[00:00.000 --> 00:03.360]  And he's going to tell about a self-publishing success story.
[00:03.540 --> 00:04.280]  Thank you.
[00:10.360 --> 00:16.740]  So one thing before we get started, by the end of this talk, I'm going to give away a copy of this book, which is what I'm going to talk about today.
[00:16.960 --> 00:21.980]  It's about use of networks on shows and control systems that we do for live shows.
[00:22.000 --> 00:26.720]  So if you're interested in that, I have this high-tech trip glasses box.
[00:27.140 --> 00:31.060]  I'm going to pass that around and just put some... I'll trust people here.
[00:31.660 --> 00:32.790]  This might be a mistake.
[00:32.790 --> 00:34.430]  But I'll trust people.
[00:34.540 --> 00:35.610]  Just put some name on there.
[00:35.720 --> 00:38.400]  Doesn't that be your real name, but something that you can claim to me that it is.
[00:38.580 --> 00:40.680]  If you're interested, at the end of the talk, I'll give this out.
[00:40.790 --> 00:41.640]  So I'll pass this around.
[00:53.530 --> 00:53.890]  Great.
[00:54.090 --> 00:55.450]  So I'm John Huntington.
[00:55.550 --> 00:58.970]  I'm a professor of entertainment technology at CityTech here in Brooklyn.
[01:00.510 --> 01:01.610]  Let's see it.
[01:02.950 --> 01:03.970]  I wrote this book.
[01:04.110 --> 01:07.710]  And I'm also a blogger at controlgeek.net.
[01:08.250 --> 01:09.810]  And I do some consulting work.
[01:09.810 --> 01:13.170]  And this is actually my sixth HOPE and the third one I've spoken at.
[01:13.670 --> 01:20.490]  The previous ones were on... one was on entertainment technology and last time was on weather.
[01:20.670 --> 01:22.990]  And it's actually related to... weather is not related to this topic.
[01:23.150 --> 01:25.890]  But the hope is related to this book, as I'll mention in a minute.
[01:26.330 --> 01:31.430]  So I'm going to talk a little bit today about how the publishing industry works for trade books.
[01:31.430 --> 01:32.190]  Not novels.
[01:32.390 --> 01:34.310]  It's sort of a different thing that I don't really know anything about.
[01:34.990 --> 01:36.290]  But trade publications like this.
[01:36.450 --> 01:37.390]  So it's a technical book.
[01:37.470 --> 01:41.550]  It gets used as a textbook sometimes, but it's also just people are interested by it.
[01:43.090 --> 01:44.710]  I ended up self-publishing by necessity.
[01:44.950 --> 01:45.570]  I'll talk about that.
[01:45.930 --> 01:47.250]  I'll talk about, should you self-publish?
[01:47.330 --> 01:49.450]  And if you're going to do that, how are you going to do it?
[01:50.610 --> 01:55.950]  So, oh, and I put in... I realized when I finished this talk that it was all just boring bullet points.
[01:56.030 --> 02:01.030]  So I figured I'd throw some of my photos in just to give you some... wake people up a little bit of graphical stuff.
[02:02.030 --> 02:03.750]  So how did I get started with this?
[02:04.790 --> 02:10.890]  So the way a trade book gets written or gets published, this publisher gets a book proposal somehow.
[02:11.170 --> 02:14.350]  So in my case, they actually came around with a survey looking for reviewers.
[02:14.350 --> 02:16.550]  And I wrote in there, hey, I'd like to write a book about this.
[02:16.570 --> 02:18.330]  This was like 1992 or something.
[02:19.610 --> 02:21.950]  So they could ask for it or you could suggest.
[02:21.950 --> 02:25.890]  If you have an idea for a book, you can go to a publisher, propose it.
[02:26.150 --> 02:27.610]  And they might consider it.
[02:27.690 --> 02:31.230]  They might send it out for review to experts in that field if they don't really know it.
[02:31.370 --> 02:34.150]  If they see a market, they'll contract for the book.
[02:34.390 --> 02:35.890]  And usually that's pretty much it.
[02:35.970 --> 02:37.690]  There's not really agents involved in this.
[02:37.730 --> 02:39.570]  There's not that much money that makes it worth it.
[02:40.530 --> 02:44.250]  And usually most authors say, certainly in my case, we're excited to have the exposure.
[02:45.790 --> 02:47.370]  And this is changing a little bit.
[02:47.370 --> 02:52.110]  But again, on a smaller book like this, I'll give you all the sales numbers here in a little bit.
[02:53.090 --> 02:55.110]  I've never consulted an agent or anything like that.
[02:55.270 --> 02:58.050]  I think I actually did run the thing by a friend of mine's agent.
[02:58.750 --> 03:00.830]  So how... I can just speak from my own experience.
[03:01.210 --> 03:02.750]  So you get contracted for a book.
[03:02.950 --> 03:04.050]  How does it go from there?
[03:04.050 --> 03:08.770]  Sometimes they'll give you an advance against royalties, maybe 500 bucks, 1,000 bucks, something like that.
[03:10.090 --> 03:11.010]  You write the book.
[03:11.490 --> 03:13.070]  It always seems to take a year.
[03:13.230 --> 03:14.850]  Every time I've done this, it's like a year.
[03:15.050 --> 03:18.130]  Because I... and I tried... the last time I wrote, I wrote on a sabbatical.
[03:18.130 --> 03:22.210]  So I really tried to sit down and write like 40 hours a week, and I just couldn't do it.
[03:22.330 --> 03:24.470]  So I ended up about 20 hours a week is about what I could do.
[03:24.970 --> 03:26.490]  Always saying, again, it takes a year.
[03:26.710 --> 03:29.130]  They might pay you for some production work.
[03:29.570 --> 03:30.430]  You should ask.
[03:30.570 --> 03:32.290]  You can negotiate things in these contracts.
[03:32.510 --> 03:37.930]  So you get all the graphics or make them, and you also have to get all the rights for all the graphics.
[03:37.930 --> 03:39.330]  They don't really do any of that stuff.
[03:40.210 --> 03:52.050]  Typically, and for the first edition of my book, you just submit a manuscript in Word or something like that, and then they lay it out, copy edit it or copy edit it first, lay it out, do the graphics layout and so on.
[03:52.230 --> 03:56.630]  And these people are very good at graphics layout, but they most likely know nothing about your topic.
[03:56.670 --> 04:01.750]  So if a graphic gets switched, which is obvious to you or anybody or your readers, they don't know.
[04:01.870 --> 04:03.110]  I mean, it's just that they don't get it.
[04:03.110 --> 04:12.450]  So the first time I had this come out in the 90s, that whole process took like a year from the time I submitted the manuscript until I actually had a printed book.
[04:12.690 --> 04:17.730]  That sped up in the last edition of like three, four months, which is still, as you'll see, is kind of ridiculous.
[04:18.950 --> 04:25.850]  Then the publisher handles marketing, printing, distribution, sales, and for all that, they give you 10% of their growth.
[04:26.050 --> 04:31.150]  So that means if it's not a $100 book, but just I can't do math in my head.
[04:31.150 --> 04:37.030]  So if you have a book that's $100, they sell it to Amazon or bookstore for about $60.
[04:37.530 --> 04:39.090]  You get $6 out of that.
[04:39.290 --> 04:42.150]  So my book, they price somewhere around $60, $70.
[04:42.610 --> 04:44.610]  Typically, I would get about $3 of that typically.
[04:46.730 --> 04:49.550]  So I did three editions of a book, the same...
[04:49.550 --> 04:53.030]  It's a lot of related content, but it's called Control Systems Reviving Entertainment.
[04:53.450 --> 04:58.030]  One thing I always negotiated just because it didn't seem right to me on the contract is that I kept the copyright.
[04:58.030 --> 05:01.930]  So each time they would send me a contract saying they own the copyright, I would cross it out.
[05:02.090 --> 05:03.050]  And they accepted it.
[05:03.130 --> 05:04.330]  Again, you can negotiate some of this.
[05:04.410 --> 05:07.070]  They wouldn't negotiate any higher royalties, but that they would give up.
[05:08.530 --> 05:10.030]  So I proposed a fourth edition.
[05:10.190 --> 05:12.130]  The whole market... and our market changes a lot.
[05:12.230 --> 05:13.730]  And a lot of networking stuff came in.
[05:14.290 --> 05:15.770]  I just went to this router talk.
[05:15.850 --> 05:16.770]  It was very interesting for that.
[05:18.210 --> 05:19.550]  And they were like, yeah, great idea.
[05:19.810 --> 05:21.030]  So let's do it.
[05:21.130 --> 05:22.290]  I scheduled a sabbatical.
[05:22.410 --> 05:24.270]  I'm a college professor, so I was due for a sabbatical.
[05:24.390 --> 05:24.830]  I scheduled it.
[05:25.010 --> 05:28.530]  Then we get a little closer to the time where I need to start writing.
[05:28.650 --> 05:30.050]  And they're like, well, we don't know.
[05:30.430 --> 05:30.750]  Maybe...
[05:30.750 --> 05:32.290]  And it started giving me the runaround.
[05:32.970 --> 05:33.290]  So...
[05:33.290 --> 05:35.030]  And then they also complained about the sales.
[05:35.050 --> 05:37.450]  But on the third edition, they really did nothing to market it.
[05:37.510 --> 05:38.910]  It had some momentum on its own.
[05:39.610 --> 05:41.530]  And they just kind of did nothing for it.
[05:41.530 --> 05:41.910]  So...
[05:41.910 --> 05:44.610]  Which is a theme a lot, especially with this publisher.
[05:44.730 --> 05:46.130]  I try not to name them in the talk.
[05:46.450 --> 05:49.030]  So eventually, I just realized they weren't going to go for it.
[05:49.150 --> 05:50.990]  So I was depressed about this for like a day.
[05:51.150 --> 05:52.590]  I'm like, oh, they don't want my book.
[05:53.630 --> 05:57.230]  And then I realized, you know, hey, with self-publishing, you can do all this stuff yourself now.
[05:57.490 --> 06:01.350]  So just a bunch of Googling around, I realized there was ways to do this.
[06:01.630 --> 06:03.770]  Createspace is the one I ended up using, owned by Amazon.
[06:04.990 --> 06:08.610]  And then I basically just asked them nicely.
[06:08.610 --> 06:12.650]  He said, okay, it took me a while to get them to say they're not going to do it.
[06:12.750 --> 06:13.470]  At least not now.
[06:14.030 --> 06:17.230]  And then once they said that, then I said, well, okay, will you give me the rights back?
[06:17.390 --> 06:17.790]  And they said, sure.
[06:18.110 --> 06:21.190]  So we had to wait a couple months for their lawyer to get around to it or whatever.
[06:21.270 --> 06:23.950]  But then I eventually got a letter back releasing it.
[06:24.050 --> 06:28.230]  So I was going to probably do something anyway, but I probably would have had to rewrite it in some way or something like that.
[06:28.350 --> 06:29.310]  But they just gave it back.
[06:29.810 --> 06:31.410]  Obviously, they're not interested in publishing it.
[06:31.470 --> 06:35.170]  So, you know, why just have a dead book sitting on their shelf?
[06:36.110 --> 06:37.410]  And they're very nice people.
[06:37.410 --> 06:39.450]  You know, this whole thing is not just for them.
[06:39.470 --> 06:40.370]  It didn't seem worth it.
[06:41.630 --> 06:44.850]  So I said, okay, my process here is just to keep the book alive.
[06:44.990 --> 06:46.590]  You know, I'd spent years working on this thing.
[06:46.710 --> 06:47.550]  I'd done three editions.
[06:47.930 --> 06:49.330]  The market had changed a lot.
[06:50.170 --> 06:50.710]  Excuse me.
[06:51.550 --> 06:55.310]  And I just want to make back whatever expenses I had and kind of keep the thing alive.
[06:55.410 --> 06:56.470]  That's all I was shooting for.
[06:56.790 --> 06:59.910]  And the whole process has really been great as I'll go through this whole thing.
[06:59.910 --> 07:04.090]  So the printed version was on July 3rd, 2012.
[07:05.030 --> 07:09.170]  So I was actually... I got it like a couple of days before the last HOPE conference.
[07:10.370 --> 07:11.590]  And I'll talk about that.
[07:11.750 --> 07:14.010]  And that all happens very, very quickly when you get it going.
[07:15.210 --> 07:17.430]  I really wanted... and I'll talk more about this.
[07:17.550 --> 07:21.510]  But I really wanted to have a DRM-free PDF, digital rights manager.
[07:21.510 --> 07:22.390]  I didn't want any of that.
[07:22.530 --> 07:26.190]  But I couldn't find out anybody that would do that as a service back in 2012.
[07:26.630 --> 07:28.550]  Googling around, researching for this talk.
[07:28.670 --> 07:30.150]  Actually, there is a company now.
