Thanks so much for linking to TheBookDesigner.com. I’ve really enjoyed your InDesign tutorials, especially the videos. Great stuff. I’ll ping you back next week, when I’m releasing an InDesign-specific PDF report for self-publishers who work with Lightning Source. Best.

David Pogue may be terrified by piracy, but I think being terrified of alienating existing customers and obscurity are far more realistic fears for most authors and publishers. Pogue may well be enough of a name that those fears are lesser in his mind, but I think that’s a flawed perception. Piracy has existed for a long time and will continue to exist. It is a social problem, not a technical one, and no technical means can ever ’solve’ it.

If Pogue is thrilled about music publishers selling unrestricted files … I think he should also be thrilled about publishers doing the same. I know that I am, both as a customer and as a publisher!

My day job [Catalyst Game Labs, a publisher of analog games such as roleplaying games, card games, etc] published a new 400-page full-color RPG this year; $50 in print, $15 to buy the PDF, but we licensed it under a Creative Commons license that allowed free redistribution, and we seeded it ourselves to major bittorrent trackers. Not only did we get “props” from those who saw us as forward thinking, but sales of the PDF alone hit our 1-year goal in less than 2 months, and many of those sales were from people who had grabbed the free PDF and then ordered a print+PDF bundle from us — paying for not only the print book, but the PDF they already had a legit and free copy of! Initial print sales are strong, also.

I believe that treating the customer and potential customer well will reward publishers, and treating them all as potential thieves does far more harm than good.