Re: Electronic publishing (am I alone?)

From: John Machin <orichalka_at__eU5pSp3BthGUdP1s1vOxK3-BcDbopL2fV_WFktzwgcAnot8E_mrQNqudXsJrrOvwb>
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:17:13 +1100

Both formats have their pros and cons. Even though there are ways of reading PDFs on the move, I find that a book is still hard to beat for reading on a bus. If I have to hump books to a con though, I start to see the virtues of a laptop or reader + a horde of PDFs.

Gloranthan products, often, have a good index - this is not true of many RPGs though and the ability to do fulltext searching (although it shames and dismays me to have to be forced to use it) is quite quite handy at times.

I actually wonder how novel this idea is for Glorantha - didn't the GTA do something like this for a while? I think the pre-ordering tends to make it more like a transaction and less like a Tribe (which may be good to some people and bad to others) but I think the idea that early-adopters get something (a PDF version) while waiting for the pre-orders to meet the sales goals before printing commences is a good idea. I think it works particularly well if there is little to no profit motive but I also think that relying on people's goodwill and uncompensated free time is dangerous. Money doesn't matter for everyone, but being rewarded can compensate for some of the bad behaviours you can expect from fan groups!

-- 
John Machin
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
- Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge'.