[07:30.170 --> 07:32.110]  So I'm probably going to look into that when I get some time.
[07:32.690 --> 07:35.130]  So instead, I did an e-book on Kindle.
[07:35.310 --> 07:36.490]  That came out in January.
[07:36.650 --> 07:40.190]  It took me a little while just to get caught up and figure out that whole process, which I'll talk about.
[07:40.370 --> 07:44.550]  So that's just sort of an overview of the whole process that we go through for them.
[07:45.530 --> 07:51.550]  So the way I started is I have a blog that, amazingly to me, gets about 28,000 unique visitors a year.
[07:51.750 --> 07:54.830]  I can't imagine why people are that interested in the stuff I write.
[07:54.910 --> 07:57.270]  But I write it because it's fun, it's interesting to me.
[07:58.210 --> 08:00.010]  And some of the things are targeted to the industry.
[08:00.250 --> 08:02.790]  Sometimes I'll just put storm chasing pictures up, stuff like that.
[08:03.410 --> 08:05.890]  So I get a reasonable amount of readership on the blog.
[08:06.790 --> 08:13.330]  So I wrote a survey, just using SurveyMonkey free tool, to find out how much people would pay.
[08:13.330 --> 08:14.610]  Because I have an audience for the book.
[08:14.790 --> 08:17.110]  Each edition has sold a few thousand copies before.
[08:17.330 --> 08:20.510]  So I wanted to know how much people would pay, because obviously you want to set that.
[08:20.690 --> 08:22.230]  And also what format they wanted.
[08:22.410 --> 08:23.330]  So again, this is from 2012.
[08:24.210 --> 08:27.190]  Things might have changed a little bit, but I really don't think so, as I'll talk about in a minute.
[08:28.430 --> 08:31.710]  I publicized on a bunch of email lists and forums and so on.
[08:31.890 --> 08:36.390]  Had 123 people respond, which is a decent sample size for what it is.
[08:36.950 --> 08:41.610]  And actually, I wrote a summary blog entry of this and sent it to Boing Boing, and I actually published it, which is pretty cool.
[08:42.930 --> 08:48.670]  So the results in, again, 2012, only 13.9% wanted, preferred the e-book.
[08:48.830 --> 08:49.750]  I said, which would you wrap?
[08:49.890 --> 08:50.610]  You can only have one.
[08:50.730 --> 08:51.550]  Which would you have?
[08:51.950 --> 08:53.750]  14% said they wanted an e-book.
[08:53.890 --> 09:01.590]  And I agree with that myself for technical books, because if you look through this thing, every paragraph has a graphic, a picture, a diagram.
[09:02.270 --> 09:04.850]  E-book formats just really don't work very well for that.
[09:04.950 --> 09:06.110]  I'll talk more about that a little bit.
[09:07.490 --> 09:11.570]  I thought... and so the old price under the publisher is like $68, something like that.
[09:11.770 --> 09:15.430]  I don't... and funny, I actually have no record of that, because I had nothing to do with setting it.
[09:15.490 --> 09:16.050]  They just set it.
[09:17.290 --> 09:22.630]  So about 77% of the respondents thought that they would pay about... the maximum they would pay would be about $50.
[09:23.150 --> 09:29.890]  So it's actually... I thought I was gonna charge less than that, but I figured I'd charge 50, and that way I could discount it, which I did quite a bit of, as you'll see.
[09:31.210 --> 09:38.110]  And then it's interesting, there's like a perceived value thing with e-books that they really didn't... wanted to pay a lot less for an e-book.
[09:38.310 --> 09:39.930]  So like $45 or less.
[09:40.030 --> 09:41.090]  There's like a flip point.
[09:41.330 --> 09:44.750]  And I have a whole blog entry, which I'll post my website again if you're interested in this.
[09:44.970 --> 09:53.590]  Really pivoted right around that $50 mark that above that people were willing to pay for print, and then below that e-book price, and they really wanted to drive it down.
[09:53.590 --> 09:56.230]  So I set it at $30 for that.
[09:56.470 --> 10:02.830]  And I also think the e-book is... it turned out okay, but it's a little bit... it's not as good of a layout and so on as the printed books.
[10:02.890 --> 10:04.170]  It's a little bit inferior with that.
[10:04.710 --> 10:05.510]  Sorry about that.
[10:06.250 --> 10:07.010]  So, production.
[10:07.290 --> 10:11.530]  So I wrote this in Adobe FrameMaker, which is a weird layout program.
[10:11.750 --> 10:12.610]  Has anybody ever used it?
[10:12.890 --> 10:13.290]  FrameMaker?
[10:13.610 --> 10:14.530]  Oh, like one person.
[10:15.810 --> 10:20.290]  I know that like the Ethernet standard used to be written in FrameMaker, which is like 800 pages.
[10:20.290 --> 10:25.010]  So it's... InDesign is the product mostly used for layout of, you know, shorter...
[10:25.010 --> 10:28.970]  If you're writing a pamphlet or something that's 10 or 15 pages, it works pretty well.
[10:29.070 --> 10:31.550]  But FrameMaker is really meant to write big, heavy books.
[10:32.090 --> 10:33.350]  And it's been around forever.
[10:33.530 --> 10:34.190]  It's just oddball.
[10:34.350 --> 10:36.170]  Every few years, they think they're going to kill it.
[10:36.470 --> 10:41.950]  And now, actually, there's a whole thing where you can use it to generate, like, dynamic documents and XML and all this stuff.
[10:42.110 --> 10:45.630]  So it's kind of had a resurgence in technical publishing.
[10:45.630 --> 10:50.870]  And if you have a sort of hacker programmer background at all, there's a lot of stuff.
[10:50.970 --> 10:52.510]  It's very logical to a programmer.
[10:53.130 --> 10:57.950]  And you can basically... This thing is one, you know, it's, I don't know, 30 files or whatever in the...
[10:57.950 --> 10:59.450]  But I can reflow the whole book.
[10:59.590 --> 11:02.910]  I can change the whole format of every heading in the book and reflow it in like a minute.
[11:03.410 --> 11:05.630]  And it just... And it's rock solid with that stuff.
[11:05.770 --> 11:10.270]  So it's a... Once you learn it, like every time I go into rewriting and I have to, like, relearn the software.
[11:10.750 --> 11:11.650]  But it works great.
[11:11.850 --> 11:15.690]  And I had already... I had negotiated because I didn't really like the layout that the...
[11:15.690 --> 11:16.710]  Oh, I almost said the publisher thing.
[11:17.550 --> 11:18.710]  The publisher had done.
[11:19.150 --> 11:20.010]  It's not a secret.
[11:20.090 --> 11:21.170]  I just don't want to give them any press.
[11:23.090 --> 11:26.710]  I didn't really like the layout they had done anyway, so I started doing it myself.
[11:26.850 --> 11:27.910]  And it really wasn't that hard.
[11:27.990 --> 11:29.350]  And they paid me for that.
[11:29.470 --> 11:33.990]  They gave me, like, $1,500 that they would have given to a production person to do.
[11:33.990 --> 11:35.450]  So it didn't cost them any different.
[11:36.090 --> 11:38.310]  And then, like, long, boring arguments about format.
[11:38.410 --> 11:42.110]  But in the end, when I was working with the publisher, I just sent them a PDF.
[11:42.690 --> 11:46.630]  And the final product, when I'm working with Createspace, I'm working to send them a PDF.
[11:47.170 --> 11:47.990]  So the same thing.
[11:48.370 --> 11:52.210]  I hired an assistant, former student of mine, to help me with the graphics.
[11:52.230 --> 11:53.390]  Actually draw the graphics.
[11:53.750 --> 11:54.850]  Almost all of them in there.
[11:55.050 --> 11:56.010]  Hired a copy editor.
[11:57.750 --> 12:02.710]  In New York, I just, like, put up on Facebook, like, Hey, who do I know anybody who knows a copy editor?
[12:02.830 --> 12:05.170]  And, of course, being in New York, there's lots of publishing people.
[12:05.830 --> 12:06.990]  So a friend of her friend did.
[12:07.110 --> 12:08.290]  She did a fantastic job.
[12:09.090 --> 12:10.630]  I also hired a cover designer.
[12:10.630 --> 12:11.850]  I think did a great job.
[12:11.990 --> 12:15.890]  And she actually is a... works in the book publishing industry in New York.
[12:16.110 --> 12:18.070]  And so she wanted to get some side work.
[12:19.070 --> 12:22.450]  And she took a bunch of pictures of mine and did a great job with it.
[12:22.990 --> 12:24.190]  Had to buy the ISBN number.
[12:24.270 --> 12:25.210]  That's a little confusing.
[12:26.190 --> 12:27.730]  You could do a whole talk on that.
[12:27.850 --> 12:28.690]  It would be really boring.
[12:29.410 --> 12:34.750]  But the... in Createspace, there's, like, several options that they give you depending on the type of distribution.
[12:35.010 --> 12:36.230]  But in the end, it's, like, a hundred bucks.
[12:36.310 --> 12:37.370]  I'll go over all those costs.
[12:37.830 --> 12:41.010]  And then, when I did all this, it was, like...
[12:41.010 --> 12:42.990]  It wasn't quite a year this time, but it was a long time.
[12:43.490 --> 12:45.690]  And, you know, meticulously go through it and all that.
[12:45.770 --> 12:48.090]  And I had to enter all the copy editing corrections myself.
[12:48.250 --> 12:50.490]  But that's actually not a bad process to go through it.
[12:50.750 --> 12:52.170]  It gets kind of demoralizing.
[12:52.310 --> 12:55.310]  Like, oh, I really do screw up that comma, like, every time.
[12:55.310 --> 12:58.090]  You have to enter that 300 times in the book.
[12:58.830 --> 13:00.590]  And then, literally, I sent the PDF in.
[13:00.690 --> 13:02.670]  And, like, within a week, I had a printed copy.
[13:03.610 --> 13:04.730]  Which is kind of amazing.
[13:04.970 --> 13:09.070]  So, it's really much, much faster than being under the publisher.
[13:10.370 --> 13:14.530]  So, e-books, as I said, they really are terrible for graphics content.
[13:14.890 --> 13:18.270]  There was a bunch of proprietary formats around this couple years ago.
[13:18.270 --> 13:25.430]  But right when I was making the decision, there was a whole brouhaha because Apple would not publish an e-book because it actually linked to Amazon.
[13:25.710 --> 13:26.490]  So, they wouldn't do it.
[13:26.550 --> 13:29.530]  And I'm like, I don't want anybody telling me what to do with my content.
[13:29.790 --> 13:31.910]  So, Amazon doesn't do that.
[13:32.090 --> 13:32.710]  They don't care.
[13:32.830 --> 13:34.350]  They just want the money, basically.
[13:35.250 --> 13:35.970]  Format commercials.
[13:36.190 --> 13:38.950]  I think I blocked it out because it was so complicated.
[13:38.950 --> 13:45.590]  I went through my notes to try to remember what the hell I did to get it out of FrameMaker and into the Kindle format.
[13:45.590 --> 13:46.730]  And I honestly have no recollection.
[13:47.250 --> 13:48.230]  It was so torturous.
[13:48.550 --> 13:50.010]  But in the end, it came out okay.
[13:50.290 --> 13:51.150]  And I'm sure it's gotten better.
[13:51.290 --> 13:52.010]  It's been a couple years.
[13:52.130 --> 13:53.570]  These tools improve a lot.
[13:54.470 --> 13:55.590]  But yeah, you can get it.
[13:55.750 --> 14:00.710]  And the funny thing is when I went on, I finally put it up on Amazon and I accidentally bought it myself.
[14:00.730 --> 14:04.290]  So, I cost myself $30 from the thing.
[14:04.490 --> 14:07.790]  So, every time I go on the webpage now, you've already purchased this, I think.
[14:09.730 --> 14:10.310]  Talked about that.
[14:10.410 --> 14:11.670]  But yeah, again, it worked out pretty well.
[14:11.810 --> 14:14.030]  The great thing about the e-book format, it's searchable.
[14:14.030 --> 14:18.770]  And all the cross-references, I have lots of cross-references there where it says C Chapter 12 or whatever.
[14:18.930 --> 14:20.530]  And FrameMaker is amazing for that stuff.
[14:21.050 --> 14:21.750]  All are in there.
[14:21.770 --> 14:23.210]  I just don't have it in the print version.
[14:24.710 --> 14:29.850]  So, once you have the book finished in Createspace, we're back to the printed version, or actually all of it.
[14:30.730 --> 14:32.350]  There's several ways to distribute it.
[14:33.350 --> 14:38.710]  Createspace has what they just call an e-store, which is basically a link and a webpage that you enter all the content in.
[14:38.710 --> 14:42.250]  I upload a picture of the book and I wrote a little blurb.
[14:42.670 --> 14:44.870]  You have to kind of do some marketing stuff for yourself.
