A new eBook, HD Podcasts & eMonographs
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the internet seems to be changing. With social networking coming more to the fore, it almost feels sometimes, that there’s a lot of information out there, but it’s hard work to find what you want.
With that in mind, I’ve been wanting to share more of my experiences, share more of my thought processes and perhaps pass on a thing or two to you all.
I’m very passionate about what I do. Making photographs is only part of it, but I love to teach people, help them on their way if I can, and feel I’ve contributed in some way. I do this by running workshops, which can be immensely satisfying. They’re a great way to spend time in a small group of like-minded people who all share the same enthusiasm for photography, and learn some new things. I find the trips great because not only does everyone pick up new things, I get to learn more too.
But It’s become more evident that some of you can’t participate and perhaps some of you are not sure if a workshop would be right for you, so what better way to pass on a bit of my experiences and tips, than in in the form of eBooks?
With all this in mind, I’ve been busy putting together a lot of e-Books for you all. I wanted to share my images in a better viewing experience than just a gallery on the web, and I also wanted them to be inspiring in some way. I’ve put together some short stories in the monographs (picture books). Hey, it was great for me to do this – getting to review what I’d done, relive my experiences was fun and I’m sure you’ll get a lot of inspiration out of the results too.
So with all this in mind, I’m pleased to let you know that the e-Books shown in the above picture are available now, and I intend to add a lot more in the coming months too.
You may notice there is an ‘HD movie’ icon in the above illustration. In case you didn’t know – I do a little podcast for iTunes (see the subscription link on the right hand banner to this page). The podcasts are a great way for me to share what I do and try to give you an insight into the experiences I had whilst out shooting in some place like India or Iceland.
The podcasts are something I care about deeply. Due to the bandwidth nature of iPods and iTunes, the quality is, to me, somewhat lacking. So I’ve prepared some HD versions of the podcasts for you too. They let you see the images in full resolution on a nice big monitor while you enjoy Hi-Fi quality sound too. Trust me – it’s a much improved experience from looking at them in a tiny iPod screen or in low-res on the web.
Lastly, I’d like to let you all know about my latest ‘technique’ book – ‘Nocturne – mastering low light photography‘.
This eBook covers the essentials if you are to go and make some nice dreamy otherworldly landscape images at the edge of daylight.
I’ve had a lot of folk over the years ask me how I make some of my images. Why is the light the way it is for example. I’ve covered some of this on this very blog, but I feel that sometimes, a blog isn’t really the best mode of communication. Now that i’ve discovered the power of the eBook format, I think it’s a great medium for sharing my technical experiences and tips with you. You can find out more about it here.
I hope you’re all as excited as I am about where this is all going. Being able to communicate, share ideas, teach, inspire – it’s all wonderful stuff and I think that with all the new mediums that the web is now starting to provide – it’s just getting better and better.
This’ll probably be my last post on the blog for the next week as I head out to the Isle of Eigg this Sunday. A whole week of workshop teaching, good eating, great beaches and good company I’m sure, await me. See you all in a week or so’s time.
This is great but I do find the groupings a bit confusing. Hard to know what is the most effective way to buy them all
Comment by stephendesroches — 16 April, 2010 @ 2:44 am
Hi Stephen,
You give people more options – and they’re not happy ! :-)
Comment by Bruce Percy — 16 April, 2010 @ 8:44 am
Hi Bruce,
I’m really interested in your books, but for the moment the price is too high for me. I can pick up Joe Cornish’s Northumberland Coast on amazon for £10, for example, and get 128 pages of actual book.
Is there any chance of you adding a free sample for folk to judge the quality? Is the resolution intended just for viewing on a big monitor, or for home printing at decent quality?
Apologies if this sounds critical – I really like your work but I think you might shift a lot more if you reconsidered the pricing. I’d be prepared to take a punt for a few quid but not a tenner.
Adam
Comment by adam — 16 April, 2010 @ 4:42 pm
Hi Adam,
Thanks for getting in touch. You have to bear in mind that I don’t have the distribution channels that Joe Cornish has and as a result, I won’t sell as many books as he does. I’m also a smaller operation and this is how I make my living. I can only charge what I feel I must, in order to make a living.
