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Say I Can Giving New Book Away For Free
Available free on the Web, The Dragon NaturallySpeaking Guide is the first printed computer book offered online at no charge.
Most publishers charge for their books, but Say I Can is giving them away free. The Berkeley, California publisher has announced that their popular computer book The Dragon NaturallySpeaking Guide is available free on the Web. This is the first time a printed computer book has been offered online at no charge.The "how-to" book about speech recognition software has sold more than 10,000 copies in bookstores at $19.95. Now all 288 pages are available on the Say I Can Web site.
"We see free publishing as a new economic model for computer books," said Dan Newman, president of Say I Can. "We expect our reading audience to expand exponentially beyond people who now find our books in bookstores."
The Dragon NaturallySpeaking Guide will be ad-supported. Advertising banners are displayed along with pages from the book, generating revenue for the publisher. Newman also expects that some consumers will still pay for the convenience of having a printed book to reference easily.
Free book publishing continues a Web-driven trend toward free, advertising-supported information. Savvy publishers can generate substantial income with just a few cents in revenue from each online reader. Many shareware developers have added advertising to their software, finding that revenues from advertising are up to 20 times greater than fees from user registrations. As with ad-supported shareware, Say I Can's customers have a choice. They can view the book for free, along with advertisements, or purchase the ad-free printed book for $19.95.
Other book publishers are watching closely. "Say I Can is taking a bold, innovative step by making their content available free," said Peter Kent, president of Top Floor Publishing (www.topfloor.com), creators of the successful Poor Richard computer book series. "We will be watching their experiment carefully. We'll also be including an analysis in our upcoming book, Poor Richard's Creating Electronic Books."
Say I Can is the leading publisher of speech recognition "how-to" information. The company's products include the book Talk to Your Computer: Speech Recognition Made Easy and "Let's Talk," an e-mail newsletter available free at www.sayican.com.