Sharing ebooks can make sense… sometimes

Frederick Noronha

So, here’s a quick quiz: what do the following books share in common—‘The Atlas of Birds of Goa’; ‘The Battle for Konkani and Statehood of Goa’ (by Luizinho Faleiro); the environmental guide ‘Fish Curry Rice’; ‘Mhadei: Kallzantlyan Kagdar’; and the ‘Pictoral Guide to Frogs and Toads of the Western Ghats’?

No, this is not a trick question. Nor is ‘nothing’ the right answer here. Though there might be little or no apparent link between the subjects of the above titles, there is a deep link underlying the same.

All of these works have been shared online, (available for download at no cost), even while some are still available for sale, in print.  Read it. Share it. Then decide whether you really want to buy a print copy, or not.  This might seem a bit strange though. If some author or publisher has taken all the trouble to come out with a book, why give it away for free? Is there some catch, somewhere?

Actually, for small societies like Goa (and even for many bigger ones), this could be a particularly good strategy. And I’m not using the word ‘strategy’ in a negative sense here.

The above books is that they are lavishly illustrated and the printing costs of such four-colour books can be extremely high. So, the authors or publishers of these works have decided to share digital copies for free.

Sometimes, when I share such an idea with writers, their first response is to suggest: a book has to sell. Really? Why so?

As mentioned, for a lavishly illustrated book, much of the cost would be the printing costs. Besides, printing a costly book can result in other complications too, like unsold copies, blocking space and money being thus tied up. In some cases, these books have been paid for (or sponsored) by institutional money. The cost of collecting the information, writing, editing and proof-reading might have already been paid for. Its publishers and authors may not be seeking to earn direct profits from the books. They just want their message to get out, and the knowledge spread.

But this might work even when there is no support or funding for a book. Think of it this way: those who would anyway not buy the book, get a chance to read a free (digital) copy.  Those who wanted to buy it, will probably go ahead and buy it anyway. Especially if the book is reasonably priced.

So, it can be a win-win solution. With some exceptions.

Online research suggests that such a model might vary from genre to genre, and according to publisher type. Digital accessibility serves as a powerful discovery tool that often leads to increased print sales.

Such an approach works for academic and university publishers. Open Access titles and monographs work better in the social sciences and STEM, rather than in the arts or humanities, it’s believed. Likewise, small and indie (independent) publishers could also find such an approach useful. Information online suggests that smaller publishers often see a stronger positive effect on print sales from digitisation compared to “Big 5” globally-dominant publishers, because it solves the “visibility” problem.

But results might be mixed or “risky” for commercial fiction. Digitisation is shown to reduce print sales for adult fiction (the most popular ebook genre), while it has a minimal negative impact on nonfiction or juvenile fiction. So then, if the work is to be given away for free, what’s the revenue model of the same? If the book has got institutional support (grants), the initial production costs are covered. This make the ‘free digital’ model sustainable, regardless of print sales.

‘Hybrid’ models also exists, like using free digital access for getting a wider global reach and at the same time priced digital editions (say on Kindle) for revenue.

One wishes there would be more such books. It could only help to make ours a better informed society. But now, to shift to the recent crop of what’s available.

‘Fish, Curry, Rice’, the guide to environmental issues in Goa, that weathered the decades and is still popular, came out in its fifth edition recently. Used as a fundraiser, its premium edition was initially sold at Rs. 5,000. Then, another edition was offered at Rs. 3,000.

Understandably, putting together a book in colour, large-sized and involving a lot of work, can be a costly process. In view of somewhat steep price of the current edition, the Goa Foundation did the next best thing. They offered the earlier (fourth) edition ( 1 GB file with illustrations)  for free download. It can be accessed at goafoundation.org/publications/fishcurryrice/

Another book, ‘Atlas of the Birds of Goa’ is a rich, colourful book put together by Pronoy Baidya, Jalmesh Karapurkar and Sujeetkumar Dongre. Its coordination team involved Sagar Naik, Shubham Rane and Harshada Gauns. It comes from Arannya-Morlem in Sattari and has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. It received digital printing support from the Forest Department. ‘Mhadei: Kallzantlyan Kagdar’; in Konkani (Nagari) was shared over a decade ago. See archive.org or the Goa University sites for it. By professor Prakash Parienkar, this book has been called an eco-anthropological study of the Mhadei/Mandovi river, which we might have taken more seriously if we realised that this is also about what we know as the Mandovi river.

Yet another work, the ‘Pictoral Guide to Frogs and Toads of the Western Ghats’, is available via researchgate.net and is by Gururaja KV of the Srishti Manipal School of Art.

If you thought that only environment works can be released this way, Luizinho Faleiro’s book (which one hasn’t seen in print yet), reminds us this need not be the case.

One can only be grateful to all for sharing these books.  It permits us readers to download the same, without worring about cost, or wondering how to store the same. Ebooks have some limitations as compared to print (and some advantages too). But having an ebook is better than having no book at all.