[14:45.070 --> 14:46.190]  It's hard to...
[14:46.190 --> 14:49.510]  Oh yeah, and if anybody else came in late, there's a white box over here that Aaron has.
[14:49.710 --> 14:57.190]  If you want to put in for the copy of the book at the end, just put some... write your name on a piece of paper in there or a business card or whatever.
[14:57.470 --> 14:59.650]  And we'll destroy all those at the end.
[15:01.630 --> 15:04.230]  So yeah, there's an e-store, so just link from my webpage.
[15:04.230 --> 15:06.330]  If you go up there, I just say click here to buy the book.
[15:06.450 --> 15:07.430]  It takes you to Createspace.
[15:07.630 --> 15:13.290]  And then that's... it really works great because you click the link, they actually print the book on demand.
[15:13.590 --> 15:14.550]  So it's a big...
[15:14.550 --> 15:17.770]  If you search around online, just search like Createspace book robot.
[15:18.330 --> 15:20.090]  There's some similar ones posted online.
[15:20.210 --> 15:21.750]  It's basically just a big laser printer.
[15:22.930 --> 15:24.250]  Everything's eight and a half by eleven.
[15:24.490 --> 15:26.150]  They have a robot that shears it.
[15:26.150 --> 15:29.290]  And then a big laser printer for black and white.
[15:29.410 --> 15:32.050]  And they have a color printer for the cover and then a binding machine.
[15:32.230 --> 15:35.830]  So literally, this thing goes, five minutes later, a book pops out.
[15:36.050 --> 15:37.350]  So there's no warehousing.
[15:37.350 --> 15:37.930]  There's nothing.
[15:38.070 --> 15:38.810]  And if I order...
[15:38.810 --> 15:44.130]  I think if you order like a thousand copies or something, they'll call you up and say, Hey, let's look at this.
[15:44.610 --> 15:46.190]  Maybe there's another technology for it.
[15:46.250 --> 15:49.950]  But if you buy a hundred, they're just going to line it up and go.
[15:50.430 --> 15:54.690]  So if you order the book from there, all I do is I get money.
[15:55.670 --> 15:56.890]  You know, a few weeks later.
[15:57.090 --> 16:00.030]  I don't have to ship it, warehouse it, do anything.
[16:00.190 --> 16:00.850]  They just print it.
[16:01.170 --> 16:01.910]  It comes out.
[16:02.050 --> 16:03.390]  They do a great job shipping it.
[16:04.010 --> 16:07.250]  And then I get royalties from them, which I'll actually go through in a minute.
[16:08.750 --> 16:11.150]  And again, all these distribution channels are open to you.
[16:11.250 --> 16:13.990]  You can figure this once you release the book into Createspace.
[16:14.450 --> 16:17.590]  So Createspace works great.
[16:17.590 --> 16:22.170]  One thing I forgot to mention is that there's no free shipping in that like there is in Amazon.
[16:22.510 --> 16:25.230]  But they give you tremendous ability to write discounts.
[16:25.450 --> 16:30.030]  So you can get a kind of alphanumeric code and you can put that out to anybody.
[16:30.030 --> 16:34.630]  You can discount anything up to basically your cost of the book or 10% off or whatever.
[16:34.630 --> 16:38.370]  And I've used that a lot to explain when we go forward.
[16:39.010 --> 16:40.550]  Amazon, you click a check box.
[16:40.570 --> 16:41.550]  It goes onto Amazon.
[16:42.410 --> 16:43.230]  They sell it.
[16:43.330 --> 16:44.450]  They set their own price.
[16:45.490 --> 16:47.070]  My friend Jim and I were talking about this the other night.
[16:47.610 --> 16:49.610]  And I checked and they don't actually...
[16:49.610 --> 16:52.690]  It doesn't come out of my royalties if they lower the price down.
[16:52.850 --> 16:55.590]  So they mess around with their end of it a little bit.
[16:55.590 --> 16:59.330]  Because they're now selling it lower than I can sell it on my...
[16:59.330 --> 17:00.110]  I mean, I could change it.
[17:00.470 --> 17:03.210]  But they're undercutting me through Createspace now.
[17:03.410 --> 17:04.630]  And they offer free shipping.
[17:04.870 --> 17:09.010]  So most sales, as I'll show in a few minutes, go through the Amazon channel.
[17:10.230 --> 17:10.570]  Kindle.
[17:11.150 --> 17:12.490]  It's bizarre to me.
[17:12.730 --> 17:15.750]  A lot of things suck about Kindle reporting.
[17:16.370 --> 17:18.010]  And the format works fine.
[17:18.010 --> 17:21.370]  I think it's a very solid platform, whatever security issues or whatever side.
[17:21.370 --> 17:26.930]  But to get information back out of the system on my end is really awful.
[17:27.150 --> 17:27.450]  I can...
[17:27.450 --> 17:28.530]  Just to collate...
[17:28.530 --> 17:37.750]  To find out how many e-book copies I've sold in the last two years, I had to go download individual spreadsheets for each month over the last two years and then add that myself.
[17:38.370 --> 17:41.290]  In Createspace, you just get whatever you want, download as a spreadsheet.
[17:41.870 --> 17:43.370]  So that back end of that is really weird.
[17:44.170 --> 17:48.570]  And the other thing is they don't give you any ability to offer discounts except for 100%.
[17:48.570 --> 17:50.770]  So you get zero discount or 100%.
[17:50.770 --> 17:52.090]  So I actually use that.
[17:52.110 --> 17:53.110]  I'll explain in a minute.
[17:53.250 --> 17:55.210]  But I can't say, hey, you know...
[17:55.210 --> 17:56.770]  What I really wanted to do was...
[17:56.770 --> 18:01.770]  All the people who had bought the print edition before the e-book was available, I wanted to give them a free e-book copy.
[18:01.850 --> 18:06.090]  And I really couldn't figure out a way to do that without manually spending a week myself.
[18:08.410 --> 18:10.330]  Oh, I should mention, too, on...
[18:10.330 --> 18:12.790]  There's one other channel in the Createspace...
[18:13.370 --> 18:14.790]  Oh, you can't see my mouse pointer, right?
[18:15.050 --> 18:15.410]  The...
[18:15.410 --> 18:21.190]  On the Createspace eStore, there's a thing called Expanded Distribution, where they sell to bookstores and things like that.
[18:21.410 --> 18:28.270]  I initially didn't turn that on because I kind of wanted to funnel it all through the sort of more higher royalty possibilities.
[18:28.490 --> 18:29.450]  But eventually, I turned that on.
[18:29.530 --> 18:31.250]  I think that's worked out pretty well.
[18:31.990 --> 18:32.850]  Again, those...
[18:32.850 --> 18:34.410]  I can't tell where that's being sold to.
[18:34.510 --> 18:34.710]  I don't...
[18:34.710 --> 18:35.750]  If you buy the book, I don't...
[18:35.750 --> 18:36.970]  I never get your name or anything.
[18:37.110 --> 18:39.210]  I just get, oh, a sale took place on this date.
[18:40.650 --> 18:42.510]  So the royalties...
[18:42.510 --> 18:44.050]  I can read that all right.
[18:44.410 --> 18:51.490]  So you set the list price, and then there's a minimum cost based on the number of pages, whether it's color, black and white, that kind of stuff.
[18:52.150 --> 18:55.590]  And then the royalties are calculated out from that.
[18:55.770 --> 18:57.330]  So I set a $50 price.
[18:57.550 --> 19:01.170]  So on Amazon, if you buy through Amazon, I get $23.25.
[19:01.550 --> 19:05.350]  If you buy it on my Createspace eStore, they get $33.25.
[19:05.350 --> 19:12.390]  If you buy it through that expanded distribution, like that would be like through Barnes & Noble or something, because they have to mark it up again.
[19:12.590 --> 19:13.990]  And Amazon wants to keep their chunk.
[19:14.350 --> 19:15.430]  That's $13.25.
[19:15.690 --> 19:19.330]  And in Europe, it's the equivalent in both pounds and euros there.
[19:19.550 --> 19:22.590]  So I'll do a comparison here back to what the publisher...
[19:22.590 --> 19:23.690]  what that costs into the publisher.
[19:24.630 --> 19:27.390]  Kindle has two royalty options.
[19:27.570 --> 19:32.370]  One is like 35%, and the other is 70%.
[19:32.370 --> 19:37.010]  The 70% one, as I discovered, is only for very low-cost e-books.
[19:37.130 --> 19:42.870]  So if you put up an e-book for $2, then you can get a 70% royalty, but you can't get one on a $30 thing.
[19:44.530 --> 19:46.430]  Actually, sorry, I can't read my screen here.
[19:48.050 --> 19:49.190]  It's probably bigger over there.
[19:49.330 --> 19:53.270]  Oh yeah, $10, about $10.50 for the e-book copy.
[19:53.270 --> 19:54.730]  So it's about 30% for that.
[19:56.290 --> 19:57.850]  So here's that 70% thing.
[19:58.430 --> 19:59.530]  So that's the basic thing.
[19:59.690 --> 20:06.430]  Once you upload a PDF to them, I ran a proof just to make sure before it's released publicly, you can do that, because I want to look at it.
[20:06.530 --> 20:08.550]  I actually changed the cover and did a few things with that.
[20:08.810 --> 20:10.830]  And then you click the button and it's for sale.
[20:11.490 --> 20:17.050]  So, I mean, literally, I got the proof copy a couple of days before the pre... whatever, the hope number nine.
[20:17.350 --> 20:19.430]  And then by hope number nine, you can order it online.
[20:19.430 --> 20:20.590]  So it's pretty cool.
[20:21.730 --> 20:22.990]  So marketing promotion.
[20:24.250 --> 20:25.530]  Obviously, you have to do this yourself.
[20:25.530 --> 20:31.710]  And I should mention too, Createspace does offer you the ability to have them do everything.
[20:31.910 --> 20:37.050]  They will do the copy editing, the cover layout, all that stuff, which means they're subcontracting somebody to do it.
[20:37.190 --> 20:38.390]  And obviously, they charge you.
[20:38.750 --> 20:43.930]  It's really not... the fees were in line with what I paid independent, you know, friends of mine here in New York.
[20:44.090 --> 20:45.730]  So I don't know about the quality.
[20:45.950 --> 20:50.350]  And obviously, you can't, like, go over and have lunch with them and work on it that way.
[20:51.050 --> 20:57.630]  So once the thing was released, I had... I sent out about a hundred copies to people who would help me because there's a lot of information in here.
[20:57.770 --> 21:05.530]  And so every chapter, I send to an expert in that area and make sure I'd rather look like an idiot to them than get it out published.
[21:05.870 --> 21:05.930]  Sorry.
[21:06.050 --> 21:07.190]  Did you send paper?
[21:07.650 --> 21:07.970]  Yes.
[21:08.390 --> 21:10.650]  Yeah, I didn't have the e-book when I first released it.
[21:10.770 --> 21:13.890]  So... and then I actually bought a bunch of copies and shipped them myself.
[21:13.890 --> 21:18.210]  And then I realized that Createspace's shipping is so cheap and it's easier.
[21:18.410 --> 21:22.630]  And now, if you... if I want to send you a copy, I just order it myself on Createspace and ship it out.
[21:23.450 --> 21:26.350]  And I'll talk more about that for, like, academic copies and stuff like that.
[21:26.570 --> 21:28.130]  They had this discount structure.
[21:28.130 --> 21:35.790]  So a lot of people that were involved in some way but hadn't spent, you know, hours reading a chapter, I sent them a discount code so they could buy... you know, get a deal on it.
[21:35.930 --> 21:37.490]  I gave away a copy of my website.
[21:37.510 --> 21:43.450]  I think I did a promotion where you had to guess the number of words in the book and the person who came closest I gave the copy to.
[21:43.790 --> 21:46.170]  It's like 100,000 words or something crazy.
[21:47.470 --> 21:50.450]  There's a podcast for our industry called AV Week, Audio-Visual Week.
[21:51.010 --> 21:53.690]  I went on there and gave away a copy on that.
[21:55.030 --> 21:57.490]  Broadway Sound Masterclass we have here in New York.
[21:57.490 --> 21:58.730]  I happened to be speaking at that.
[21:59.330 --> 22:00.550]  Last year I gave away a copy.
[22:01.270 --> 22:03.570]  Stage Lighting Suits, another event we do here in New York.
[22:03.710 --> 22:14.030]  So the thing is that when I... if you're with the publisher, once the book's released, the only... you can call them up or email them and say, hey, I'm speaking at this event in three weeks.
[22:14.150 --> 22:16.850]  Could you maybe give me one copy for free to give out?
[22:16.970 --> 22:17.950]  And they'll think about it.
[22:18.130 --> 22:19.930]  Maybe the... me, I just order it.
[22:20.090 --> 22:22.670]  It cost me $7 and then I give it away.
[22:22.870 --> 22:25.670]  So I keep a few copies around just for that reason.
