Post- Digital Print - Monoskop
Post- Digital Print - Monoskop
Post- Digital Print - Monoskop
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Cover of Cory<br />
Doctorow’s book<br />
With a Little Help,<br />
2010<br />
print can still be used to create something no other medium can – a<br />
precious object, something to preserve, to instinctively trust (because<br />
we can hold it in our hands), and to unhurriedly enjoy rather than rapidly<br />
consume. Which brings us back to the idea of scarcity: if print indeed<br />
ends up becoming marginalised by an overwhelming abundance<br />
of electronic content, it should still retain some special role, most likely<br />
as an (increasingly precious) limited-edition object.<br />
4.5.1. Intermediate strategies: using digital media for selling print.<br />
One of the main unsolved dilemmas for writers is finding a digital<br />
production and distribution strategy that won’t end up putting them<br />
out of business. Science-fiction author Cory Doctorow is also an independent<br />
literary entrepreneur – a master in developing and showcasing<br />
original (and successful) strategies that combine free distribution<br />
of digital copies with sales of printed books. His recent short-story<br />
collection With a Little Help (featuring mostly material previously<br />
published in various magazines) was produced experimentally (and<br />
independently of traditional publishers) in a variety of formats priced<br />
anywhere from 0 to 10,000 U.S. dollars. The book was available for<br />
free in various e-book formats: plain text, HTML, PDF (formatted for<br />
two-column printout in portrait orientation)<br />
and EPUB. It was also available as<br />
an audiobook (again, for free) voiced by<br />
professional actors and featuring a new<br />
introduction and afterword as ‘supplementary<br />
material’. Donations were accepted,<br />
though not actively solicited.<br />
The book is also available as a printon-demand<br />
trade paperback for 16 dol-<br />
lars through Lulu.com, and furthermore<br />
as a premium hardcover edition (for 250<br />
dollars, in a limited print run of 250<br />
copies) designed and produced by book<br />
artisans working closely with Doctorow himself, and featuring an<br />
embossed cover in comic-book style, an SD memory card containing<br />
the complete text in e-book and audiobook versions, and unique<br />
end-papers created using paper ephemera. At the very top of the price<br />
range was the commission of a new story, for 10,000 dollars, which<br />
was immediately purchased by Mark Shuttleworth, the South African<br />
tech millionaire behind the Ubuntu Linux project. Doctorow also offered<br />
advertising space inside the print-on-demand edition (either “a<br />
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