This could be a letter to 16 of the 18 people who would have donated money for the three-book project (Your Library Is…, $4 to $1: Public Library Benefits and Budgets, Volume 1 and $4 to $1 Volume 2) if another 70 or so had joined them in the IndieGoGo campaign.
Specifically, those whose contribution (which was returned to them) would have yielded sets of the PDF ebooks as perks.
But I’d rather make it an open letter because I don’t want to point at individuals.
Why 16 of the 18? Because I know that one of them–a close friend–did buy Your Library Is…, and one pledged a very small amount that would not have earned a free paperback. I believe one other contributor may have purchased both books, but have no way to be sure.
Here’s the oddity: 17 people contributed at least $30, for which they would have received the three ebooks.
Only two copies of each book have been sold to date–and all four sales have been paperback copies.
I was hoping, of course, that the 17 “contributions” (I’m not sure what to call contributions that don’t actually yield contributions) would lead to at least 170 sales of each book. That wouldn’t be wonderful, but it would be decent.
I sort of assumed there would be at least 17 copies sold of at least one of the two books. So much for assumptions.
I guess the question is why people contributed if they really didn’t want the books?
- They wanted other people and libraries to get $4 to $1 for free–an admirable motive!–but they really weren’t interested in the book itself, and weren’t much interested in Your Library Is… either.
- They were primarily interested in Volume 2, and only bought into the project to see that happens. That explanation strains credulity.
- Some other explanation that hasn’t occurred to me.
It’s certainly not that people decided to get Your Library Is… by donating to Cites & Insights instead: To date (since well before the publication of the books), that hasn’t happened at all.
These are people who thought they were contributing at least $30. The two ebooks combined cost $18.99.
It’s an oddity.
About site license versions
I’ve promised that site license versions of $4 to $1 Volume 1, The Compleat Give Us a Dollar vol. 1 and The Big Deal and the Damage Done will continue until at least November 1.
I’ll refine that promise.
If there are no site license sales by November 1, 2013, site license versions will cease to be available on or around November 2, 2013.
I established these special versions to make it easy for library schools and other institutions or groups of institutions to make the ebooks widely available at absurdly low cost. But if there’s no interest, they’ll simply go away.