[22:27.490 --> 22:29.990]  I'm in the Local One Stagehands Union here in New York.
[22:30.150 --> 22:33.250]  So to promote it in there, I gave... we have the email list.
[22:33.330 --> 22:35.390]  So I gave a promotion code for that.
[22:35.730 --> 22:38.430]  I don't remember how much it was anymore, but it was below...
[22:39.510 --> 22:41.290]  it would have given you free shipping, basically.
[22:41.490 --> 22:42.390]  It passed a little bit off.
[22:43.710 --> 22:46.570]  And so any of those things just end up...
[22:47.790 --> 22:49.890]  comes out... it reduces the royalties, obviously.
[22:50.570 --> 22:53.290]  So I took a few ads out in some trade publications.
[22:55.150 --> 22:58.910]  The... and I put a QR code on it so you could scan it and link back to it.
[22:58.910 --> 23:03.350]  I just put a web page on my blog that's not publicly displayed.
[23:03.510 --> 23:04.950]  And that way you could see it...
[23:04.950 --> 23:08.310]  Sorry, I could see it if somebody scanned the QR code and it landed on my website.
[23:08.550 --> 23:09.650]  So I have some metrics.
[23:09.650 --> 23:11.650]  It's not very sophisticated, but...
[23:12.330 --> 23:17.350]  We have the Audio Engineering Society show, which is a big target market for the book here in New York.
[23:17.830 --> 23:22.670]  So I bought a... put an ad like this in the daily.
[23:22.870 --> 23:25.050]  They give out a free newspaper every day.
[23:25.490 --> 23:27.750]  There's, I don't know, 30,000 people at that thing.
[23:27.910 --> 23:28.690]  I got two clicks.
[23:29.590 --> 23:31.230]  So I don't know if it was worth it.
[23:31.630 --> 23:35.690]  Lightning Sound America is a trade magazine that's very good in our industry.
[23:35.690 --> 23:39.050]  I put a couple ads in there, 28 views off of that.
[23:39.770 --> 23:41.010]  So again, I don't know who saw it.
[23:41.110 --> 23:43.750]  These are the people that actually, you know, read the QR code.
[23:43.910 --> 23:45.750]  So... but it gives me some idea.
[23:46.210 --> 23:47.350]  Pro Sound News, another one.
[23:47.450 --> 23:49.210]  I got 18 clicks off of that.
[23:50.230 --> 23:52.570]  I don't know that if it led to any sales.
[23:52.710 --> 23:53.570]  It was a small amount.
[23:53.770 --> 23:57.430]  But I think, again, I needed to get the word out that the book was...
[23:57.430 --> 23:58.830]  The new edition of the book was out.
[23:58.910 --> 24:00.430]  It's really a new book in a lot of ways.
[24:00.650 --> 24:01.970]  And then I was self-publishing it.
[24:02.030 --> 24:04.110]  So this was all about just sort of making an impact.
[24:04.850 --> 24:06.010]  And I'll talk more about that.
[24:06.510 --> 24:09.830]  So I think it helped establish the book in the market to get it out.
[24:12.770 --> 24:13.950]  I got some reviews.
[24:14.870 --> 24:16.850]  Some of these happen spontaneously.
[24:17.430 --> 24:22.190]  Most of them, though, like everything else in that industry, you just need to submit it.
[24:22.330 --> 24:26.990]  So we have a trade organization called USITT.
[24:27.330 --> 24:28.050]  They have a journal.
[24:28.230 --> 24:29.650]  And I just submitted to them.
[24:29.770 --> 24:32.050]  Again, cost me 10 bucks to have it shipped to them.
[24:32.990 --> 24:33.890]  And it's shipped out.
[24:34.030 --> 24:35.530]  And the guy, it turned out it was a friend of mine.
[24:35.750 --> 24:36.850]  He never talked to me.
[24:36.930 --> 24:37.870]  And he gave a great review.
[24:38.010 --> 24:42.670]  But it was one of those really cool moments where I'm literally like sitting on the subway, flipping through the magazine.
[24:42.690 --> 24:43.730]  Like, oh, it's my book.
[24:43.970 --> 24:44.290]  What's the...
[24:44.290 --> 24:45.430]  And he...
[24:45.930 --> 24:47.170]  I'm glad he gave me a good review.
[24:47.330 --> 24:48.010]  But it was really...
[24:48.010 --> 24:48.730]  That was a fun...
[24:48.730 --> 24:50.010]  That was a really fun time.
[24:51.350 --> 24:52.710]  Stage Direction is another magazine.
[24:52.930 --> 24:54.390]  Lightning Sound America also reviewed it.
[24:55.350 --> 24:57.010]  And those things, you know, there's...
[24:57.010 --> 24:57.270]  There's a...
[24:57.270 --> 25:00.950]  In the trade press, there's a pretty good wall between editorial and advertising.
[25:00.950 --> 25:04.210]  But it certainly helps to get in their agenda if you buy an ad.
[25:04.430 --> 25:07.030]  So I think it was like 900 hours worth of ads that I bought.
[25:07.190 --> 25:08.910]  So it certainly helped to get me on their radar.
[25:10.010 --> 25:10.770]  Academic copies.
[25:10.930 --> 25:20.330]  So another role of a publisher is that if you're a professor like me, and you want to evaluate a book like this for your class, you can ask the publisher to send you a copy for free.
[25:20.330 --> 25:23.550]  I just actually did this for a book for one of my sound classes.
[25:23.730 --> 25:28.290]  And they are now sending like time-limited e-book instead of a print copy.
[25:28.430 --> 25:31.310]  So that's a new development that I just experienced recently.
[25:31.670 --> 25:32.610]  But for me...
[25:32.610 --> 25:34.430]  So I just set up a form on my website.
[25:34.650 --> 25:37.450]  I use a little SurveyMonkey form so you can type in all the data.
[25:37.570 --> 25:39.350]  And then I just cut and paste that into Createspace.
[25:39.990 --> 25:44.310]  And then it cost me 10 bucks, maybe 12 to ship it internationally.
[25:44.870 --> 25:46.730]  That's very slow, but it does go out.
[25:46.730 --> 25:50.290]  And I've sent out 26 copies so far for that.
[25:50.610 --> 25:57.270]  So the nice thing about this is I have all their email addresses so I can follow up with them and say, hey, how did that book work out?
[25:57.390 --> 25:58.690]  Did you end up using it in class?
[25:58.830 --> 25:59.710]  Was there anything that would be better?
[26:00.110 --> 26:00.990]  Do you need something different?
[26:01.570 --> 26:07.310]  And again, with a publisher, they know exactly where all the academic copies are going, but they don't tell you.
[26:07.530 --> 26:09.610]  So they really just... that's not your job.
[26:09.710 --> 26:11.290]  You just write it and they handle the marketing.
[26:11.290 --> 26:14.430]  And obviously, these are small markets that...
[26:15.290 --> 26:17.510]  I know the business better than the publisher does.
[26:17.690 --> 26:19.890]  So they don't really offer me much anymore.
[26:21.150 --> 26:22.130]  Oh, that's one thing.
[26:22.290 --> 26:25.870]  I did have a few requests from England and some other places.
[26:26.150 --> 26:33.310]  And so sending that out through Createspace, the print-on-demand people is great because they handle all the duty, everything.
[26:33.490 --> 26:35.930]  You just give them the address and it arrives.
[26:36.410 --> 26:43.110]  The cheap shipping they do is very slow, but it's so much better than having to deal with all the duty stuff.
[26:43.190 --> 26:45.890]  If you ever tried to ship stuff internationally, it's always a nightmare with that.
[26:45.930 --> 26:47.490]  Unless you do it all the time, which I don't.
[26:49.850 --> 26:50.750]  Google Book Search.
[26:50.990 --> 26:54.750]  So it turns out you can join Google Books as a Google Books partner.
[26:55.350 --> 27:01.190]  And then basically, I just made a PDF special for them, uploaded it, and that was it.
[27:01.530 --> 27:03.610]  Then it took them a little... there's some rig and roll.
[27:03.610 --> 27:07.890]  It took them a while to get to it, to get it publicly released, but it's up there now.
[27:08.490 --> 27:10.070]  And I link back from there.
[27:10.210 --> 27:12.470]  There's a way that you can link back to a sales site.
[27:12.550 --> 27:14.370]  So I link back to my Createspace site.
[27:14.530 --> 27:16.550]  Actually, to my blog, I think, that went to that.
[27:17.030 --> 27:20.710]  And Google, of course, is really good at analytics, as we've been hearing all weekend here.
[27:21.610 --> 27:26.590]  So since I put it up February 14th, I've had 15 buy clicks.
[27:26.690 --> 27:33.870]  So I don't know if that means 15 people bought it, but that means 15 people searched for something, found it in there, and then clicked on the buy link and at least thought about it.
[27:34.030 --> 27:35.570]  So... and that cost me nothing.
[27:36.250 --> 27:38.130]  So that's what's so great about all this stuff.
[27:39.990 --> 27:41.570]  Just... it was kind of a fun experiment.
[27:41.690 --> 27:49.510]  I took out some Google ads, just on some search terms, like show control is a thing we do a lot, or show networks, these type of things who are using networking on shows.
[27:50.150 --> 27:51.150]  And I'd spent like a hundred bucks.
[27:51.250 --> 27:51.870]  I had one of those...
[27:51.870 --> 27:54.970]  I used to get these promotions from Google, like, hey, we'll give you a hundred dollars.
[27:55.050 --> 27:55.670]  So I tried that.
[27:55.790 --> 27:56.390]  I gave it another hundred.
[27:56.850 --> 27:59.310]  It's pretty amazing when you take one of these campaigns out.
[27:59.310 --> 28:07.850]  I would just see the spike in traffic on my website, but traffic all over the place, not just to the link page that I was advertising.
[28:08.530 --> 28:09.110]  So it was kind of...
[28:09.110 --> 28:17.790]  I had a paid direct link to my book, but you just see the sort of noise would pop up the minute that campaign went live, and then when it died out, it would drop off again.
[28:17.990 --> 28:19.170]  So it's kind of fascinating with that.
[28:19.410 --> 28:21.170]  I think there must be some...
[28:21.170 --> 28:22.050]  it's gotta be...
[28:22.050 --> 28:26.050]  when the ads come up, I think somebody must be scraping it, looking back at it, and just going to these...
[28:26.050 --> 28:28.030]  some robot or something, but it was interesting.
[28:30.090 --> 28:31.110]  Again, I don't have...
[28:31.110 --> 28:34.790]  really have a good way to track that metrics, but I don't think there's any big...
[28:34.790 --> 28:36.010]  I couldn't see any results.
[28:36.230 --> 28:41.870]  I mean, if you really wanted to spend a lot more time on this, you could figure this out, but to me, it was just kind of a fun thing to do.
[28:43.150 --> 28:43.830]  I did...
[28:43.830 --> 28:49.510]  We have a great charity in our industry called Behind the Scenes that gives money directly to people who are injured.
[28:49.610 --> 28:53.490]  A lot of people in our field, you know, work freelance, and they don't have insurance or whatever.
[28:53.490 --> 28:55.350]  So they will just...
[28:55.350 --> 28:56.050]  if you have a...
[28:56.050 --> 28:59.870]  like a chronic illness or you're taking down the industry, they'll just give you cash, which is great.
[29:00.050 --> 29:01.890]  And it's official foundation and all that.
[29:02.090 --> 29:14.790]  So I did a promotion with them where if you bought it, again, using a specific Createspace code just so I could track it, then I gave you a $10 discount and then I would give $10 of the royalties to Behind the Scenes.
[29:15.090 --> 29:21.370]  So I sold about 50 copies and then I rounded it up and gave them a thousand bucks, which is fun.
[29:21.550 --> 29:22.790]  So the royalties end up a little...
[29:22.790 --> 29:23.090]  I don't know.
[29:23.310 --> 29:29.130]  I actually couldn't find the exact details, but the number that I sold, I had all this, but I just didn't get it.
[29:29.210 --> 29:31.170]  But so I rounded up a little bit to give them a thousand dollars.
[29:31.350 --> 29:32.690]  So again, it's a nice thing.
[29:32.790 --> 29:38.190]  It's a great charity, but also obviously it's good promotion for me because that email went out over the place.
[29:40.650 --> 29:46.850]  Off the Hook, the radio show done by the people from 2600 who organized this conference.
[29:47.150 --> 29:48.410]  They are...
[29:48.410 --> 29:51.410]  If you listen to the show, you know they're like an internal pledge drive.
[29:51.790 --> 29:56.210]  They're pretty much a pledge drive like 50 weeks out of the year it seems now with all the problems with WBAI.
[29:57.130 --> 30:01.610]  But I emailed Bernie and Emmanuel and said, hey, I just got this book.
[30:01.970 --> 30:04.190]  I'd love to come on the show and talk about it.
