I want to write a book, but none of the traditional models really appeal to me. Seth Godin puts neatly the opportunities available in The magic of dynamic pricing:
When you produce a physical good like a book, it’s really hard to change the price over time, especially if there are retail stores involved. But changing the price on an electronic good is trivially easy.
So, for example, you could charge $24 for the Kindle edition for the first two weeks, then $15 for the next two weeks and then $9 for the year after that. Once it’s a backlist classic, it could cost $2…
…
Technology puts a lot more pressure on your imagination and creativity, even in pricing.
I think Godin has missed a trick here as there’s no reason why dynamic pricing can’t be used for physical media as well. Taking the Software release cycle as inspiration and Lulu.com as a method I’d like to expand on the idea of creating an Unbook as understood by Dave Gray. Dave’s creating a book called Marks and Meaning and releasing it as one would with software. As I write this post it’s up to version 0.5.
Whilst I admire the Unbook model, it’s not what I want to use in 2010. Why?
An unbook is never finished (but I want mine to reach version 1.0 and then be ‘complete’)
An unbook is a community product (whilst I respect the views of my readers, I want to be the author)
So I’m going to call the model OpenBeta. Here’s how it works:
I’ll be releasing v0.1 of my upcoming OpenBeta book early in 2010. Want to give it a go yourself? Feel free to use the logo:
I’m very pleased to see that other educators have run with the #movemeon idea I floated. There are now literally hundreds of tweets that have been tagged – you can view them in real-time here, or an archive here.
My favourite way of viewing them, is via visibletweets.com using the ‘rotation’ animation:
Once we reach a significant number of tweets – I suggested 1,000 – then I’m going to collate them. Using the self-publishing service Lulu.com there will be a freely-downloadable e-book along with a book purchasable at cost price. 😀
I’ve put together a wiki at http://movemeon.wikispaces.com to depersonalise things – it’s about the ideas and the collaboration, not me, after all! You’ll find the same links as I’ve given above over there.
We do, of course, need a cover for the book and so it’s time to crowdsource that. On the wiki is a page with a template to provide your contribution. You know you can do better than my feeble effort, provided to get things started:
Please do share this with as many people as possible. Not only would I like the book to look as good as it can, but I’d like to make sure that as many educators as possible can tap into the wealth of tips and ideas that have been shared. I’ve certainly learned a lot! 😀
It’s a red-letter day in the history of the Belshaw clan. Although our publishers didn’t tell us it was imminent, Nick Dennis* and I have finally had the first of a series published:
Oh, wait, you didn’t think it was a book, did you? Come on… this is 2008 – it’s digital, baby! :-p
*Nick’s finally started his blogging journey. Spur him on by commenting on his first post, please!
