[Hitch]

Originally Posted by kayvon

Thank you all for your feedback. at the risk of sounding defensive, let me tell you why….. I am in Iranian-American, the ancient art of rug weaving in Iran is in danger of extinction. I wanted to contribute to the extent I could. You find my work at Bofandeh.com
I started to write a small book four years ago but it kept on growing. You are correct Hitch,”… This is a work that needed a LOT MORE professional planning and advice than it received….”
In so far as the images not being optimized, I have 3000+ images and I believe they are optimized, the file size was 1 Gigs+ beforehand. Although 450 megs is large, surely in this day and age it is (hopefully) manageable.
At this point, with all its faults and my shortcomings, it is what it is and I need to get it out there somehow. My goal is not to give it away, but I also did not really do this for money. Having the Previous and next view functionality in an interactive pdf really enhances the experience.
Do you think using Gumroad would help with the customer service?
Do you think I could create an app may be?
Thank you for your patience, I know what I am asking is frustrating to those of you who are professionals, unfortunately i can’t help it.

Kayvon:

Please understand--and I say this with all due respect and what I'm going to say next isn't meant in any mean-spirited or derogatory way, but_ honestly, whether you intended to make a profit, or any of that, doesn't really MATTER.

What does matter is the deliverability and accessibility of the PDF or eBook. And again, with all due respect, you've limited what you can do.

I get that you're trying to preserve the rugmaking. As someone who has a few Persian rugs, handed down through my family over time, I do appreciate that. I'm not dismissing or discounting what you're doing.

But it's pretty ambitious. Right?

I think if your goal is to preserve the art, you need to think about making it accessible, to the very people you are trying to reach. It's unlikely that the sort of folks that want to take up traditional rug-weaving, as a way of life, are sitting around with full-color tablet-based eReaders.

Now, that's just my $.02.

Sure, you can make it PDF, but...I mean, my question is, how much traffic does your website get?

I guess that yes, Gumroad would help with the tech details. I wouldnot recommend making an app; apps tend to START pricing around $1500, for one device type (ios or Droid) and then nearly double to do both "main" device types. It gets pricey pretty quick.

Hitch