113 replies to this topic

[retsinas]

Thanks for your reply and for your time.

[DV_Boyz]

If enough people ask a publisher to provide their particular Bible translation in MySword format, it would be easy for them to sell the module on their web site.

[jonathon]

If enough people ask a publisher to provide their particular Bible translation in MySword format,

In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes Rick made, was having users request publishers convert their content to e-Sword format.

jonathon

[DV_Boyz]

You've got to be kidding. Why would that be a bad idea? Seems like it would be easy money for the publishers.

[jonathon]

You've got to be kidding. Why would that be a bad idea?

The publishers considered the users to be pests. By the time Rick and Phil were ready to talk to the publishers, the publishers had developed a negative image of e-Sword.

Seems like it would be easy money for the publishers.

Multiply the number of pages in the hard copy by 1,000. That is how much it will cost to convert the resource.
The number of pages in the hard copy is the minimum number of hours it will take to produce a high quality resource.

How many sales can the publisher expect from the format?

For paper backs, the magic number is five thousand copies, within sixty days of release.
For hard covers, the magic number is five thousand copies within two years.
Once those time points have been reached, the magic number for non-POD books is 3,000 copies per year.
Once the initial print run has sold out, the publisher can switch to POD printing, with the expectation that each subsequent sale will not be a net loss.

Translating that into a Biblical Software file format, the publisher has to be able to sell at least 10,000 copies, at a minimum of US$25.00 per copy, to break even.
The average price of commercial e-Sword resources in May 2010 was US$21.65.
(My spreadsheet with more recent data is, hopefully, on a different backup drive. In the last month I've lost 2.5 TB of data, due to hard drive failures. That includes 1.5 TB of e-Sword resources.)

If e-Sword (or MySword, or TheWord, or The Sword Project) users were willing to pay an average price of US$100 per resource, within two years, there would be 500 commercial resources, and, if a sustainable profit was achieved, within five years there would be 10,000 commercial resources. Between one quarter and one half of those 10K resources would be content that was first published after 1 January 2000.

Note in passing: Libronix, Olive Tree, and Laridian give away the Biblical software engine, making their money from the sale of licenses for the resources that they offer.

jonathon

[Josh Bond]

Multiply the number of pages in the hard copy by 1,000. That is how much it will cost to convert the resource.

I don't see those numbers for e-Sword. Having worked for Rick on commercial modules, the process was substantially cheaper. Now, granted he received text in digital format from the publisher so we didn't have to OCR text. But any text from a publisher now days would be digital and what they went to press with.

The number of pages x $1,000, so that a 3,000 page book would cost 3 million dollars to turn into an e-Sword module? Not for digital text from a publisher for an e-Sword module.

Give me $3 million dollars and I could employ staff indefinitely and churn out modules like we've never seen!!

[BaptizedBeliever]

Yeah, I'm not seeing the connection of $$$ vs. hours, etc... to convert those things. Even with OCRing a text (if made before the digital age), The cost is one book, one person to scan the book, and then someone to OCR it, and then someone to go through the OCR'd text and compare it to the original. Basically, it is what some of us module creators do anyway in our "spare" time. One person (if he's dedicated to the job) could churn out these modules and it wouldn't cost all that much for it to be done.

Not to mention that the publishers already had most of the commercial e-Sword modules in electronic format to begin with, and all it took was emailing the text for Rick and others to mess with. ZERO money was spent by the publishers to convert it to e-Sword when they already had the material in digital format.

That's just my take on it from this end.

[DV_Boyz]

The NIV, NASB and NLT are already digital. It would take less than one day to convert them. Probably one hour.

[pfpeller]

Publishers will usually allow their translations to be viewable freely in an android APP if they are viewable only when the user is online. They will generally not allow free use of the translations for offline android apps like MySword.

It is very quick to convert the above translations to MySword.

I have shifted to using almost exclusively the translations like (LOGOS/EMTV, MLV, LHB, NHEB, WPNT, ect...) that are made freely available to everyone and any software.

Blessings,
Peter

[jonathon]

The cost is one book, one person to scan the book, and then someone to OCR it, and then someone to go through the OCR'd text and compare it to the original.

There is a lot more to the process than simply transferring the OCR text to the resource:

• Layout design, or why the overwhelming majority of user created resources for e-Sword are low quality works;
• Copy editing the work, or ensuring that Jo always refers to Joshua, and not Job, or John, or Joel;
• Cross-referencing and checking the versification scheme, so that the verse cited in the original is the verse that e-Sword cites. (It isn't uncommon for Catholic and Jewish resources to cite the incorrect verse.);
• Adherence to e-Sword Style guidelines;

ZERO money was spent by the publishers to convert it to e-Sword when they already had the material in digital format.

The cost of converting to e-Sword format was born by Rick, not the publishers.

jonathon