Are you debating the elimination of printed docs?

["Geoff Hart" <geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca>]

David Neeley is engaged in <<...an ongoing debate between those 
who believe we should eliminate printed docs for our applications 
(large manufacturing software programs), and those who stick 
firmly to the "It's not documentation unless it's in print!) school. The 
former group consists of the entire tech pubs staff, while the latter 
includes some of the higher-ups who haven't actually used the 
program for years. (Sorry for the editorial!).>>

Interesting dichotomy, huh? But you (collectively) may be missing 
two important points: (i) I see no mention of the preferences of the 
users of the product, though you may be acting based on your 
knowledge of their needs and simply forgot to mention it; (ii) it's 
never an "either/or" situation, since you really should try to create a 
mix of both printed and online documentation that best meets user 
needs.

<<As it presently stands, printed documentation beyond the 
reference set which is shipped with the software is charged for 
beyond the original software application price.>>

I don't know about you, but I really, really (really! REALLY! 
***reallly***) hate this, particularly when it's an expensive 
application. If you're selling your product for $1000 (say), and the 
docs cost $5 per copy, what's the percentage cost increase? For 
such a small price, what increase in customer satisfaction do you 
get? My guess: for such a small price difference, the customer 
satisfaction will increase greatly.

<<no matter how carefully we estimate the demand we often are off 
a good deal.>>

Whereas if you ship a set of the documentation with each product, 
your estimates will always--surprise!!!--be exactly right. <g>

<<There are now a number of companies which print books on 
demand>>

If you really do end up jumping on the Microsoft "What's printed 
documentation?" bandwagon, this approach is generally an 
excellent idea. Once you've established a working relationship with 
a reliable printer; you can print out batches of 100 manuals on 
demand whenever your supplies are running low. The biggest 
"gotcha" with this approach is determining when to generate new 
versions of the documentation and how to handle the existence of 
multiple versions of the manual as a result of such ongoing revision.

<<What I will seek to determine is which firms would be 
competitive in printing on demand for our documentation sets>>

Avoid the "vanity" publishers you mentioned, since they're likely to 
charge you much higher rates than local printers; they make most 
of their money in consulting services, not in printing. Ask the 
techwhirlers in your area (and other local companies) who they use 
to print their documents, then call up these printers and ask for a 
quotation. Ideally, pick someone nearby so you can drive over and 
discuss details, but once you're comfortable with print production, 
there's no reason you couldn't work at a distance with a reliable 
supplier. (I've worked successfully both ways for some 12 years.)

<<Additionally, we'd determine if they would be a fulfillment house 
for the original software and documentation set, etc.>>

Many printers will happily do this for you at extra cost, but you can 
also look in the Yellow Pages under "mailing services" firms. The 
prices and service are often better.

<<To sell it to the brass, it might be possible to design the 
program to be an income center to partially offset the 
documentation department overhead.>>

In fact, naysayers notwithstanding, documentation is always a 
profit center. Since your department and the programmers are both 
included in the company's total cost of operation, and product 
pricing is based on this total cost plus enough of a percentage 
markup to generate a profit, the more expensive your 
documentation, the more profit it generates for the company. (The 
logic is a bit skewed, but not correct in essence.)

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}  geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca  (Pointe-Claire, Quebec)
"If you can't explain it to an 8-year-old, you don't understand it"--Albert Einstein