#indieweb 2024-01-03

2024-01-03 UTC
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[snarfed] what's "cost" for an ebook?
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[tantek] capjamesg++ this is quite a read! Will have to read it thoroughly
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Loqi capjamesg has 30 karma in this channel over the last year (134 in all channels)
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[tantek] [snarfed] presumably time + electricity?
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[snarfed] price of serving the file specifically will be very close to zero. possible to calculate, bandwidth may be the main contributor, but it will be very small
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[snarfed] otherwise "cost" in unit economics generally only counts per-unit manufacturing, not up front creation/R&D, eg writing
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[snarfed] totally ok to decide however and charge whatever you want, of course! I was just curious
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[tantek] time to write & edit is what I was thinking as "cost", as in cost of creation
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[tantek] [snarfed] true if we're strictly talking "COGS" numbers however "cost" as a general term presumably can/does encompass all costs, as in from a business perspective what you would write-down as expenses for a business unit against its revenue
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aaronpk i would consider the time spent creating the content as well as packaging the content (ebook formatting) as part of the cost
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[tantek] agreed
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[tantek] it's literally what goes into (or should) "cost benefit analysis"
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[snarfed] yes, understood on all of that
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[tantek] so you can't dismiss such upfront costs by default (to do so would be a business error)
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[snarfed] in economics specifically, when you talk about charging "at cost," it specifically means per unit manufacturing
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[snarfed] but that's just economics language. again, we can say and do whatever we want
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c​apjamesg How I made the book -> #dev.
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aaronpk true, "charging at cost" is different than asking what the cost of creating the book is
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[tantek] ah, economists are rarely business people, and vice versa, I see the disconnect 🤡
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c​apjamesg I consider the book a pleasure to have written 😊
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c​apjamesg What does the economics say about that?
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aaronpk has created e-books and other e-content before and has done the math on the return on (time) investment
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aaronpk lol e-content
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Loqi hey aaronpk: we try to keep jargon (Microformats) out of this channel to make it more inviting to newcomers, can you move this to #indieweb-dev?
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aaronpk no no that kind of e-content Loqi
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c​apjamesg 😄
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[tantek] capjamesg, here's what some economists have to say about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness_economics
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[tantek] lol aaronpk you did that to yourself 😛
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c​apjamesg bookmarks for later, with intrigue.
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aaronpk so if it took me 100 hours to create something, i can easily calculate whether it was worth my time by looking back at the sales for the year. but i can't charge "at cost" for it, because the marginal cost of distributing it is near zero
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aaronpk ok well that's not entirely true either, payment processor fees and taxes are the bulk of the marginal cost
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c​apjamesg Sorry, I was talking about print.
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aaronpk oh well in that case that's a much more straightforward story :)
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c​apjamesg My approach was going to be free e-book (since all the posts are already blog posts anyway!), charge for a physical copy if people want one.
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[tantek] capjamesg, that's not a bad model. others have done that to great effect, e.g. Mark Pilgrim
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[tantek] I believe the phenomenon is people share it freely online because it's free, it will strongly resonate with some people who will get super into it and find it super useful. then when they finish reading it (and likely putting it to use), some number of them will have mixed feelings of loss (that special :smiling_face_with_tear: loss you feel when you've finished a good book or movie that it's over) and gratitude for the author for making &
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[tantek] sharing the work, and sense of attachment from the time they spent with the e-book, so much so that they will desire a physical copy as reference and order it
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[tantek] also as a way of showing appreciation to the author
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c​apjamesg I have heard of another author doing this as well as Mark Pilgrim but I can’t remember whom.
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[tantek] maybe Cory Doctorow?
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c​apjamesg Ah, perhaps!
