Charging for doc
Previously, I wrote about the relatively informal attitudes and approaches toward determining roi for technical publications. One thing I didn’t mention, possibly because it goes without saying, is that the overwhelming majority of companies can’t or don’t charge directly for technical content. In many cases, there are legal restrictions; sufficient documentation must be provided as part of the of the product.
Some companies (remember, my background is in enterprise software) have historically charged for additional supplemental or advanced content (typically more theoretical knowledge that is not directly related to product features and their use). Most often, these retail books programs are segregated from the mainstream of technical publications; since the authors are often not writers in the tech pubs group, and because both the number of titles and revenue is small (and usually shared with a third-party publisher), such programs are generally perceived as boutique operations, and not considered a major contributor to tech pubs roi.
Filed under: Monetization, ROI | 3 Comments
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Anyone interested in the value of docs should look closely at companies based in the open-source sector. I’ve been working lately for a company that publishes enhanced versions of open source software. Their Pubs dept. sells docs on the free bare-naked open source version of the software and on their added-cost enhanced versions. The dept. is a profit center.
Hi Mike – Thanks for chiming in… I’m intrigued by your post and have lots of questions; such as, Who funded the free bare-naked and enhanced doc projects, respectively? Can you point us to examples? In any event, I hope you’ll visit again soon – thanks for helping move the conversation forward…