[30:04.670 --> 30:10.270]  And I'll give away as many people want to buy at some promotional level.
[30:10.370 --> 30:10.970]  So I don't remember.
[30:11.030 --> 30:17.030]  I think it was about if you donated about a hundred hours to WBAI, then you would get the book on that particular promo.
[30:18.170 --> 30:19.670]  So 12 people did that.
[30:19.870 --> 30:20.730]  And then I...
[30:20.730 --> 30:23.050]  So to me, it cost me about a hundred bucks, a little less than that.
[30:23.110 --> 30:26.050]  Actually it's less because it was sort of bulk packaging to WBAI.
[30:26.230 --> 30:28.950]  And they, I hope, handled the distribution.
[30:29.430 --> 30:31.930]  If you've been listening to the show lately, there's a lot of problems with that.
[30:32.070 --> 30:33.130]  But I think this went out.
[30:34.430 --> 30:36.590]  And so that's a charitable donation for me.
[30:36.690 --> 30:39.210]  And I got to be on the radio and talk about this thing, which is really fun.
[30:41.590 --> 30:44.790]  So the other thing I did, and I was really kind of...
[30:45.170 --> 30:50.530]  I got this idea because of that bizarre thing with Kindle not being able to offer a discount.
[30:50.670 --> 30:51.730]  It's either zero or a hundred percent.
[30:52.370 --> 30:58.990]  So, and like I said, I really wanted to give the e-book copy to the people who bought the print copy before the e-book was available.
[30:59.410 --> 31:03.570]  And I was thinking, this actually has like a serial number in the back, a print code.
[31:03.710 --> 31:06.370]  So I was thinking, oh, I'll have them rip that page out and send it in.
[31:06.390 --> 31:07.250]  I'm like, ah, the hell with it.
[31:07.330 --> 31:10.430]  So I did this thing, pay what you will promotion.
[31:11.450 --> 31:13.990]  So I promoted this for like 10 days in advance.
[31:14.210 --> 31:18.090]  Again, I posted a lot of industry email lists, put up on my website, of course.
[31:19.550 --> 31:23.750]  And then what I did is I just set the discount to 100% for 48 hours.
[31:23.990 --> 31:30.290]  You can do all that in Amazon, in the Kindle, you know, management page.
[31:30.470 --> 31:31.110]  It's a little...
[31:31.110 --> 31:34.410]  I remember being unclear whether it was Eastern or Pacific time, but...
[31:34.410 --> 31:36.570]  So I just opened it up for 48 hours.
[31:36.710 --> 31:37.930]  Anybody could download it.
[31:38.050 --> 31:39.270]  And then I just had a...
[31:39.270 --> 31:43.630]  gave a PayPal address, said if you want to donate something, send some money to this PayPal thing.
[31:43.630 --> 31:45.230]  So the coolest thing...
[31:45.230 --> 31:49.830]  So I had 420 people downloaded it in 48 hours.
[31:50.410 --> 31:53.470]  14% of those people donated.
[31:53.730 --> 31:54.450]  So one thing...
[31:54.450 --> 31:58.650]  I really have no metrics on what the other people are because it might just be...
[31:58.650 --> 32:02.550]  Girl, if you're looking for free Kindle books, you just happen to stumble across this.
[32:02.610 --> 32:03.430]  No cost to you.
[32:03.530 --> 32:04.410]  Maybe you download it.
[32:04.770 --> 32:08.050]  But the really great thing for me is I got a lot of comments with...
[32:08.050 --> 32:11.870]  People would comment when they gave the PayPal or they would just email me, whatever.
[32:11.890 --> 32:14.530]  And I had a bunch of people said, hey, I just got laid off from my job.
[32:15.070 --> 32:16.690]  I'm trying to learn about this stuff.
[32:16.890 --> 32:17.790]  This is really great.
[32:17.870 --> 32:21.450]  I can't afford to give you anything, but I really appreciate it, which is really nice for me.
[32:22.590 --> 32:25.070]  And a lot of students, again, oh, I just started school.
[32:25.110 --> 32:25.710]  I don't have money.
[32:25.830 --> 32:27.410]  So here's five bucks, you know.
[32:27.610 --> 32:28.970]  So that was pretty cool.
[32:30.610 --> 32:32.410]  So 39% of the...
[32:32.410 --> 32:44.530]  So out of the 14% of the 420 donated, so 59 people donated, 39% of them gave $10, 20% gave $20, 7% gave $30, which is the full price.
[32:45.370 --> 32:52.910]  14% gave $5, and two people gave me $1, which to me was 33 cents after PayPal time.
[32:53.050 --> 32:55.590]  So I don't really know what...
[32:55.590 --> 32:56.530]  I don't know.
[32:56.610 --> 32:58.990]  I don't know how to feel if they think it's worth a dollar.
[32:59.890 --> 33:00.290]  So...
[33:00.290 --> 33:04.910]  But again, a lot of the other people gave five bucks, said, look, you know, I haven't really been out of work for a while.
[33:04.910 --> 33:05.950]  These types of...
[33:05.950 --> 33:06.610]  These things.
[33:06.790 --> 33:07.230]  So it was really...
[33:07.230 --> 33:08.790]  It was kind of fun to get that kind of feedback.
[33:10.370 --> 33:12.410]  Amazingly though, I got like 900 bucks out of that.
[33:12.690 --> 33:19.210]  So the per copy royalty for that, given the number that were downloaded, is about $2 per copy, but still is 900 bucks.
[33:19.430 --> 33:19.610]  So...
[33:20.890 --> 33:27.590]  So the other thing I did that I don't think I could ever do this with a publisher is I made lecture videos for my class at City Tech.
[33:27.750 --> 33:30.390]  And I actually have some City Tech students here working today.
[33:30.550 --> 33:31.870]  They're volunteering, which is great.
[33:33.490 --> 33:45.270]  So I made these lecture videos where I literally just take my PDF of the book, put it on the screen, run this Camtasia, you know, capturing software, and do the lectures I used to do at City Tech in person.
[33:45.290 --> 33:45.950]  I now just...
[33:45.950 --> 33:48.830]  I made videos for them, and I just put them online for free.
[33:48.970 --> 33:53.510]  And then I restructured my class so that the lecture portion, we don't meet anymore.
[33:54.030 --> 33:56.190]  And then the meeting part of the class, we start with a lab.
[33:56.330 --> 34:00.210]  We clear up anything that's confusing, discuss anything, and jump into a lab.
[34:00.370 --> 34:03.890]  And that's been two years of that, and it's really worked out great.
[34:04.290 --> 34:06.810]  Could ask some of the students if they thought it was good.
[34:09.970 --> 34:10.850]  I don't know.
[34:11.090 --> 34:12.130]  I haven't tried this.
[34:12.190 --> 34:16.290]  I really doubt that a publisher is going to let you take a clear PDF and put it on the screen.
[34:16.510 --> 34:19.510]  I mean, I'm not uploading a PDF, but you certainly could...
[34:19.510 --> 34:22.210]  Basically, you don't need to read it if you watch the video.
[34:22.830 --> 34:23.990]  But people learn differently.
[34:24.150 --> 34:25.850]  Some people are better read-write learners.
[34:25.990 --> 34:27.990]  Some people are better hearing it.
[34:28.090 --> 34:29.670]  Some people are better watching it.
[34:29.930 --> 34:32.850]  And then I also put a lot of supplemental stuff in there.
[34:33.710 --> 34:36.450]  I would say that this will probably end up making it get taken down.
[34:36.570 --> 34:37.070]  But one thing...
[34:37.070 --> 34:37.970]  It's all on Vimeo.
[34:38.190 --> 34:49.070]  So sometimes I actually went on the screen and I actually run YouTube videos of things related to the content, captured that, put it on Vimeo, and I've never gotten a DMCA takedown notice or anything for it.
[34:49.330 --> 34:50.550]  I mean, it's legitimate fair use.
[34:50.870 --> 34:52.350]  I mean, it's literally a class lecture.
[34:52.510 --> 34:54.790]  I link back to the original video.
[34:54.970 --> 34:58.110]  If I could embed the link in the Vimeo video, I would.
[34:59.210 --> 35:00.830]  Again, I can't imagine...
[35:00.830 --> 35:01.150]  I don't know.
[35:01.170 --> 35:01.690]  Maybe I'm wrong.
[35:01.830 --> 35:04.530]  But I don't imagine my old publisher would have allowed that.
[35:04.690 --> 35:06.610]  And they control the distribution rights.
[35:06.610 --> 35:09.370]  So I would not be allowed to do it legally without asking them.
[35:09.990 --> 35:12.050]  So some of the videos have hundreds of plays.
[35:12.050 --> 35:15.730]  I haven't had hundreds of students come through since we've done this.
[35:15.870 --> 35:16.810]  So that means there are a few...
[35:16.810 --> 35:22.630]  There's some people watching at other chapters that were not students.
[35:22.910 --> 35:24.530]  So it's definitely getting around a little bit.
[35:25.990 --> 35:26.970]  So the results.
[35:28.850 --> 35:31.990]  So I debated whether to just tell the number of copies or whatever.
[35:32.150 --> 35:33.490]  So how the hell would I just put all the...
[35:33.490 --> 35:35.090]  I'll just put exactly what I made up there.
[35:35.310 --> 35:37.750]  So first edition, 1994.
[35:37.750 --> 35:38.750]  It's 2,000.
[35:38.890 --> 35:40.650]  Sold 2,700 copies.
[35:40.850 --> 35:41.910]  About 2,700 copies.
[35:42.330 --> 35:45.510]  It's about $6,000 in royalties spread over six years.
[35:45.710 --> 35:48.130]  So get a check for six, 800 bucks every year.
[35:48.730 --> 35:52.650]  Royalty for that, about $2.35 per copy.
[35:53.130 --> 35:57.550]  And then what I did is I figured it took about 400 hours to do each edition of the book.
[35:57.850 --> 36:02.010]  I honestly, back when I wrote this, I intentionally did not track my time because I didn't want to know.
[36:02.170 --> 36:05.470]  Because I really didn't think it was going to be worth it financially.
[36:05.470 --> 36:10.210]  So about $16 an hour to do the first edition, which really isn't worth it.
[36:10.250 --> 36:14.350]  I can go work as a local one stagehand even in 1994 and make better money than that.
[36:14.490 --> 36:16.050]  But that's not the reason you do it.
[36:16.110 --> 36:18.190]  I mean, obviously, the money is nice.
[36:18.390 --> 36:19.170]  It covers things.
[36:19.370 --> 36:21.110]  But it's really about...
[36:21.110 --> 36:21.750]  This is about...
[36:21.750 --> 36:25.090]  Definitely, I got other value in terms of being asked to speak at conferences.
[36:25.350 --> 36:27.210]  I wouldn't be speaking here if it wasn't for that.
[36:27.350 --> 36:28.610]  This is not going to make me any money.
[36:29.270 --> 36:30.830]  But it gets a lot of exposure.
[36:30.830 --> 36:33.930]  And it helped in my academic career, having a book published, certainly.
[36:34.690 --> 36:37.010]  Second edition, 2,500, 2,600 copies.
[36:37.590 --> 36:41.030]  About $21 an hour for that $3 copy royalties.
[36:41.470 --> 36:43.830]  Third edition, about 2,200 copies.
[36:44.630 --> 36:47.590]  So the sales were kind of declining there in that way.
[36:47.670 --> 36:49.970]  But again, this third edition, I think the publisher really didn't...
[36:50.550 --> 36:52.430]  They did virtually nothing to market it.
[36:53.850 --> 36:55.430]  Royalties was about $8,500.
[36:55.430 --> 36:58.550]  I'm reading all these numbers in case people are listening just on audio here.
[36:58.690 --> 37:01.750]  About $4 a copy for royalties.
[37:01.850 --> 37:03.170]  And about $21 an hour.
[37:03.350 --> 37:10.050]  So, over the life of the three editions of that book, it was between $16 and $21 per hour, given inflation and all that.
[37:10.570 --> 37:14.430]  It's about rough calculation what I was making to write the book.
[37:14.870 --> 37:16.250]  So, again, it's fun.
[37:16.250 --> 37:17.030]  I enjoy it.
[37:17.070 --> 37:17.830]  I like the process.
[37:17.830 --> 37:18.770]  And I like the result.
[37:18.870 --> 37:20.090]  And it's really fun to do it.
[37:21.090 --> 37:22.870]  Financially, it's probably not...
[37:22.870 --> 37:24.970]  If you're trying to make a living that way, it's pretty hard.
[37:25.470 --> 37:25.930]  Interesting.
[37:26.170 --> 37:29.690]  So, the total royalties over three editions was about $23,000.
[37:30.290 --> 37:31.710]  But, of course, that's 10%.
[37:31.710 --> 37:37.390]  So, that means over that time, the publisher took in about $233,000 during that time.
