Traveling Light    

Traveling Light—But Well Informed

by Dr. Bob Rich

The natural market for travel books is people dreaming of a trip, or actually planning one. Those already on the move are less likely to buy books. After all, they can’t take a large stack with them. Can’t they?

The last time I traveled to Europe, I took 40 books with me. It could have been 400. You see, these were electronic books, inside my notebook computer.

I happened to need my computer anyway. Otherwise, I could have taken my 512 Mb flash disk and a handheld device like a PDA, as long as it was equipped with a USB port.

Think of the convenience of carrying your own special-purpose library. You might visit a dozen locations. For each, you can have with you: lively descriptions of the place and its people; books to help with the language, laws and customs; road maps; tourist guides; translations of the country’s literature... the list could go on. Every seasoned traveler knows of the many tedious empty times during a journey: long hours on airplanes, trains or buses; waiting for departure, lonely evenings in a hotel room or even alone and isolated at a table in a café. How good is it, at such times, to be able to read a book?

Books cost money. How many can the typical traveler be expected to buy?

Almost twice as many in electronic format as on paper. Electronic books can be sold at less than half the price of a paperback of the same length, for several reasons:

• Paper is now over two-thirds of the cost of producing a book.



• Electronic books need no warehousing.



• There are no shipping costs for downloaded files; even CD-ROMs have minimal costs compared to a paper book.



• There is no deterioration or damage of stock to worry about.



• There are no returns.

This is why many independent publishers sell e-books for as low as $3 to $5, and yet can afford to pay much more generous royalties to their authors.

Another advantage of e-books applies to material like travel guides, maps, lists of special events and the availability of tourist destinations. Many paper books are obsolete by the time they are published, because things change so rapidly. However, once a book is printed, it cannot be changed. In contrast, and electronic book, being a computer file, is easy to update. The cost of changes is little more than the author’s time.

Therefore, some publications could be sold with regular updates offered at a small extra cost—extra profit for author and publisher, and considerably more benefit to the regular traveler.

E-books are the fastest growing part of the publishing trade. While the sale of paper books is shrinking, e-book sales are increasing at a rate that is itself increasing. Those who join this movement now will reap profits in the future.

To find out more about this new technology and its promise, visit http://www.epicauthors.com/

Dr Bob Rich is an Australian author, currently with 13 published books, 3 of which have won international awards. He is a psychologist and professional book editor when he is not planting trees, looking after wildlife of building houses. One of the joys of his life is to be a professional in another field: being a grandfather to some dozen little people, a few of whom are genetically related to him. These children seem to like him, probably because he has no sense of humor whatever. You are strongly advised not to visit Bob's writing showcase bobswriting.com People have been known to burn the dinner, miss appointments or do without sleep because they get lost within the offerings.

Reprinted with permission of the author.