RE: Issues with distribution of technical documents

Subject: RE: Issues with distribution of technical documents
From: "Lurker writer" <lurker_writer -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:40:20 -0500

Documentation as a profit center? I may be taking a view without sufficient awareness of the existence of any actual documentation profit centers, but I don't see it.

We tried this at a former employer. We were going to give the customers all the documentation on a CD-ROM for free, and charge them $65 each for the hard copy user manual and the programmer's reference manual (they were for a microprocessor used in printers, faxes, scanners). Actual print/ship costs were faaaaaaar below that.

Our customers had a fit. They wanted hard copy documentation and they wanted it free. If we wanted to charge $10 for the CD, that was OK.

We live in a widget-driven world, not a documentation driven world. It it were true, we could treat developers and engineers like red-headed step-children!! (OK, just kidding) True, there may be some markets where customers are charged the printing cost of the hard copy manuals, but a profit center? This just sounds like an attempt to "wag the dog."

I may be missing something completely here, and please let me know if I am, but the only way I can see documentation ever being a profit center is if you charge $XX dollars for the manual, and then give the product away absolutely free of charge.



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