[37:38.570 --> 37:41.550]  And, obviously, I'm not paying for warehousing and all that kind of stuff.
[37:43.090 --> 37:43.690]  I'm sorry.
[37:43.830 --> 37:44.970]  I couldn't...
[37:45.970 --> 37:46.430]  Yeah.
[37:46.990 --> 37:48.150]  Well, the advance...
[37:48.150 --> 37:48.990]  It basically just...
[37:48.990 --> 37:50.490]  It's a good question, actually.
[37:50.650 --> 37:55.670]  If you get a $1,000 advance and you make $6,000 in royalties, it just means it's literally in advance.
[37:55.890 --> 38:00.070]  So, you get that $1,000 and you won't even get royalties for, like, the first year or whatever.
[38:00.390 --> 38:03.250]  And then, you'll get $5,300 later.
[38:03.530 --> 38:09.210]  That's the whole scam of the record companies where they would advance these artists, you know, to make a record.
[38:09.390 --> 38:12.390]  And then, they charge all these expenses against it and they never get any more money.
[38:12.570 --> 38:14.730]  But, in this case, it's just per copy royalties.
[38:15.950 --> 38:17.230]  So, the royalties are just...
[38:17.230 --> 38:17.510]  I mean, sorry.
[38:17.610 --> 38:19.970]  The advance would just be rolled into that number.
[38:22.430 --> 38:24.370]  So, for a self-published sale...
[38:24.370 --> 38:27.670]  So, and it was really kind of interesting because I just added all these numbers up last week.
[38:28.430 --> 38:33.210]  So, I sold on about 1,030 copies of the print edition.
[38:34.650 --> 38:36.770]  700 of those were on Amazon.
[38:37.330 --> 38:39.650]  My e-store was 237.
[38:39.890 --> 38:42.030]  And then, it's expanded distribution is 90.
[38:42.190 --> 38:44.330]  So, that's about whatever number went to the bookstore.
[38:44.690 --> 38:52.350]  That gave me $25,000 in royalties, which is kind of amazing because this money just keeps coming in and I'm like, wow, it's just direct deposits in my account.
[38:52.730 --> 38:53.630]  It's pretty cool.
[38:54.050 --> 38:57.070]  So, the royalty per copy on average there is about $24.
[38:57.070 --> 39:08.130]  And so, comparing that to publisher royalty, it's about $2, $3 per copy under the publisher and $24 per copy under self-publishing.
[39:11.210 --> 39:12.250]  So, the...
[39:12.250 --> 39:13.870]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[39:20.870 --> 39:22.590]  And eventually, when they get the...
[39:22.590 --> 39:24.050]  I guess they're going to talk streaming.
[39:24.190 --> 39:24.950]  I don't know if they're going to archive it.
[39:24.990 --> 39:27.870]  But if not, I'll put all these slides up against the audio.
[39:27.870 --> 39:43.470]  So, I did some wholesale print sales because there's some small sort of online booksellers in our market that really kind of curate books and they want to sell it or Union in Los Angeles wanted to buy a bunch of copies, things like that.
[39:43.710 --> 39:50.590]  So, with that, I can buy the copies from Createspace at $6.75 a piece plus shipping and I can do whatever I want with them.
[39:50.670 --> 39:51.710]  I can give them away, like today.
[39:51.890 --> 39:53.070]  I can sell them to them.
[39:53.070 --> 39:57.470]  So, I sell to them at 40% off, which is that standard sort of wholesale price.
[39:57.470 --> 40:00.350]  And then they can resell it or they can give it to their union members or whatever.
[40:00.590 --> 40:02.810]  So, I sold 150 copies that way.
[40:03.550 --> 40:04.170]  It's interesting.
[40:04.410 --> 40:11.610]  When I calculated all the shipping expense and all the other things involved in that, the average royalty for that was about $23 again.
[40:11.830 --> 40:12.950]  So, it's in that same ballpark.
[40:13.370 --> 40:16.270]  So, again, that first number, $23.92, is an average between...
[40:16.270 --> 40:18.510]  If you buy it from the e-store, I get more.
[40:18.510 --> 40:19.910]  If you buy it from Amazon, you get less.
[40:20.030 --> 40:22.050]  If you buy it from expanded distribution, I get even less.
[40:22.050 --> 40:23.330]  So, that's an average altogether.
[40:24.170 --> 40:25.210]  So, Kindle copies.
[40:25.370 --> 40:28.450]  Oh, this was kind of interesting because I just get these reports and I never totaled up.
[40:28.570 --> 40:29.630]  Like I said, it was a pain in the ass.
[40:30.530 --> 40:31.210]  144 copies.
[40:31.410 --> 40:37.190]  So, maybe I undersold it in terms of like, hey, it's not as good as the print version or whatever.
[40:37.190 --> 40:39.130]  But I also just think that it's...
[40:39.130 --> 40:42.770]  We're just not there yet in terms of the e-books.
[40:42.950 --> 40:43.590]  I mean, I read...
[40:43.590 --> 40:46.070]  If it's like a novel, I'm happy to read on an e-book.
[40:46.070 --> 40:48.250]  If it's a technical book, I still want to read it in print.
[40:49.270 --> 40:51.250]  So, I'm still going to look into this PDF.
[40:51.590 --> 40:53.670]  What I want is individually watermarked PDFs.
[40:53.770 --> 40:55.230]  And it looks like that's possible now.
[40:55.330 --> 40:56.050]  So, I'll look at that.
[40:56.210 --> 40:56.790]  And I might...
[40:56.790 --> 40:59.690]  If that works, I might just kill the Kindle edition on.
[41:00.350 --> 41:04.870]  So, that Pay What You Will version promotion was 420 copies.
[41:05.110 --> 41:06.570]  Made about $894.
[41:07.030 --> 41:09.490]  And the royalty for that is $2.13.
[41:09.670 --> 41:12.590]  Because obviously, 80-some percent of people didn't pay anything.
[41:13.970 --> 41:17.570]  So, and I literally didn't know this number until like Friday.
[41:19.010 --> 41:23.970]  1,744 copies since the hope number 9 until now.
[41:24.190 --> 41:26.070]  Because just coincidentally, it would have to be released on that.
[41:26.190 --> 41:28.570]  So, in two years, it sold 1,744 copies.
[41:28.990 --> 41:31.810]  About over $30,000 in total royalties.
[41:32.070 --> 41:35.350]  And because it's been coming in every month, I honestly never totaled this up.
[41:35.450 --> 41:36.910]  And I haven't... I'll show you the expenses in a minute.
[41:38.170 --> 41:39.430]  But so, that's on track.
[41:39.630 --> 41:43.570]  So, 1,700 copies over two years is actually on track with the sales under the publisher.
[41:44.490 --> 41:45.410]  And I'll talk about this.
[41:45.530 --> 41:49.170]  I'm in a unique situation in terms of the...
[41:49.170 --> 41:51.090]  I already had an existing product and so on.
[41:51.230 --> 41:53.510]  But I get through some stuff before I'm out of time.
[41:54.790 --> 41:55.830]  So, expenses for me.
[41:55.970 --> 41:56.610]  So, out of pocket.
[41:56.750 --> 41:59.450]  So, I'm not including office expense.
[41:59.610 --> 42:00.170]  Things like that.
[42:00.330 --> 42:01.790]  Because it just would get crazy.
[42:02.650 --> 42:05.430]  But this was the same as when I was writing the book for the publisher.
[42:05.670 --> 42:07.850]  So, I would need a desk and a computer and that kind of stuff.
[42:07.850 --> 42:08.650]  I needed that then.
[42:08.810 --> 42:09.650]  I need that now.
[42:09.730 --> 42:10.730]  So, I'm not really counting that.
[42:10.870 --> 42:13.310]  So, the expenses between copy editing.
[42:13.570 --> 42:14.270]  All that kind of stuff.
[42:14.430 --> 42:14.790]  ISBN.
[42:16.210 --> 42:17.650]  There's a few set up charges.
[42:17.770 --> 42:19.090]  A couple hundred dollars of set up charges.
[42:19.130 --> 42:20.230]  Which is really pretty minimal.
[42:20.970 --> 42:22.890]  You have to pay for a few things here and there.
[42:23.030 --> 42:23.950]  And the advertisements.
[42:24.810 --> 42:26.690]  And some new business cards and stuff like that.
[42:26.990 --> 42:27.830]  Promotional copies.
[42:28.290 --> 42:29.630]  Roughly about $6,000.
[42:30.530 --> 42:32.030]  Sort of the promotional cost.
[42:32.210 --> 42:34.490]  And the sort of production and promotional cost.
[42:35.030 --> 42:39.970]  So, you take about $31,000 of total income.
[42:40.130 --> 42:42.710]  Subtract $6,000 off of that.
[42:42.990 --> 42:45.310]  Total gross profits about $25,000.
[42:46.750 --> 42:48.910]  And so, the hourly wage based on that.
[42:49.050 --> 42:51.590]  Comparing again the same sort of structure to the publisher.
[42:51.690 --> 42:53.030]  Is about $49 an hour.
[42:53.270 --> 42:55.930]  So, now you're talking about it is worth it to do it.
[42:55.950 --> 42:57.990]  If you can get these kind of sales numbers.
[42:58.570 --> 43:00.610]  It's a lot better than 15, 20.
[43:01.090 --> 43:01.590]  Things like that.
[43:01.690 --> 43:03.630]  That's actually well below my consulting rate.
[43:03.630 --> 43:05.950]  So, if you hire me to consult on a sound system or something.
[43:06.050 --> 43:07.070]  I'm going to charge more than that.
[43:07.890 --> 43:10.370]  But if you guarantee me 500 hours worth of work.
[43:10.370 --> 43:11.650]  I might negotiate that down.
[43:12.090 --> 43:13.310]  Oh, and I increase the number here.
[43:13.510 --> 43:15.250]  Because all that promotional marketing stuff.
[43:15.430 --> 43:16.530]  You have to factor that in.
[43:16.990 --> 43:17.430]  So, that's done.
[43:17.550 --> 43:18.230]  Including taxes.
[43:18.550 --> 43:19.190]  Home offer expense.
[43:19.510 --> 43:21.450]  I took a 20% pay cut.
[43:21.590 --> 43:23.650]  To take a half a year sabbatical for my school.
[43:24.030 --> 43:24.890]  So, that's all lost.
[43:25.030 --> 43:26.250]  And I'm not factoring all that in.
[43:26.370 --> 43:28.810]  But it's sort of trying to compare apples and apples.
[43:29.370 --> 43:29.530]  So, yeah.
[43:29.730 --> 43:30.990]  Self published about $49.
[43:30.990 --> 43:34.770]  And of course, this rate, if I don't do a big update.
[43:34.770 --> 43:37.570]  This rate just keeps going up as more sales come in.
[43:37.730 --> 43:38.790]  So, two more years.
[43:38.790 --> 43:40.550]  Actually, that effective rate would go up.
[43:41.010 --> 43:43.590]  But about $50 an hour to self publish.
[43:43.810 --> 43:46.690]  And roughly $20 an hour under the publisher.
[43:47.010 --> 43:49.550]  So, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
[43:52.410 --> 43:52.890]  Okay.
[43:52.990 --> 43:53.810]  To summarize that.
[43:54.330 --> 43:55.130]  Benefits to me.
[43:55.130 --> 43:56.390]  So, my situation is unique.
[43:56.610 --> 43:59.030]  I already had three editions of a book in the market.
[43:59.730 --> 44:03.530]  That's not going to translate necessarily to a lot of other people starting out.
[44:04.370 --> 44:05.470]  That's not us feeding back.
[44:06.750 --> 44:11.390]  But on this one edition, I made more than all three copies previous combined under the publisher.
[44:11.890 --> 44:15.390]  That's, again, and I really wasn't my goal or anything really.
[44:15.510 --> 44:16.610]  I mean, of course, I like making money.
[44:16.630 --> 44:18.150]  But that wasn't the objective.
[44:18.150 --> 44:23.090]  I remember all I started out to do was cover my expenses and keep the thing going.
[44:23.290 --> 44:24.790]  And it went way better than that.
[44:25.630 --> 44:26.370]  Talked about that.
[44:26.530 --> 44:31.230]  And the greatest thing, though, is just that, to me, I have a lot more engagement with the readers, which is really great.
[44:31.330 --> 44:35.670]  Rather than just somebody, you screwed this up or some typo that I got.
[44:35.950 --> 44:42.610]  Another very cool thing with Createspace is if I wanted to spend the time right now, there's a few typos in there that people have found.
[44:42.650 --> 44:44.130]  I have an errata page on my website.
[44:44.810 --> 44:48.250]  But if I wanted to add a chapter today, I could go write it.
[44:48.430 --> 44:50.590]  I just upload a new PDF to Createspace.
[44:50.590 --> 44:54.070]  And then the next one that's ordered would be printed with the new edition.
