and design. Then send a $11.00 registration fee that is a one time charge. This will bring you our complete package explaining all of the services we have to offer. It also contains our complete price list for mailings and has a 30 day money back guarantee. Hurry and do it now. Don't wait till you have a mailing going out to register because you can start to earn credit from the catalog now. Make sure to send your program with the registration fee. We accept checks, VISA or Master card for payment of services. If you have any questions about our services please contact our office. If you would like to register with your credit card call we will take it over the phone. Sincerely, Chris Kangley Director of Marketing лллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллл Please note that older letters from previous editions of SMS, many with HIGHLY valuable marketing information, have been moved to the SMS archives disks. See the GOODIES section of SMS for information on ordering this archived material. лллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллллл