Spiritual Outreach Works seeks a publisher who is comfortable with free Internet distribution, value based publishing and our desire to make our information available to all including those who do not have access to or cannot afford a printed copy. What do we mean by those terms?
Value Based Publishing
In this model, the cost of the book must be justified by the value it brings as a physical entity and not because it is the only means of access to the information the book contains. We are not publishing experts and invite criticism and feedback on this model. However, we view the added value of physical publishing as:
- Raw cost - The falling cost of laser and ink jet printing is making this less and less of an advantage but the cost of printing a free document on one's personal printer is still not free. Estimates for a 100 page book will vary from $2 to $15. Buying an appropriately priced book may literally cost less than printing it.
- Aesthetics - Curling up with a good book is still much more attractive than curling up with a computer screen or a stapled pile of 8-1/2 x 11 pages.
- Penetration - Our publishing approach is all about penetration. There are markets better reached by traditional publishing than by Internet distribution.
For these reasons, we see tradtional publishing as a complement and not a competitor to Internet publishing. For example, we would forsee a link on the download page of each publication to purchase the book rather than download it with a window explaining the possible advantages of purchasing rather than downloading.
Free Internet Distribution
Free Internet distribution intuitively seems to be in direct conflict with traditional publishing. We do not believe this is necessarily true. Our experience is taken from the world of software publishing rather than literary publishing. In that market, penetration, exposure and mind-share are critical as the open source movement is demonstrating. Let's propose some hypothetical numbers for illustration purposes. Let's say that for a specialty book such as those on this site, traditional publishing might move 10,000 copies. Word of mouth Internet distribution of free downloads might create 1,000,000 downloads. If we link downloading with purchasing a printed copy of the book, we might see a 10% uptake. That would mean sales of 100,000 copies rather than 10,000.
We recognize these numbers are entirely speculative. However, we also believe that this model will be even more effective for literary publishing than it is for software publishing. Software publishing does not offer any of the added value discussed above. Purchasing media is not less expensive than burning one's own CDs or storing the application on disk. There is no aesthetic value - indeed the downloaded versions are likely to be more current and easier to install. There is very little penetration advantage to boxed software.
Thus we feel combining free Internet distribution with traditional publishing is of great advantage to both. Our mission goals of maximum penetration with no cost barrier to the poor is reconciled with the publisher's need to generate revenue through volume.
If you are a publisher interested in supporting us and exploring these business models, please contact us.