[44:54.470 --> 44:55.590]  So that's pretty cool.
[44:55.950 --> 44:58.650]  So you don't have to wait and go talk to the publisher.
[45:00.410 --> 45:04.110]  So, so far, there hasn't been anything sort of dramatic changes in terms of that.
[45:04.210 --> 45:05.790]  I kind of anticipated most of the things.
[45:06.070 --> 45:07.750]  But there's a few typos.
[45:07.890 --> 45:09.870]  There's some tables that didn't set right and things like that.
[45:09.950 --> 45:11.430]  So I might update that at some point.
[45:11.490 --> 45:13.070]  That would probably be version 1.01.
[45:13.070 --> 45:17.430]  But if a new technology came out today and I want to add a chapter, I can just go add a chapter.
[45:17.690 --> 45:19.650]  And then I have to get the word out.
[45:19.750 --> 45:24.950]  And I would probably just post that chapter PDF on my website for people who already have the book and stuff like that.
[45:25.010 --> 45:26.470]  But so far, that hasn't come up yet.
[45:27.250 --> 45:30.590]  And the biggest thing, I think, it's really been fun, the whole process.
[45:30.810 --> 45:31.710]  I mean, it's a lot of work.
[45:31.810 --> 45:33.470]  Writing a book, a huge amount of work.
[45:33.930 --> 45:42.090]  But the marketing and promotion and that kind of stuff was, for me, made it a lot more fun because you get that feedback about it.
[45:42.090 --> 45:45.030]  Because a lot of times you're just staring at the computer, send it to the publisher.
[45:45.250 --> 45:48.250]  A year later, it gets printed and somebody tells you they saw it.
[45:48.350 --> 45:49.190]  And, you know, so it's...
[45:49.190 --> 45:52.390]  So that way you're interacting with these, like, contests and promotional stuff.
[45:52.610 --> 45:55.330]  And the pay-what-you-will promotion and so on was really...
[45:55.330 --> 45:57.670]  I had a lot more engagement with the readers, which is really great.
[45:59.090 --> 46:00.530]  So is it right for you?
[46:01.630 --> 46:08.410]  So I would say the role of a good publisher today would be, first, they really need to find, develop, and service a market, right?
[46:08.490 --> 46:11.770]  They need to understand a market and they need to have credibility in that market.
[46:12.350 --> 46:13.790]  They need to have a strong identity.
[46:14.030 --> 46:16.070]  So I always think of O'Reilly as a good example of this.
[46:16.170 --> 46:19.630]  If you buy an O'Reilly book, you know, obviously things can get through the system.
[46:19.730 --> 46:24.450]  But for the most part, you know that it's a quality book on a topic that's relevant and so on.
[46:26.250 --> 46:27.870]  Credibility, I've mentioned that before again, O'Reilly.
[46:28.310 --> 46:32.130]  And a very interesting thing from the academic side is I had already...
[46:32.130 --> 46:39.690]  I'm already full professor, so the self-published addition to this, I didn't have to go argue with people about promotion and tenure with that.
[46:39.830 --> 46:42.430]  That's going to be very interesting to see how that works out.
[46:42.530 --> 46:48.930]  Because I know in my school, they already look at us entertainment people weird because we don't have peer-reviewed journals and so on.
[46:49.050 --> 46:50.030]  So I don't know how you can...
[46:50.030 --> 46:51.910]  I mean, I think I could make a good case.
[46:51.910 --> 46:53.070]  I've sold X copies.
[46:53.390 --> 46:54.030]  I've been on...
[46:54.030 --> 46:56.310]  I was on Off the Hook, you know, whatever, things like that.
[46:57.030 --> 46:57.930]  But it'd be interesting.
[46:58.170 --> 47:01.230]  So if somebody does that with a self-published book, I'd love to hear how that went.
[47:02.310 --> 47:03.790]  Because one thing, it's a publisher.
[47:03.970 --> 47:07.310]  If it's a known publisher, then that gives you sort of a stamp of approval.
[47:08.070 --> 47:10.650]  External, you know, acclimation is... that's really important.
[47:11.210 --> 47:14.090]  So the other thing a publisher really should do is make it easy for authors.
[47:14.990 --> 47:18.370]  And I really think they should engage the authors in sales and marketing.
[47:18.490 --> 47:20.050]  And my publisher never did that.
[47:20.330 --> 47:21.370]  They just sort of, like, you send...
[47:21.370 --> 47:23.390]  Literally send in this, like, why was sending in a PDF?
[47:23.910 --> 47:26.930]  Comes out, and then you get a check once a year.
[47:27.130 --> 47:30.450]  That's one other thing with the self-publishing through Createspace.
[47:30.650 --> 47:31.650]  You get a monthly royalty.
[47:31.950 --> 47:35.410]  Where with the publisher, you get one check a year in about March.
[47:35.550 --> 47:38.750]  And you get this really terse statement with all these returns and all this crap.
[47:39.950 --> 47:42.370]  So with this, the money comes in as it's sold.
[47:43.470 --> 47:49.690]  So I think the publishers that aren't doing these things aren't really having a strong identity, really developing the market.
[47:49.890 --> 47:51.610]  They really should see self-publishing as a threat.
[47:51.770 --> 47:56.790]  Because, honestly, the last edition of my publisher, Createspace, actually offered me more.
[47:56.950 --> 47:58.630]  And I made a lot more money from that.
[47:58.790 --> 48:00.650]  So I certainly wouldn't go backwards.
[48:00.790 --> 48:04.290]  In fact, I have friends with the same publisher now that are thinking about new editions.
[48:04.290 --> 48:06.210]  And I've been telling them, like, hey, you should just do this.
[48:06.350 --> 48:07.470]  Because we do all the work anyway.
[48:07.750 --> 48:12.910]  So if you're willing to do the promotional stuff part, then why not?
[48:13.550 --> 48:17.750]  So problems with my publisher, as I said, they complain about the sales, but the marketing is terrible.
[48:18.130 --> 48:19.930]  The academic policy cut me out of the loop.
[48:20.530 --> 48:21.330]  Royalties are confusing.
[48:21.750 --> 48:24.210]  One other thing that was really awful is they lost...
[48:24.210 --> 48:28.030]  I sent them a PDF that has print marks on it and all that stuff.
[48:28.030 --> 48:29.830]  They lost a copy of that.
[48:30.690 --> 48:34.870]  And they would actually distribute e-books as just raw, clean PDF.
[48:35.310 --> 48:36.490]  So they're all over the web.
[48:36.810 --> 48:37.690]  So you go up.
[48:37.750 --> 48:42.130]  If you search for the previous edition of my book, you'll find 12 illicit copies up there.
[48:42.230 --> 48:46.610]  And, of course, you have to download some Romanian porn spam to get to that page.
[48:46.870 --> 48:49.250]  But it's up there.
[48:49.350 --> 48:51.270]  So I've had students bring those things in before.
[48:51.370 --> 48:51.850]  I'm like, really?
[48:52.070 --> 48:52.730]  Thanks, you know.
[48:54.370 --> 48:55.750]  And I didn't lose that.
[48:55.830 --> 48:56.330]  That was them.
[48:56.330 --> 48:58.050]  So in this edition, I know where it went.
[48:58.410 --> 49:01.390]  There's three clean PDF copies released.
[49:01.910 --> 49:05.330]  Anybody I would send it to, to review or whatever, it was watermarked.
[49:05.870 --> 49:09.910]  I sent one to Createspace, clean, because obviously you have to print it without a watermark.
[49:10.510 --> 49:14.630]  One to Kindle, which is actually EPUB format, and one to Google.
[49:14.950 --> 49:16.790]  That's it for the book search.
[49:17.330 --> 49:20.370]  And I honestly don't search anymore because it just gets too upsetting.
[49:20.570 --> 49:23.230]  But as far as I know, I haven't seen any versions pop up.
[49:24.030 --> 49:26.490]  Obviously, any DRM can be broken, anything like that.
[49:26.630 --> 49:28.110]  But generally, you just don't want...
[49:28.110 --> 49:31.330]  If you have a clean PDF, that's what my publisher did.
[49:31.750 --> 49:33.370]  And as far as I know, they're still doing that.
[49:33.670 --> 49:36.530]  And then what really pissed me off, I had to find the Pirate of Copies.
[49:36.590 --> 49:39.710]  I had a Google search just set up for the title of my book.
[49:39.730 --> 49:42.690]  And it would come up, download Control System for Live Entertainment for free.
[49:43.150 --> 49:43.730]  And I'm like, God.
[49:43.830 --> 49:45.070]  So I would go look at it.
[49:45.290 --> 49:47.610]  And then I would have to send the...
[49:47.610 --> 49:50.770]  So at first one, I actually issued a DMCA to the people.
[49:50.770 --> 49:52.210]  And then the next one, I emailed the publisher.
[49:52.330 --> 49:53.110]  I'm like, what are you guys doing?
[49:53.390 --> 49:56.190]  And it turns out they have a whole division that will go after these people.
[49:56.290 --> 49:57.870]  But they don't search for anything.
[49:58.090 --> 49:59.270]  So I had to send them.
[49:59.390 --> 50:00.350]  So what the hell good are they?
[50:03.510 --> 50:04.870]  People don't understand the content.
[50:05.030 --> 50:06.390]  That was a big problem with the layout.
[50:06.550 --> 50:09.190]  I mean, again, graphics, they're doing a great job on the graphics layout.
[50:09.250 --> 50:10.350]  They're just not their topic.
[50:10.630 --> 50:16.770]  And then the funny thing is they agreed to stop publishing it June 30th or whatever in 2012.
[50:16.770 --> 50:18.250]  They kept publishing it.
[50:19.490 --> 50:25.170]  And I just got a check this year for e-book royalties of some package they sold to a library, whatever.
[50:25.330 --> 50:26.350]  I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
[50:26.630 --> 50:34.230]  So the first time, though, they kept selling the old edition, which is really obsolete, through the royalty period of 2013.
[50:34.410 --> 50:37.270]  And so, again, I had to call them up and say, what the hell are you doing?
[50:37.390 --> 50:38.350]  Why is this still out there?
[50:38.430 --> 50:41.870]  I have a contract from you that says you will stop selling on June 30th.
[50:41.870 --> 50:43.230]  So it just gets lost in the bureaucracy.
[50:43.790 --> 50:44.790]  Publisher got sold.
[50:44.990 --> 50:46.930]  And the other thing dealing with the publisher...
[50:46.930 --> 50:51.990]  With three editions of this book over since 1994, I never dealt...
[50:51.990 --> 50:55.750]  I don't think I sent an email to the same person more than two years in a row.
[50:55.990 --> 50:57.570]  So every time it's like a revolving door.
[50:57.750 --> 51:01.170]  Because these are people interested in publishing and like publishing weird technical books.
[51:01.370 --> 51:03.310]  It's not what they... you know, what's their dream.
[51:03.510 --> 51:04.890]  So they're not going to stay there very long.
[51:05.190 --> 51:05.810]  Great people.
[51:06.010 --> 51:07.470]  But again, it's just every time, what?
[51:07.550 --> 51:07.950]  Who are you?
[51:07.950 --> 51:12.650]  And then the funny thing is actually that publisher just sent me a book proposal to review.
[51:13.330 --> 51:13.970]  And then it started out.
[51:14.050 --> 51:16.310]  I'm not sure if you're familiar with this publishing company.
[51:16.430 --> 51:17.610]  I'm like, I emailed back, yes.
[51:17.770 --> 51:18.990]  And you actually published my book.
[51:19.590 --> 51:20.650]  Three editions of that.
[51:23.270 --> 51:26.150]  So, to do this for yourself today, Createspace.
[51:26.290 --> 51:27.790]  I really had a great experience with them.
[51:28.390 --> 51:30.490]  I, you know, they're part of Amazon.
[51:30.730 --> 51:31.790]  They have issues with Amazon.
[51:31.970 --> 51:33.110]  But they really did a great job.
[51:33.110 --> 51:35.110]  And they print the books in South Carolina.
[51:36.070 --> 51:37.690]  And they ship them out.
[51:37.850 --> 51:39.270]  They have another printer somewhere in Europe.
[51:39.430 --> 51:41.150]  Once you, like, enable that.
[51:41.330 --> 51:42.830]  So they don't have to ship it over there.
[51:43.270 --> 51:44.830]  Usually they beat whatever deadline.
[51:45.030 --> 51:46.350]  If they say it's going to be here next Thursday.
[51:46.350 --> 51:47.310]  It comes on Tuesday.
[51:47.830 --> 51:49.090]  They've really been great with that.
[51:49.610 --> 51:50.650]  The upfront cost.
[51:50.750 --> 51:52.710]  I mean, I had some more because it's a big book.
[51:53.050 --> 51:53.450]  I don't know.
[51:53.490 --> 51:55.350]  It's about 400 pages and lots of words.
