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Subject:Re: Manuals with software From:David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:54:29 +0300
Geoff et al.:
More and more software is moving to download rather than physical
media. Having printed manuals available through POD sources also
allows you to multi-source them--so that printing and distribution is
more local. There are POD publishers in Europe, for example, who could
provide the service there to save on shipping, taxes, and the like,
just as there are many in the U.S., Canada, and elsewhere these days.
To me, this is definitely the way for more companies to go as a
positive step forward.
It does seem ironic in Adobe's case to publish a suite containing
InDesign and not have a printed manual available. However, most irony
is lost on Adobe, in my experience.
David
On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 09:00, <techwr-l-request -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> wrote:
> From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
>
> I'm with you (I want a book), and frankly, it strikes me as an astonishingly stupid choice even for a big company. For a product like Creative Suite, there are probably thousands of third-party books being sold, at a significant profit per book. Were it me running Adobe (purely as practice for ruling the world some day), I'd create an award-winning print-on-demand version of their manuals* (i.e., so there are no up-front printing costs), and include a coupon for $10 to $20 off the cost of that book so people could buy printed documentation if they wanted to do so. Then I'd trumpet how "green" Adobe is by reducing printing costs without forcing people to sacrifice their beloved printed manuals, all the while banking the profits.
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