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[tantek] or maybe he sells the online version but it has zero DRM and he's totally fine with folks sharing it and "eventually" some % deciding to pay for it
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aaronpk i have my book online as a website for free, and i sell the PDF/Kindle and print versions
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[tantek] either way, sharing the e-book version online is a good way to lower the barrier to curious browsing for a much broader set of folks, some % of whom will find your book fun/interesting/useful, some % of whom will finish it, some % of whom will want to pay you for the upfront entertainment/utility they got out of it, some % of whom will become a fan of you or the work and want a physical copy they can proudly keep on a shelf
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[tantek] ^ insert infographic diagram of %s and drop-offs like a giant funnel/pipe
ren, geoffo, jacky, [benatwork], AramZS_, gRegor, gRegorLove_, rainystorm, fLaMEd, barnaby, jarkad, fcser, eitilt, rvalue, ker0r0a, Halian and [tantek] joined the channel
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[tantek] aaronpk, that's a good combo too! Presumably on a website you own. Maybe add that to the /ebook page?
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[tantek] Wow has anyone here with a /Medium account experienced this? Being subscribed by someone else to a mailing list on Medium? https://www.threads.net/@kneath/post/C1ms8SOJo_o/
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[tantek] Has anyone posted their Strava "Year in sport" on their own site? Looking for examples before I do my own
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[tantek] Strava produces a bunch of YEAR IN SPORT images for you to share on social media etc but ironically nothing in text i.e. you'd have to manually write the alt text despite it mostly being in the images!
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GWG Visually, if I want to display my IRC nickname or similar on my website, what would make it useful to site visitors?
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GWG I know [tantek] has done contact...but there is no user profile for IRC and some other services...so what should it look like then?
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[tantek] GWG, unfortunately no easy UI for that, either publishing or apps to consume that information so that topic is for #indieweb-dev to discuss how to build with various technologies
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[tantek] More on Strava Year In Sport, has anyone published their own and contrasted it with the global Strava year in sport: https://press.strava.com/articles/strava-releases-year-in-sport-trend-report (and on IG summarized in https://www.instagram.com/p/C1pI9l9LWnE/)
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[tantek] what is Strava
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Loqi Strava is a run and bicycle exercise tracking silo that also has native client apps https://indieweb.org/Strava
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[marksuth] HWC Europe/London is about to start if folk wish to join: https://events.indieweb.org/2024/01/homebrew-website-club-europe-london-2024-look-ahead-Zhot8vw81XuX
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c​apjamesg Join us!
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[tantek] 👀
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GWG capjamesg: Isn't that what they said in invasion of the body snatchers?
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yaidel Hi, is the Zoom meeting of the "Homebrew Website Club Europe/London - 2024 Look Ahead" published anywhere else after it finishes?
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to2ds Hey everyone. Happy 2024! Just connected to chat names and wondering if it worked :)
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gRegor Hi yaidel, no, we don't record the HWC meetups
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gRegor The notes from the etherpad will be archived on the wiki though
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yaidel Oh I see. I'll look to the notes then. Thanks a lot.
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lazcorp Enjoyed my first attendance at HWC Europe/London - hopefully see you all next week
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c​apjamesg Thank you for joining us, lazcorp!
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[tantek] welcome lazcorp++
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Loqi lazcorp has 1 karma over the last year
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lazcorp And I think I have finally got my sparkline card etc sorted
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to2ds Is the sparkline in the wiki page for your domain?
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[tantek] what is a sparkline
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Loqi A sparkline is a small, simple, data-dense graphic with typographic resolution that is shown inline and in-context with relevant text https://indieweb.org/sparkline
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[tantek] to2ds it is Step 4 here: https://indieweb.org/wikifying#How_to_Join_the_IndieWeb_Wiki
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to2ds I think I got confused where to place it. Thought it was only in the chat-names page.
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lazcorp to2ds - the full instructions are at https://indieweb.org/Template:sparkline
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to2ds tantek,lazcorp - Thank you.
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[nsmsn] Got a 500 Internal Server Error page trying to sign in to indiebookclub.biz...Anyone else having trouble?
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gRegor I was able to sign in. Can assist more in #indieweb-dev
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