Disrupting the document world

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Disrupting the world of document creation and distributionBruno Lowagie, CSO ThinkFree / iText Group

PDF Days 2016, Berlin

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Lesson learned in my second year as an engineer in the IT business (1997):

The secret to success is…… good documentation

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Prehistory

Online tutorials

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iText tutorialFirst iText tutorial released in 2000 (but I can’t find it anymore)A more substantial tutorial in 2004 (first revenue)

Google AdSense• 2004: $8,900• 2005: $14,500• 2006: $6,200• 2007: $2,350• 2008: $1,900• 2009: $1,500• 2010: $280• 2011: $520• 2012: $350• 2013: $160

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Claim to fame

Writing a book for an American publisher

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Book contract offersNovember 2004: Offer to write a book for O’ReillyApril 2005: Offer to write a book for ManningWhich publisher to choose? I went for Manning Publications

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Preparing a bookFirst contact: Publisher’s AssistantAfter evaluation: Acquisition Manager

Helps writing the book proposal Short summary Detailed table of contents Marketing overview

Industry review

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Book contractFive deadlines

Chapter 1 1/3 of the manuscript 2/3 of the manuscript 3/3 of the manuscript Final manuscript

Author launch

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Writing a bookDevelopment Manager assigns:

Developmental EditorHelps the writer develop their bookObey the Manning style guide!

Review ManagerCoordinates the review processAnonymized e-mails with feedbackMEAP releases

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ProductionProduction Manager assigns:

Copy EditorTechnical EditorLayout DesignerProofreader

Cover DesignerMarketing Manager: GO or NO-GOBack cover: written by the publisher himself!

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TimingFirst Edition:

May – July 2005: preparing the book (3 months) September 2005 – February 2006: writing (6 months) March – November 2006: production (9 months)

Second Edition: August – September 2009: preparing the book (6 weeks) October 2009 – April 2010: writing (7 months) May – August 2010: production (4 months)

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The result

1st Edition: 2006• 11,622 copies

• 8,528 paper• 3,094 eBook

• Approx. $33K

2nd Edition: 2010• 9,200 copies

• 6,006 paper• 3,469 eBook

• Approx. $30K

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Some disadvantagesWriting a book in Word is hard

In the meantime, the writing process at Manning has been fine-tuned

Illegal copies appear before you’ve received the first copy of your own book For the product: more people get to know the book For the publisher: loss of revenue

A book is expensive (and the author only gets 10% on the profit) People felt entitled to personal support if they had bought the book

You don’t own your own book If we wanted to give the book to customers: we had to buy vouchers Customers had to give their coordinates to the publisher; vouchers expired

A book is outdated by the time it is released

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Can I do this myself?

Experimenting with self-publishing

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Pure self-publishingStill working with WordYou own your own book

You can offer it for free Many people promote it

No reliable statistics Downloaded 5,000+ times / month How many are recurring downloaders How many clicked a link by accident

No way to manage the audience Who downloads the book? How to inform about updates?

No way to publish content on web site

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Publishing with LeanPubWritten in MarkdownPublished as:

PDF .ePub .mobi

Advantage: Reader can subscribe (early access) Author can inform reader (updates)

Author keeps copyright Can choose to offer the book for free Can set a minimum price:

Leanpub gets $0.50 / sale Author gets90% royalty

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Competition for books: StackOverflow

up-voted

answered

down-voted

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StackOverflow reputation

up-votes

down-votes

accepted

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Questions and Answers in Markdown

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#1 Referral site to itextpdf.com

Most of the answers on StackOverflow refer to a code sample that can be found on the iText web site.

This results in 200,000+ visits a year to our web site from 100,000+ new users.

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Do I need to write books?

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Who are the masters of PDF?

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What if…We could create a book from the Q&As posted on SO

‘Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike’ license Solve the problem of “I’ve answered this before, but I can’t find the answer” Avoid duplicate questions from iText newbies

We could reuse the Q&As posted on SO on our web site Create a new web site that accepts Markdown: copy/paste Q&As Better for SEO: good content

We could create a repository of examples in answer to SO questions We already had a large repository of samples in the sandbox, but The examples had to be maintained in different places: GitLab, website, download area

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Publishing revised

Creating a new publishing tool based on lessons learned

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Creating a Q&A bookAdvantages

SO uses Markdown; LeanPub uses Markdown Real-world questions Easier to query

Disadvantages Maintenance of the manuscript is hell (e.g. images) Still not published on our web site Still no solution for publishing examples

Next step Build a new web site

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New site: test with ZUGFeRD book

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On the site: readable examples

automatic links to API docs

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On the site: links to GitLab

code

resources

results

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Examples stored in one place: GitLab

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Web-site = authoring tool

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Instant gratification

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Designed for collaboration

workflow

workflow

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Ready to be translated

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Export book to LeanPub

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Generate book

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The result

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Metrics: PDF is king!

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New business models

Alternative ways to monetize documentation:• iText• Bookboon• Zerocopy

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Traditional model: pay for the bookYou can offer your book at a minimum price:

Readers can pay and choose to remain anonymous

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Free model: lead generation

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The Bookboon.com model

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Share your data, get a free book

Share data

Get book

Share book

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Empty space is used for ads

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The zerocopy.be model

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The target audience

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To be continued?

iText and Hancom joined forces in December 2015

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The future of PDF

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wepubl: co-publishing platform

Originally developed for ePubAfter joint-venture with iText: exploring publication as PDF

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flexcil: from e-reader to i-reader

See you at the PDF Days 2017For more info about wepubl and flexcil

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