[51:55.510 --> 51:57.550]  So the copy editing costs a little bit more and stuff like that.
[51:57.690 --> 52:00.790]  But the actual setup costs in Createspace are really low.
[52:00.950 --> 52:02.750]  It's probably a couple hundred bucks total.
[52:02.750 --> 52:04.030]  You could get something out there.
[52:04.790 --> 52:07.430]  Again, if you lay out and all that, it would be more.
[52:08.830 --> 52:09.730]  I had no...
[52:09.730 --> 52:11.890]  As far as I know, there's no interference in Createspace.
[52:11.910 --> 52:13.470]  They don't care what the content is.
[52:13.550 --> 52:17.830]  I don't know if I publish something really, you know, racist or horrible or whatever.
[52:17.890 --> 52:19.550]  If they have complaints or something like that.
[52:19.710 --> 52:23.830]  But, I mean, I never had a word from them about the content of the book.
[52:23.950 --> 52:28.050]  So if you want to publish something, I certainly wouldn't be anonymous.
[52:28.050 --> 52:31.770]  But if you had a self-publishing book you wanted to do, you can just do it.
[52:32.190 --> 52:34.270]  That's actually, in some ways, writing obviously is hard.
[52:34.670 --> 52:36.530]  Getting it onto their system is pretty easy.
[52:36.630 --> 52:38.610]  Then the hardest part is getting them word out.
[52:38.750 --> 52:43.190]  Because when you look around on there, there are hundreds of, you know, thousands of $2 e-books up there.
[52:43.350 --> 52:44.390]  Fan fiction, whatever.
[52:45.430 --> 52:45.790]  Stuff.
[52:46.050 --> 52:51.110]  So getting your content, you know, out of the noise is a hard part.
[52:51.290 --> 52:52.570]  But they'll do everything for you.
[52:52.670 --> 52:54.050]  You just got to pay for it if you want it.
[52:55.090 --> 53:00.650]  The other thing, it's a little hard to get experience because you're the first time through the process is when you're releasing it.
[53:00.770 --> 53:04.150]  So if you make a mistake, you're kind of in it at that point.
[53:04.970 --> 53:06.030]  But we're hackers, right?
[53:06.170 --> 53:07.750]  So we're good at figuring these things out.
[53:08.590 --> 53:15.590]  I think almost every step of the way, I had an ability to test whatever it was before it went out for real.
[53:15.830 --> 53:22.250]  So even the final copy, like I said, I got a proof copy before I clicked the release button on there.
[53:22.610 --> 53:25.170]  And I don't have to do that, but it was good to do.
[53:26.390 --> 53:30.810]  So what I would do today, if I was starting from scratch, I would start a blog, which I already have.
[53:32.630 --> 53:36.910]  Because, and then keep control, even, you know, whatever, Tumblr, Facebook, whatever.
[53:36.910 --> 53:41.050]  I still would put it on my own thing that I own and keep linking back to it.
[53:42.510 --> 53:43.950]  I still read a lot of blogs.
[53:44.250 --> 53:47.270]  Every year there's another opinion piece about how blogs are dead.
[53:47.490 --> 53:51.270]  But like I said, I still have like 28,000 people coming to mind for various reasons.
[53:51.850 --> 53:55.550]  But I actually did work out new material for this edition on the blog, which is great.
[53:55.630 --> 53:56.870]  I got some feedback from that.
[53:56.990 --> 54:01.670]  And I'm just able to go through that process and have a deadline and all that stuff was very helpful for me.
[54:02.210 --> 54:02.830]  Build the audience.
[54:02.970 --> 54:05.270]  You know your audience pretty well for these things.
[54:06.130 --> 54:09.370]  Here, this is an audience, if you're writing computer books, whatever, right here.
[54:10.070 --> 54:10.710]  There's a good, you know.
[54:11.530 --> 54:15.310]  And I can say that's easy, but you can, you probably know more about it than the publisher.
[54:16.050 --> 54:20.050]  And you're going to be up there on Amazon the same way any book from any publisher is.
[54:20.170 --> 54:22.470]  So if you can get, it's in, it's in the system.
[54:24.190 --> 54:25.010]  Talk about that.
[54:25.330 --> 54:25.550]  Okay.
[54:26.170 --> 54:26.770]  Questions.
[54:27.910 --> 54:28.270]  Go ahead.
[54:29.050 --> 54:36.020]  You gave away the 12 books to WBAI's offer for $400 donation.
[54:36.400 --> 54:40.940]  I would guess there were some people who may have bought your book at a lower cost.
[54:41.500 --> 54:51.000]  So did you find that by giving out 12 copies that your books became sold more during around that period of time?
[54:51.000 --> 54:52.340]  Yeah, that's a good question.
[54:52.460 --> 54:54.360]  The question was, did the sales increase?
[54:54.500 --> 54:57.640]  Because obviously I'm, whatever the listenership of the radio show, I was listening to it.
[54:58.640 --> 54:59.940]  I don't, nothing dramatic.
[55:00.200 --> 55:02.760]  I should actually go back and look because you can plot all that out.
[55:02.880 --> 55:06.620]  But it's kind of a niche book and I don't, it's a general, more general audience.
[55:06.620 --> 55:09.040]  So I would doubt it, but it's a good, I could check it out.
[55:09.340 --> 55:10.740]  Second question, if you don't mind.
[55:12.440 --> 55:15.940]  So, last May I was at Book Expo at Javitson.
[55:16.000 --> 55:17.300]  I'm a self publisher out there.
[55:17.460 --> 55:19.180]  And I'm coming out with an e-book.
[55:20.940 --> 55:23.400]  And I'm planning to do it via camera, right?
[55:23.880 --> 55:36.500]  But then I started to talk to some of the digital guys who were saying, I could put on my website a download thing for people and then I would make more money.
[55:36.540 --> 55:36.620]  Yeah.
[55:36.980 --> 55:42.480]  But then some people said to me that's not a good idea because it's very complicated and it's better.
[55:42.820 --> 55:44.900]  Let Kindle have that and you make it 70%.
[55:45.720 --> 55:46.880]  What would you suggest?
[55:46.980 --> 55:47.840]  Make 30%.
[55:47.840 --> 55:49.600]  At that point make 70%.
[55:49.600 --> 55:50.880]  Oh, if it's under, it's $2.
[55:51.640 --> 55:51.920]  Yeah.
[55:53.040 --> 55:53.980]  What would you...
[55:53.980 --> 55:54.880]  That's a good question.
[55:55.060 --> 55:57.560]  Probably have to talk to you more about what your market is.
[55:57.560 --> 55:58.420]  Because that's the really...
[55:58.420 --> 56:00.860]  If you can reach the audience then you should cut every...
[56:00.860 --> 56:01.880]  You can cut everybody out.
[56:02.060 --> 56:05.260]  But there's certainly a convenience with Kindle where it gets into your...
[56:05.260 --> 56:05.980]  They manage that...
[56:05.980 --> 56:06.940]  They make that very easy.
[56:07.320 --> 56:09.460]  So if you want to talk to me afterwards, I have to talk about that.
[56:09.860 --> 56:10.580]  In the back there.
[56:10.880 --> 56:11.740]  Great presentation.
[56:11.860 --> 56:12.240]  Oh, thank you.
[56:12.280 --> 56:12.700]  Thanks very much.
[56:12.900 --> 56:19.580]  Last question about the PDM watermark and what it...
[56:19.580 --> 56:21.420]  I don't know what watermark is but...
[56:21.420 --> 56:22.240]  Yeah, if you...
[56:22.240 --> 56:24.260]  I forgot to put in the presentation but you...
[56:24.260 --> 56:25.900]  I have a link from my webpage.
[56:26.100 --> 56:27.660]  If you email me, I can send you the link.
[56:27.660 --> 56:28.420]  There's a...
[56:28.420 --> 56:28.960]  I just...
[56:28.960 --> 56:31.140]  I'm drawing a total blank on the name of the company right now.
[56:31.280 --> 56:38.340]  But there's a company now that will take a PDF that you upload and they will sell it, handle the credit card transaction, blah, blah, blah.
[56:38.540 --> 56:43.000]  And then each time they will generate a code and put some name on there.
[56:44.020 --> 56:44.420]  Supposedly...
[56:44.420 --> 56:46.180]  And I literally just found this like last week.
[56:47.560 --> 56:50.280]  Yeah, it's not the one that I had but yeah, it's quite possible.
[56:50.280 --> 56:52.520]  So if you email me, I can send you the link.
[56:52.700 --> 56:53.800]  I just forgot to put it in there.
[56:54.880 --> 56:55.280]  So...
[56:56.520 --> 56:59.280]  Amazon has this thing where you...
[56:59.900 --> 57:04.680]  Have you been available with other sources that prices have to be saved?
[57:04.960 --> 57:05.480]  Oh, yeah.
[57:05.980 --> 57:07.380]  How do you do it with disparity?
[57:07.700 --> 57:08.880]  Oh, this is a good question.
[57:09.160 --> 57:12.240]  The question was the Amazon and the Kindle stuff.
[57:12.500 --> 57:13.080]  There's a...
[57:13.080 --> 57:14.560]  It's a really complicated thing.
[57:14.700 --> 57:16.120]  Everything in Kindle was complicated.
[57:16.480 --> 57:18.080]  The printed thing was so much easier.
[57:19.100 --> 57:22.080]  But in Kindle, there's an exclusive pricing arranger.
[57:22.200 --> 57:24.180]  You're not allowed to undersell it anywhere else.
[57:24.560 --> 57:26.680]  I'm only selling electronically on Kindle.
[57:26.800 --> 57:28.020]  So I don't have that problem.
[57:28.600 --> 57:29.020]  But...
[57:30.440 --> 57:31.840]  Yeah, paper is separate.
[57:32.660 --> 57:32.960]  Yeah.
[57:34.100 --> 57:34.280]  Right.
[57:34.660 --> 57:36.160]  And I probably could charge $20.
[57:36.620 --> 57:38.080]  I don't think they could do anything about it.
[57:38.140 --> 57:38.240]  Yeah.
[57:38.900 --> 57:39.860]  That's a good question.
[57:46.480 --> 57:47.740]  Yeah, that's a...
[57:47.740 --> 57:49.060]  Kindle Direct it's called.
[57:49.500 --> 57:49.540]  Yeah.
[57:49.700 --> 57:50.540]  So right now I'm on that.
[57:50.680 --> 57:59.400]  But if I figure out this PDF thing, I would probably just kill the Kindle edition altogether and just sell it directly on my website probably for less money and it would just go directly.
[58:04.600 --> 58:04.960]  So...
[58:04.960 --> 58:05.540]  Yeah.
[58:05.800 --> 58:07.300]  I just had it on my webpage.
[58:12.280 --> 58:12.820]  Well, no.
[58:12.940 --> 58:13.980]  I never said it was free.
[58:14.140 --> 58:14.820]  It's pay what you will.
[58:15.060 --> 58:17.180]  So if you want to pay zero, that's up to you.
[58:20.060 --> 58:21.640]  No, because it's under the...
[58:21.640 --> 58:25.300]  It's the Amazon promotion, it's like time limited thing where it's zero.
[58:25.620 --> 58:28.080]  It's very complicated when you're allowed to do that and all that.
[58:28.220 --> 58:29.240]  But so you...
[58:29.240 --> 58:33.100]  That was through Amazon was to have the price set to zero for 48 hours.
[58:36.220 --> 58:36.820]  Yeah, it's good.
[58:36.880 --> 58:37.200]  I never...
[58:37.200 --> 58:37.600]  Didn't ask.
[58:38.240 --> 58:39.140]  So that's a good question.
[58:39.620 --> 58:41.060]  Yeah, it's possible that might...
[58:41.060 --> 58:41.740]  I don't know.
[58:42.560 --> 58:43.260]  It's a good question.
[58:43.360 --> 58:45.100]  I didn't ask and they didn't say anything.
[58:45.260 --> 58:47.460]  So I think we're out of time, but we'll draw this book real quick.
[58:51.190 --> 58:51.710]  Okay.
[58:51.930 --> 58:53.510]  I ran out and I'm not looking here.
[58:55.010 --> 58:56.150]  That seems good.
[58:57.210 --> 58:57.990]  Let's see.
[59:00.550 --> 59:01.910]  Oh, SRSwami Steve.
[59:03.410 --> 59:04.030]  Who's that?
[59:04.290 --> 59:04.790]  Oh, great.
[59:05.490 --> 59:05.990]  Great.
[59:06.250 --> 59:07.510]  Well, Sri, I'm sorry.
[59:07.970 --> 59:08.110]  Great.
[59:08.230 --> 59:08.830]  Thank you very much.
[59:20.260 --> 59:21.920]  I'm going to be in touch with you.
[59:22.320 --> 59:22.840]  Sure.
[59:22.840 --> 59:23.120]  Cheers.