HDRI Community

Hi Christian,

I just purchased "The HDRI Handbook 2.0" as a e-book to read on my iPad.

I understand that  no DVD is included, but it is very uncommon that there is no download link in the e-book for the working files (images) in the tutorial chapters!!!

It would be nice if you make them available for download on this website, because otherwise it makes the e-book version pretty useless.

The price difference has nothing to do with excluding those files for download, because I have 35 books on my iPad with download links and they are also much cheaper then the real book.

Thanks! David

Thanks for your reply Christian!

The only thing I would change then is:

! BONUS DVD ONLY WITH THE PRINT EDITION (NOT AVAILABLE WITH eBOOKS) !

in:

! Working files for tutorials not included or being available for download, because we couldn't

find a cheap cloud solution for you to download the files !


Normally you find it on the publishers website.

And the fact that you made a bad deal with the publisher concerning e-books is I think not of our business anyway.

All I know that I have paid € 15 for the book.

It is the first e-book that comes with out working files I have seen.

David

Hey Jay,

You sound like someone who read the paper book.

Did you have a look at the ebook version?

I've been working forever on the explicit goal of adding value to the book, and I'm glad you're picking up on that. Even on the DVD menu, and all that extra stuff, the cheat sheets, the resolution of the pictures, and the layout that makes things clear. All that is lost in the ebook, and that's what bothers me about the ebook version the most. Guess in the blog post I said that this ebook is missing all the neat gimmicks of the paper book (crossword puzzles ect.), and doesn't use any of the chances that electronic delivery would offer. Nothing is interactive, there are no video snippets, no panorama viewer. Because it's just a conversion of a book designed for paper. Like a website that is one GIF, scanned off a flyer.

I love ebooks. Read them all the time.
And the revision 3.0 will certainly be first and foremost an ebook. But this 2.0 was designed to be a paper book. Even keyword search is less effective than the index, because it comes up with many false positives (I learned this when I wrote the index, yes, by hand).

There's very little control I have over what's published, so I couldn't make something like an extended ebook version. What I actually wanted RockyNook to do was offer a "Deluxe" version with hardcover and the ebook included. But that fell flat, somehow. It was also not supposed to be a DVD, but a pre-written SD card. So that would be an extra value (cause you could reuse that card) and would allow me more room for more extra stuff. Also fell flat.

Hmm.

What I could do is offer the DVD content here on the page as payed download. Kind of an "upgrade". That would cover the overage costs for bandwidth. Tricky thing is that this makes the "upgraded ebook" appear equally nice and useful as the real book (which it still is not), and I fear it would appear to people as a ripoff.

Hey Christian,
I don't think offering those files as a paid extra is a ripoff at all. The ebook is cheaper for a couple reasons - its non physical and you don't get the bonuses.

So as long as the upgrade price for the files is not higher than the physical book I think that's totally fair. You might be able to make back some of the profit you lose on the ebook. This may or may not be worthwhile, depending on how many requests you get for it, and whether those people are willing to pay!

Cheers,
Jay