I’d like to offer them at a cheaper rate, and perhaps I might do that in future. I’m still testing the water, so thanks for your input.
I think that putting some preview examples up is a good idea and I’ll try to get some work done on that in future.
I have to say though, that Joe is Joe, and me is me. We’re very different photographers and if you want to get my insight, then there’s nowhere else you’ll be able to do that. I’m sure that if Joe was running his business from a website alone, and didn’t have the distribution channels that he has, he may be forced to offer the books at a higher price.
I’ll certainly keep it in mind.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 16 April, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Incidentally, I’m working on an actual book. You know, a cloth bound paper one with dust cover.
I hope to have something out by the end of the year, and it will be in line with the usual costs for a hardbound book.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 16 April, 2010 @ 6:46 pm
Hi Bruce,
Slow down mate, my credit card can’t keep up :-)
I have really enjoyed the first 2 and will buy the rest of the set today. The images look fantastic on the 27″ iMac screen and zoom well.
I can understand Adam’s point about the price but look at it another way. These are about the price of two pints of Guinness and much as I enjoy the dark stuff, I will get more lasting pleasure from these ebooks.
Comment by Norman Bews — 17 April, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
Hi Norman,
Glad you have enjoyed the books so far.
They’re selling pretty well, so I think the price is right.
I’ve had a few people tell me that considering a monthly magazine is close on £5, these books are much better value as they are also field guides which can be referred to at a later date.
I guess it really depends on how you want to slice it. £10 is the price of a CD, or two pints of Guiness.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 17 April, 2010 @ 3:28 pm
Thanks for the response Bruce,
I don’t know where you guys buy your Guinness – still £2.50 round here! There are lots of examples to justify the cost either way I’m sure, suffice to say I don’t usually hesitate on buying photography books.
I’d be very keen to see a sample, just a few pages would be enough to get a feel. Look forward to it! Alternatively some specs on resolution would be a start.
All the best with the ‘real’ book too, there’d be no hesitation to buy that!
Adam
Comment by adam — 18 April, 2010 @ 11:56 am
Hi Adam,
Thanks for getting back to me too.
Someone said to me yesterday that a Magazine is almost £5 these days and there’s little substance in most. We tend to buy Magazines for a flick through (well, I do anyway). Whereas the eBooks are passing on information and can act as field guides in some instances. It just depends on what you consider value I guess.
I’ll work on the ‘preview’ idea for the eBooks, I think it would certainly help.
It’s not easy dropping the price on these, because I feel I have invested time and experience in what I’m conveying. It’s kind of hard to let your baby go for a lot less than you feel it’s worth. But the preview idea is a good one :-)
Now, I’m off to Eigg for a week to spend some solid time with a group of photographers. I’ll be off-line for a week. Catch’a later, Bruce.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 18 April, 2010 @ 12:07 pm
I can’t wait for the printed and bound versions of these books. Will they all be available? And through which channels?
I was directed to this site, and especially the eBooks from Ken Rockwell’s site.
Comment by Ibraar Hussain — 20 April, 2010 @ 12:47 am
Hello Bruce
Long time listener, first time caller….
I have to say that I’m a great fan of your work and have been following your blog for a while now, but as far as the pricing of these e-books goes I’m with Adam on this one. They’re just not priced realistically, you’re almost pricing yourself out of the market. Don’t compare them to consumables like magazines or beer; compared to other current photography ebooks, and real books, they are pretty expensive (www.craftandvision.com for example). Sure there are people out there who pay fiver for a pint, but there’s a lot more people who pay £2.50 for a pint.
If you put yourself in my position, if I’ve got a tenner of my hard earned cheddar in my hand, am I going to take a chance on one of your ebooks, or am I going to buy something like Ward’s Landscape Beyond, or one of Galen Rowell’s books? Or more to the point, do I wait for your own printed book to appear and spend £20 for which I get a nice printed book to sit on my bookshelf which I can enjoy for years to come?
