SeaWatch's first e-book!

[SeaWatch Books]

I'm excited to announce that SeaWatch is dipping our toe into e-books! While we pride ourselves on beautiful, high quality, printed books, we must acknowledge that the digital format for books is here to stay. There are several benefits to e-books:

 

• You can zoom into pictures to get more detail
• You can easily travel with them
• There is no shipping costs to receive them (this should be of particular interest to our international readers!)
• They don't go out of print

 

Our first e-book is Rob Napier's new book Caring for Ship Models: A Narrative of Thought and Application. (Thank you Rob for being open to this!) It is our intent to expand this based on author interest and I hope to next add some of our currently out-of-print books until we can get those reprinted.

One thing I'm considering is that if you order an out-of-print book as an e-book, when the book is printed we can ship that to you and turn off the digital version (feel free to let us know what you think of this).

 

A word on pricing: we do not plan on discounting e-books relative to their physical counterparts. The reason is that we believe the books - regardless of their media - have inherent value. It's their content not their physical properties. And, while there are no printing costs with digital books, there are costs in creating them, hosting them, and updating them. That said, for those that want to own both, we plan to offer a bundle at a 10% discount.

 

Note that since our books are very visual, we are not making them available for Kindles or similar e-readers. We have have partnered with a firm called Kotobee to create our own online library and digital e-readers (currently available for Windows and Mac with iOS to follow soon). When you order an e-book, you will be sent a link to register for the reading platform. On subsequent purchases, you will see the book appear in your library automatically.

 

As we go down this road, we are of course open to any feedback so please let us know your thoughts. Are you interested in e-books? Are there any titles you'd like to see first? 

[ccoyle]

The publishing company I work for has been incorporating an uncomfortable level of technology for some of us reluctant, old school paper-and-ink guys, but ya can't halt the march of progress. Good luck with the new platform!

[VTHokiEE]

I love the concept, I think it’d be awesome to take my Seawatch library with me on travel - I’m way behind reading them. I unfortunately I don’t think that I can justify buying the books on both platforms and I think for many build guides I personally prefer a print version. However there probably are other titles that work great as eBooks for me. Regardless, I wish you the best of luck bringing the offering forward!

[Paul Le Wol]

A lot of your books come with plans and/ or CDs. I’m assuming that they would not be eligible to be produced as e-books.

[SeaWatch Books]

1 hour ago, VTHokiEE said:

I love the concept, I think it’d be awesome to take my Seawatch library with me on travel - I’m way behind reading them. I unfortunately I don’t think that I can justify buying the books on both platforms and I think for many build guides I personally prefer a print version. However there probably are other titles that work great as eBooks for me. Regardless, I wish you the best of luck bringing the offering forward!

Thanks! This will evolve I'm sure. One of the neat things with the digital platform is we could include videos and such, which would be of great use in build guides. But I understand how the print could be better for those.

[SeaWatch Books]

1 hour ago, Paul Le Wol said:

A lot of your books come with plans and/ or CDs. I’m assuming that they would not be eligible to be produced as e-books.

If we did books that include plans, we'd make the plans available as physical components. Any content on CDs would actually be included with the book - one of the advantages of the digital reader is that it can include videos, PDF files, and other media.

[VTHokiEE]

18 minutes ago, SeaWatch Books said:

we could include videos and such, which would be of great use in build guides

Well now you're drawing me back in 😄 - however it evolves if I can I'll do my best to support you on it.

[LyleK1]

As stated the march of progress goes on...

I have a couple of e-books related to the subject of model ship building. In every case, I have ended up buying the book!

I find the book easier to have next to me when I'm using it as a reference.

 

But I do wish you well.

[SeaWatch Books]

31 minutes ago, LyleK1 said:

As stated the march of progress goes on...

I have a couple of e-books related to the subject of model ship building. In every case, I have ended up buying the book!

I find the book easier to have next to me when I'm using it as a reference.

 

But I do wish you well.

Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps some books will be better for digital than others. And maybe we can get younger folks into the hobby this way! ;0

[Mike Y]

Great move for international readers, where shipping + custom fees double the cost of a book! 

Just one things to consider (not a critique, but a food for thought). What happens with the purchase when Kotobee goes bankrupt and closes the library? That is a common problem with various connected devices and online resources, in 10 years a big share of them are just gone together with all your content. It's fine for a book that is being read once, might be a bummer if you use it for a reference or just enjoy building up a collection.

Fully understand that there is no good solution here, anything downloadable will end up on torrents the day after... 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Mike Y

[mtaylor]

10 hours ago, Mike Y said:

Great move for international readers, where shipping + custom fees double the cost of a book! 

Just one things to consider (not a critique, but a food for thought). What happens with the purchase when Kotobee goes bankrupt and closes the library? That is a common problem with various connected devices and online resources, in 10 years a big share of them are just gone together with all your content. It's fine for a book that is being read once, might be a bummer if you use it for a reference or just enjoy building up a collection.

Fully understand that there is no good solution here, anything downloadable will end up on torrents the day after... 

That's one of my concerns.  I'm assuming this can installed on a computer instead of smartphone (I would hope).   So can the books be printed out on home printer?   

 

I'm concerned about the "backup" and access to the data  as since the dark ages of the web I've seen too many companies that did thing like photo "storage" disappeared without warning and everyone who had data/photos there was up creek.

[SeaWatch Books]

@mtaylor and @Mike Y Great points and something I’ve been concerned about. Here’s how I plan to address those possibilities:

• In the event that Kotobee goes out of business, I would absolutely move everyone to the next viable platform. There are a slew of options - right now Kotobee is the best value for us to deliver this capability.
• In the event that SeaWatch gets sold or closes (likely not to happen for years!) I would make sure that all e-book customers get taken care of - either through contractural commitment from the buyer in a sale or through direct ownership of digital files in a shut down.

My philosophy is that there should be zero risk for the customer in doing this.

 

Mike