|
Personalization
Just a short thought I'm missing in this discussion:
I think that a level of personalization of the eBook is important. At least for me.
The books I bought from PragmaticProgrammers are personalized PDF. That simply means that the footer on every page says "Prepared exclusively for: My Name". It's like an exlibri. I can generate an up-to-date version of my book in a few minutes visiting their website and providing some data to identify me.
Of course I know that I could anonymize my book in a matter of minutes but since they didn't put any effort in keeping me from doing so it would feel like a very dishonorable move.
And I feel good reading on every page that I purchased these books and supported excellent authors.
Of course, there might be a lot of people who wouldn't feel bad about removing this line and sharing these books for free (as it wasn't intended), but the authors wouldn't get their money anyways.
The "prepared exclusively" line is a means of appreciation and I'd really like to have something similar if I donated for CC-licensed work.
k2r
|