I’m glad these PDFs are clearly selling, but I do feel that with a more competative pricing structure you could shift a lot more copies, which would ultimately pay dividends in the long run. As it stands at the moment, I’ll wait exitedly for the printed book at appear and pass on the ebooks.
Good luck with this venture anyway, and keep up the good work.
Dave
Comment by DaveP — 29 April, 2010 @ 10:07 pm
“Don’t compare them to consumables like magazines or beer; compared to other current photography ebooks, and real books, they are pretty expensive (www.craftandvision.com for example)”
I know David DuChemin well. His books sell very well indeed. David has his own policy and I have mine. David has other writers contribute to his collection.
Which would you rather read? A $5 eBook from a writer you don’t know well (I’m not talking about David DuChemin, but others in his catalogue), or would you rather settle for reading something by someone you claim to be a great fan of?
I don’t think this rubs Dave. You’re saying you’re a fan of my work but would rather spend 1/3rd less on an eBook by someone you’ve not been following at all.
I’d also like to ask you this: have you bought any of my eBooks? I suspect, like Adam, you haven’t, yet it’s very easy for you to make a judgement about my eBooks and compare them to other efforts by different photographers like David Ward.
I think you guys are comparing apples to oranges. Consider this:
Q. Where else are you going to get my input, some tuition for £10?
A. On one of my workshops, and they’re a lot more than £10.
Q. Why am I selling my eBooks at £10.
A. Because I personally feel that is what it’s worth to me to part with them for. There is a lot of valuable information in them and I’ve had some very nice comments from people who say they are like field guides that they can refer to when they head outside. I know Joe and David’s work well and their books are great, but they are not me. If you want to find out how I do what I do, see the first question.
Lastly, I don’t have the distribution chain that these guys have. I don’t have a publisher, I don’t have the reach. I can’t sell the number of heavily discounted books that Amazon are probably shifting in high quantity.
Bottom line is, that I have to sell them for what I (that is Me) personally can tolerate parting with them for.
“If you put yourself in my position, if I’ve got a tenner of my hard earned cheddar in my hand, am I going to take a chance on one of your ebooks, or am I going to buy something like Ward’s Landscape Beyond, or one of Galen Rowell’s books?”
If you put yourself in your position, if you’ve got a tenner of hard earned cheddar and you want to buy some tution from Bruce Percy…. are you going to get it from another photographers book?
No.
My suggestion is – buy Galen Rowell’s books, buy Ward’s books, and if you’ve got a mental hang up about spending money on a PDF (because it’s electronic) and not because it has less information in it than a real paper book, then don’t buy mine.
Just don’t expect me to sell my knowledge for less than I feel it’s worth.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 30 April, 2010 @ 12:00 am
Hi there,
I find those comments about prices in this blog a bit polemic. How can one complain that a book is not worth its price if you have not actually got it? I am a passionate reader and I buy most of my books in the internet. Each time I try out a new author I buy a “cat in the bag” so to say and I’ll know if it was worth the money once I read it. If I think it is overpriced then I just don’t buy it, full stop. But it would never come to my mind to post a thread on amazon moaning about the price if I have not actually seen what I got for it. I think this is just a bit odd.
I have been to one of Bruce’s workshops and thought that was worth every penny spent. Besides coming home with a lot of improvement in my photography, the extensive handouts we got at the end of the course were a surprise to me and contained a lot of valuable information. When I then read that he was going to release eBooks I was full of anticipation to get my hands on them because I knew the quality of his other manuscripts and I have not been disappointed.
So I’d just say well done and keep up the good work Bruce.
Redhair
Comment by Redhair — 30 April, 2010 @ 7:29 am
I can’t say I’ve ever ‘moaned on amazon’ about prices either Redhair, but this isn’t amazon. The web has given folk like Bruce and myself a great way to sell our own product direct at minimal outlay. The other side of this, of course, is you get to deal with customers yourself, and hear what they think. I think this is a great advantage – with potential for benefits on both sides.
