ANNOUNCING THE 1ST ANNUAL MULTIMEDIA CONFERENCE/VACATION IN HAWAII
If you enjoyed reading about how to publish and distribute your ideas using the new exciting electronic medium created by the vast audience of computer users, then you will want to know about the post-graduate course on electronic publishing.
There are now over 2 million CD-ROM drives installed in personal computers today. And this number is growing by hundreds of thousands each month. The reason is that CD-ROM disks can hold the equivalent of hundreds of floppies or dozens of hard drives. Each removable disk can store over 600 MB's of info which translates into the size needed for video and audio files which take up lots of space. New compression techniques are going to bring even greater works to the CD-ROM community and even movies that you now buy or rent on video tape will soon be available on CD-ROM disk as well. They last for about 35 - 50 years and they can't be erased or damaged as easily as any other medium.
Now, the subject of this book is how to publish books like this one, but to tell you the truth, reading text on your computer screen is like watching grass grow! Not that many people are willing to endure it. But watching a beautifully done CD-ROM with great graphics, video, CD quality audio and entertaining inter-activity is another story and people are willing to spend time in front of their computers dealing with this new medium. That's why there are now about 3,500 titles available for CD-ROM's.
But this is a drop in the bucket compared to the potential demand. People are buying CD-ROM drives to give their children more and better education than they are going to get from TV or even from books. Why? Because kids actually love to use a computer to learn and be entertained. It has something to do with the way a young brain is forming while maturing. There is a strong analogy of the Human brain as it develops to the memory in a computer and the way that it 'boots' itself up and 'develops' and reads instructions to react with instructions from a superior intelligence. So, kids, in the vast majority of cases, love to use computers and they learn without even knowing it.
So, the demand for educational works on CD-ROM is growing very fast and will never stop growing. Then, there is a huge demand for titles that instruct adults about computer programs. There is a huge market for publications that companies can use to impress their customers or to sell new products to new customers. There is a huge market for training programs in corporations. There is a market for just plain entertainment like travel, electronic novels, etc. There is also a market for specialized databases like encyclopedias, phone books, but these are already out there from the established publishing houses. But there will always be room for the little author/publisher who has an idea for an instructional or educational title or fun title that the big companies don't have the resources or interest to do.
And, the best news is... it's easier than you think. You can author your program with a MultiMedia authoring tool, such as Asymetrix' MultiMedia Toolbook. This is the best one. But there are several others. You can either subcontract for the video and the audio portions of your work, or go running around the world with a simple still or video camera. This gets graphics into your work. Audio can be produced with a simple tape recorder. Then, you copy it all down to your hard drive, using some of the new add-on boards that are out there for less than $300.00.
After you create your work and are satisfied with the graphics and the audio and the inter-activity, you simply prepare it for CD-ROM with what's called a Pre-press program. That done, you test your work to make sure there are no bugs, if necessary, fix them, pre-press it again, test it again, and when finally up to your expectations, you copy it down to a 'MASTER CD'. These cost about $30.00 and once mastered, you can duplicate this just like a record company duplicates audio CD's for as little as $2.00 each as of the time of this writing.
The Mastering and the Pre-press program is the only part of this formula that's a little pricey. But Bear in mind that this process cost over $100,000 just a couple years ago, but with recent major breakthroughs in technology, you can now buy a CD Mastering drive for under $5,000.00 and the prices will drop drastically again by the time you finish your work. Or, you can rent the machine, or you can go into it with friends to diffray the cost.
But if you have a good idea, the rewards are unlimited. Everything, even the software you now buy on floppy diskette will be more and more available on CD-ROM. Where you work will have CD-ROM drives attached to the network so that they can keep unlimited databases on line for everyone to use. You could literally be the electronic version of Stephen King, or Steven Spielberg of CD-ROM land, because the major titles that will revolutionize the world have not been published yet. Only the most obvious titles have been done so far by the big companies. Books about Dinosaurs and encyclopedias of information are the obvious first titles, but the rest of the world of CD-ROM titles will be published over the next decade. You could be a major part of the most exciting new area of economic growth in the world. Or you could keep on doing what you're doing now.
If you want to learn more about publishing in this new electronic medium, call (408) 423-8580 and we'll send you a brochure about our next MultiMedia Conference. Registration is only $169.00, but there's the expense of getting to Hawaii and staying at the Resort to think about. But if you want to have a great vacation and learn something truly useful at the same time, you can easily justify the cost of attending. The Hotel has given us a special rate of only $170 per nite, but your entire family could stay in this luxurious and spacious room. And we even have a discount from American Airlines for attendees. And, even better, if you intend to become a publisher, you can write off the whole trip on your income taxes and get Unlce Sam to subsidize you just like the big corporations do.
THIS CONFERENCE IS SPONSORED BY THE UNLEARNING FOUNDATION AND MICROSOFT, IBM, ASYMETRIX, TANDY, PHILIPS, SONY AND MANY OTHER INDUSTRY LEADERS PARTICIPATE AS PRESENTERS.
