I like something with ‘rationality’ and ‘less wrong’ in it. I don’t think it’s helpful to have ‘the sequences’ in the title if an aim to to have non less-wrongers pick it up.
What are the odds of a physical book? Would make a great gift, and gifting an ebook still seems weird. I’m still undecided about whether I like my books made out of dead trees or not.
Also, who is the target audience and what are the plans for reaching it? I don’t think there are many people who are willing to invest time AND money into a book like this while still not having read the sequences (available freely on the web, and also in all kinds of e-book formats).
For the two use cases I imagine at the moment:
giving it as a gift as an introduction to rationalist stuff feels better with a physical book indeed. Yes, there is a difference between buying an e-book for yourself and downloading the same stuff for free, especially in terms of motivation to actually read it, but on the receiving end e-books still might feel like being sent long pdf-s with a label “you should definitely read this”, in addition to the e-book gifting weirdness (I might be wrong, I never did such a thing before).
buying it for yourself, to be able to put it on your bookshelf. Obviously, also much harder to do with an e-book.
(I usually prefer e-books to dead-tree versions, but then I had nothing against reading the Sequences on the web either.)
Reading them on the web is difficult because of organizational issues. The medium can be an issue too (I generally avoid reading long texts on my computer because of eye issues; I buy hard copies/Kindle editions or print instead).
More information on the target audience would be good, though.
I disagree with including the word ‘rationality’. It has pretty poisoned connotations for much the same reasons as ‘singularity’ does. Spock is basically the lay stereotype for rationality, and I don’t think we want to hit that particular button.
As far as physical books go, it’s fairly straightforward to turn ebooks into dead tree books. Basically the hardest part is getting a good cover for it. Making a dead-tree mass-produced version is only really a good idea if it makes economic sense to distribute. I think the minimum economically viable offer is small enough that it can be done, but that’s more special-ordered books rather than mass-market.
I think there are vanity presses that will print on-demand as people order, without a large (or any) upfront payment. From there it’s just a matter of whether people want the books enough to pay the high price.
For example, there’s lulu.com. (This is not a recommendation as I have no experience publishing through them; it’s just the first name that came to mind.) You can upload a PDF and cover images, choose paper size / type, binding, etc. and publish. They also offer ISBNs and publishing through Amazon.
Their pricing calculator is here. I think you can set any price you want for the book, as long as it’s above the manfacturing cost (and there’ll be shipping charges for customers).
Some examples I ran up:
2500 pages in 4 volumes means 625 pages/volume. (Lulu.com specifies a maximum of 740 pages per book.) I don’t know the page size which comes to 2500 pages, though.
625 pages,paperback binding, A5 page size: $18.38 ($73.52 for full set)
Ditto, A4 size (I doubt the PDF uses such large pages though): $23.10 ($92.4 for full set)
Hardcover, US trade size (6“ x 9”): $27.35 ($109.4 for full set). May be worthwhile since the volumes are large that paperback might fall apart after a few years.
“Publisher grade” paper, which is of lower quality, paperback, “digest” size (5.5“ x 8.5”): $12.08 ($48.32 for full set)
Volume discount is relatively low. 10 cop/ries gives no discount. 100 copies discounts the per-copy cost from $18.38 to $16.54. 300 copies, $14.70 ($58.8 for full set). So group buying will help but not by much.
Personally I would be willing to pay between 75 and 110 $ to buy a nice hardcover four-volume set, as a gift for someone who doesn’t like ebooks.
I think there are vanity presses that will print on-demand as people order, without a large (or any) upfront payment.
Including Amazon, by way of Ingram. I would actually suggest making this available as a Kindle book (or books) as well, although in that event I would recommend setting the ebook price close to the print price as a quality/value signal. The money can benefit MIRI or CFAR, and as long as the print+ebook offered via Amazon is a different edition than the one offered free, there should probably not be any problem with Amazon’s pricing rule oddities.
The plan is to create a PDF, .epub, and .mobi version—just like the Facing the Intelligence Explosion eBook—and make it available on our site, as well as through Amazon and iBooks.
As for pricing we want it to be accessible, so it will either be free or very inexpensive.
Amazon (rather wisely IMO) has minimum pricing requirements for ebooks, though at the moment that’d be $2.99 for books of this size.
However, from a signaling perspective it’s better to have a pricey book that a few people buy and the rest steal, than to have a book that looks too cheap to be of actual value. People also are less likely to read a cheaper book in the first place (even if they bought it) or to apply the ideas therein, since if the author/publisher didn’t think it was that valuable, why should they?
I would pay one of these prices for my own set. I’m a little unsatisfied with note-taking and highlighting on ebooks and would love a physical copy to annotate and wear out.
Using a print on demand (POD) service is an interesting idea. The print quality of POD is lower then offset printing, so I’d be concerned that people might be disappointed in the quality, especially if they payed close to $100 for the full set.
Note that all of those costs are plus shipping and plus whatever cut (if any) the author gets. Fortunately I don’t think the objective here is to make money, just to disseminate the book.
