Does Lulu actually supports recurrent charge? And if it is PDF only, I am not sure Lulu is the best option for you (their focus is on print after all). But I haven't done any research.
The way I have seen this done is to have a single high-price for all the updates but give early/beta buyers a discount for - basically - paying forward in trust. So, get $30/$40 from those who pay now and full price from those who wait until later. Though that may have been to drive Amazon rankings. Still, it feels right that early buyers should pay less rather than more over time. I might be however confused regarding your strategy. I thought you were going to do several different volumes, rather than one large one. Or is this all a 'first' volume discussion so far. Pricing: $7.99 feels better for the book this size. Under $5 it feels like it may be mostly filler (even if it is not). I don't think anybody will pay every month just because it got updated. Regards, Alex. Personal website: http://www.outerthoughts.com/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrerafalovitch - Time is the quality of nature that keeps events from happening all at once. Lately, it doesn't seem to be working. (Anonymous - via GTD book) On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Jack Krupansky <j...@basetechnology.com> wrote: > I’m expecting to self-publish the first Early Access Release for my book, > Solr 4.x Deep Dive, on lulu.com sometime today. It is still far from finished > and needs lots of work and missing a lot of important areas (SolrCloud and > distributed Solr in general, DIH, highlighting, core and collection API, > admin API and UI, query elevation, etc.), but I think there is a critical > mass of useful material that is a decent foundation to build the rest of the > book on. For those who participated in the early chapter review process for > the book’s predecessor (Lucene and Solr: The Definitive Guide), most of those > review chapters (at least the ones authored by me) are included, plus a bunch > more, especially chapters on indexing data, update processors, and faceting. > The new book is Solr-only. Alas, I have not incorporated most of the reviewer > feedback yet as I have been focused on writing for the indexing and faceting > chapters for the past two months. > > It will be e-book (PDF) only for the time being. Don’t even think about > printing it yourself – over 1,100 pages, and counting! Currently a 5MB > download. > > I still haven’t settled on pricing. For early access, the intent is that > people will want to check back every couple weeks or month or two, more like > a subscription. My current thought is to treat it as if it were a $60 to $80 > paper book bought once per year, but on a monthly subscription, say $5 to $8 > per download. My expectation is to update roughly every two weeks, or at > least monthly, as new material is added, issues resolved, and new Solr > releases. In the early going, I’ll probably update the PDF on lulu every week. > > Given this rough model, what price point has the most appeal: $2.99 (yeah, > who doesn’t want it, but little incentive for me!), $4.99 (seems reasonable, > but incentive for me is still low although marginally acceptable), $7.99 > (starting to get steep for an EA multi-download), $9.99 (better incentive for > me, but will people pay it?). Thoughts? > > None of this is cast in stone. My current thought is to publish this initial > release at $4.99 or $7.99, and then set a revised price for the second or > third release. > > If I hear nothing, I’ll go ahead with $7.99, although I might go with $4.99. > > Thanks in advance for any feedback! > > -- Jack Krupansky