You’ve been lucky enough to have seen Bruce’s material before – I haven’t, except for on this site. If I buy a book from an unknown author I’ll usually flick through it in a shop first. I can’t do that here, I really don’t know what I’m buying – no samples, no resolution specs. When customers come on my site with questions about quality, I send them a sample. I understand their concern – you can’t judge print quality online. Generally I get a sale straight back. If not, no big deal. For me, I’d rather lose a couple of quid than lose a big print order.
Adam
Comment by adam — 3 May, 2010 @ 10:37 pm
Hi Adam,
I’m comfortable with my prices for the eBooks. Most of my sales seem to be for the ‘buy two’ combinations, which suggests that they are placed at a good price point. It’s hard to come up with a price for your own work. Anyway, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not intending on changing them.
The feedback I’ve had has also suggested that a lot of other eBooks have been disappointing. So far, I’ve had a lot of very positive feedback from people telling me mine are like field guides that they can use time and again, and there’s enough in there to keep going back to and absorb, even though my writing is short, it’s concise and passes across the message well.
I hear you about the preview facility and that is currently work in progress.
Perhaps you could give me an idea of what you’d be looking for in a preview facility?
I’m kind of done arguing about this. But I take on board the suggestions of a preview facility. I can’t please all of the people all of the time, so pleasing most of the people most of the time is a good indication i’m on the right track.
I’ve also had several transactions where buyers have bought ‘everything’ in my store in one go, so I guess I can’t be too far wrong.
Let me know what you’d like to see in a preview facility, and I’ll see how it fits with what I feel I’d be happy to provide.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 3 May, 2010 @ 11:34 pm
Hi Bryce,
Thanks for the quick reply again. Maybe I’m not expressing myself well here – I’m not arguing with your pricing. If its where you feel comfortable than that’s where it should be. All I was saying was that for me, at this moment, its just too high to make a jump into the dark with no idea what I’m getting.
As you say, other folk have told you they have bought ebooks and been disappointed. That’s been my experience too. On the other hand I’ve had free ones I would have paid for. Either way, please view me as a potential customer. I signed up as such, not just to have a pop.
In the short term, here’s what I would have done – opened Indesign, selected 8 or 10 pages of real knockout stuff, export tham as a pdf, and emailed them straight back to the guy. If they’re as good as you say you would have had three or four sales straight back. Cost to you – five minutes. And I likely would have commented above to say my concerns had been allayed and they were great. Instead, we get ten posts about the price of fish – no use to either of us!
In the long term, why not link the preview images already on the blog to full-res previews? You say they make great field guides – well for me that would involve printing them out. How about some specs as to the page sizes and resolution?
From the sizes of images throughout your site, I guess your reticence may be due to concerns of security and the risk of making stuff available to would-be pirate users. If so, I think you may at risk of overdoing it. I’m keen to buy, but can’t find an image bigger than 500px anywhere – for me, that’s not anough to make a judgement on quality. I think Tim Parkin’s assessment here is about right.
Again, I hope that doesn’t sound critical. I’m here because I’m keen to buy, but I’m skint and need a little help to commit!
Adam
Comment by adam — 4 May, 2010 @ 9:29 am
I’ll tell you what – why don’t you get in touch with David Ward and ask him to send you 10 pages of his latest Book, or Joe Cornish for that matter?
It’ll only take them 5 minutes or so.
To satisfy one miserable enquiry when they’re selling loads of books anyway.
I can imagine you going into most book stores to rake around the books before going on the internet to get the cheapest price Adam. Do you do that with CD’s too? What about magazines on the shelf – the ones that come wrapped in cellaphane? Do you demand to see the contents before buying?
At some point, we all have to commit to buying. There’s only so much we can assess before we hit the ‘buy’ button.
I’ll have to check out your site, and see if you have a blog, because if I don’t like you’re prices, I’d be much happier letting you know about it in front of dozens of customers instead of being more tactful and approaching you directly.
Good luck Adam.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 4 May, 2010 @ 12:00 pm
I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you Bruce. You may not believe me, but I don’t behave as you suggest. Obviously I come over poorly in text. Never mind. If you would rather we did this offline you should have said at the start – feel free to delete my comments.
Comment by adam — 4 May, 2010 @ 2:01 pm