I like something with ‘rationality’ and ‘less wrong’ in it. I don’t think it’s helpful to have ‘the sequences’ in the title if an aim to to have non less-wrongers pick it up.
What are the odds of a physical book? Would make a great gift, and gifting an ebook still seems weird. I’m still undecided about whether I like my books made out of dead trees or not.
Also, who is the target audience and what are the plans for reaching it? I don’t think there are many people who are willing to invest time AND money into a book like this while still not having read the sequences (available freely on the web, and also in all kinds of e-book formats).
For the two use cases I imagine at the moment:
giving it as a gift as an introduction to rationalist stuff feels better with a physical book indeed. Yes, there is a difference between buying an e-book for yourself and downloading the same stuff for free, especially in terms of motivation to actually read it, but on the receiving end e-books still might feel like being sent long pdf-s with a label “you should definitely read this”, in addition to the e-book gifting weirdness (I might be wrong, I never did such a thing before).
buying it for yourself, to be able to put it on your bookshelf. Obviously, also much harder to do with an e-book.
(I usually prefer e-books to dead-tree versions, but then I had nothing against reading the Sequences on the web either.)
Reading them on the web is difficult because of organizational issues. The medium can be an issue too (I generally avoid reading long texts on my computer because of eye issues; I buy hard copies/Kindle editions or print instead).
More information on the target audience would be good, though.
I disagree with including the word ‘rationality’. It has pretty poisoned connotations for much the same reasons as ‘singularity’ does. Spock is basically the lay stereotype for rationality, and I don’t think we want to hit that particular button.
As far as physical books go, it’s fairly straightforward to turn ebooks into dead tree books. Basically the hardest part is getting a good cover for it. Making a dead-tree mass-produced version is only really a good idea if it makes economic sense to distribute. I think the minimum economically viable offer is small enough that it can be done, but that’s more special-ordered books rather than mass-market.
No physical book planned. It would be a very expensive endeavour. The PDF version is close to 2500 pages ;)
Kickstarter?
I think there are vanity presses that will print on-demand as people order, without a large (or any) upfront payment. From there it’s just a matter of whether people want the books enough to pay the high price.
For example, there’s lulu.com. (This is not a recommendation as I have no experience publishing through them; it’s just the first name that came to mind.) You can upload a PDF and cover images, choose paper size / type, binding, etc. and publish. They also offer ISBNs and publishing through Amazon.
Their pricing calculator is here. I think you can set any price you want for the book, as long as it’s above the manfacturing cost (and there’ll be shipping charges for customers).
Some examples I ran up:
2500 pages in 4 volumes means 625 pages/volume. (Lulu.com specifies a maximum of 740 pages per book.) I don’t know the page size which comes to 2500 pages, though.
625 pages,paperback binding, A5 page size: $18.38 ($73.52 for full set)
Ditto, A4 size (I doubt the PDF uses such large pages though): $23.10 ($92.4 for full set)
Hardcover, US trade size (6“ x 9”): $27.35 ($109.4 for full set). May be worthwhile since the volumes are large that paperback might fall apart after a few years.
“Publisher grade” paper, which is of lower quality, paperback, “digest” size (5.5“ x 8.5”): $12.08 ($48.32 for full set)
Volume discount is relatively low. 10 cop/ries gives no discount. 100 copies discounts the per-copy cost from $18.38 to $16.54. 300 copies, $14.70 ($58.8 for full set). So group buying will help but not by much.
Personally I would be willing to pay between 75 and 110 $ to buy a nice hardcover four-volume set, as a gift for someone who doesn’t like ebooks.
Including Amazon, by way of Ingram. I would actually suggest making this available as a Kindle book (or books) as well, although in that event I would recommend setting the ebook price close to the print price as a quality/value signal. The money can benefit MIRI or CFAR, and as long as the print+ebook offered via Amazon is a different edition than the one offered free, there should probably not be any problem with Amazon’s pricing rule oddities.
The plan is to create a PDF, .epub, and .mobi version—just like the Facing the Intelligence Explosion eBook—and make it available on our site, as well as through Amazon and iBooks.
As for pricing we want it to be accessible, so it will either be free or very inexpensive.
Amazon (rather wisely IMO) has minimum pricing requirements for ebooks, though at the moment that’d be $2.99 for books of this size.
However, from a signaling perspective it’s better to have a pricey book that a few people buy and the rest steal, than to have a book that looks too cheap to be of actual value. People also are less likely to read a cheaper book in the first place (even if they bought it) or to apply the ideas therein, since if the author/publisher didn’t think it was that valuable, why should they?
Do you plan on enforcing copyright on the extant ebook versions of the sequences?
I would pay one of these prices for my own set. I’m a little unsatisfied with note-taking and highlighting on ebooks and would love a physical copy to annotate and wear out.
Using a print on demand (POD) service is an interesting idea. The print quality of POD is lower then offset printing, so I’d be concerned that people might be disappointed in the quality, especially if they payed close to $100 for the full set.
We’ll ponder this, but no promises . . .
Note that all of those costs are plus shipping and plus whatever cut (if any) the author gets. Fortunately I don’t think the objective here is to make money, just to disseminate the book.