Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mike Wooldridge
mikew@sims.berkeley.edu
IS 207, Spring 2005
Table of Contents
Executive Summary .... 3
Problem Statement ...... 4
Background .... 5
Mission, Goals, and Objectives .. 6
Description of Existing System .. 7
Requirements .. 9
Evaluation of Alternatives .... 10
Economic Feasibility Analysis ..... 11
Recommendations..13
Implementation ..... 14
Plan for Evaluation ... 15
Appendix A: Content Creation Flowchart 16
Appendix B: Table of Contents 17
Appendix C: Sample Task 18
Executive Summary
The Electronic Book Project aims to publish a downloadable computer book at
Amazon.com during the spring semester of 2005. Titled Google for Grandparents, the
book will target senior citizens who have minimal Internet experience. The project has a
good chance of meeting its objectives if it can:
Take advantage of the time and cost savings that come with publishing in an
electronic format
If successful, the project can lay the groundwork for publishing additional electronic
titles.
Problem Statement
Paper-based computer books tend to suffer from problems that their electronic
counterparts do not.
Paper-Based Computer Books
Background
Business Model
The projects business model takes advantage of two important e-commerce concepts:
disintermediation and virtual products.
Value Proposition
By cutting out the traditional middlemen in publishing, the author:
realizes a greater profit on each book sold. (At Amazon.com, self-publishers can
receive 45% of the selling price. The standard royalty rates for authors are 1015%.)
receives a book that can be stored centrally and accessed wherever there is an
Internet connection.
usually spends less money than s/he would have spent for the paper-based
equivalent.
To write the book in an accessible style that is appropriate for its audience.
Objectives:
To list the book for sale on Amazon.com by May 20, 2005, when the spring
semester ends.
To earn enough money in Amazon.com sales by December 31, 2005, to have paid
for all non-labor expenses.
To offer the widest selection of books and other products for sale on the Web.
Objectives:
Requirements
To be successful, the Electronic Book Project must meet the requirements of the retailer,
reader, and author:
Requirements for the retailer (Amazon.com):
The book needs to have an ISBN number, which is the worldwide standard by
which booksellers track inventory and sales. Amazon.com requires an ISBN for
every book it sells.
The book needs to be set in type that is easy to read (12 point or greater).
Tasks in the book need to be accompanied by screen shots that show the reader
exactly what steps to take to accomplish the tasks.
The book needs to be of limited scope, since it must be written while the author is
attending school, working part-time, and raising a family.
The steps in the publishing process need to be such that they can be applied to
other projects in the future, since a long-term goal for the project is to develop a
process that can be replicated for other electronic books.
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Evaluation of Alternatives
Alternatives to selling an electronic book on Amazon.com (Amazon.com/Electronic)
include selling an electronic book on a personal Web site (Web Site/Electronic) or
printing a paper-based book and selling it on Amazon.com (Amazon.com/PaperBased).
Web Site/Electronic
Pros:
Author would make more profit per sale by not paying commission to
Amazon.com.
Author would have more options in terms of format (HTML, .doc, etc.).
Cons:
Author would incur costs creating and maintaining the Web site.
Amazon.com/Paper-Based
Pros:
Cons:
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Web Site/
Electronic
Amazon.com/
Paper-Based
ISBN:
$244.95
$244.95
$244.95
$200.00
$200.00
$200.00
$100.00
$100.00
$100.00
$150.00
$150.00
$150.00
Office Supplies:
$150.00
$150.00
$150.00
N/A
$120.00
N/A
Printing (Setup):
N/A
N/A
$900.00
Printing (Books):
N/A
N/A
$5,516.35
Postage:
$0.00
$0.00
$120.00
Amazon.com Fees:
$29.95
N/A
$29.95
Business Mailbox: *
$255.00
$255.00
$255.00
Internet Connectivity: *
$600.00
$600.00
$600.00
$1,729.90
$1,819.95
$8,266.25
Selling Price:
$4.99
$4.99
$9.99
Amazon.com Commission:
55%
N/A
55%
N/A
$0.43
N/A
$2.25
$4.49
$4.50
770
405
1,839
100%
53%
239%
TOTAL COSTS:
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Amazon.com/Electronic vs. Web Site/Electronic
Selling electronic books on a personal Web site would generate greater profits per book
for the author since Amazon.com would not receive a commission. Additional costs
would be incurred for e-commerce support (PayPal rates are used for estimation
purposes), but those costs would be only 10%. The project would also need to absorb
monthly Web hosting fees, which drives up total costs slightly.
Overall, greater profits but only slightly higher costs means the project would only need
to sell 405 books to break even, about half the number it would need to sell through
Amazon.com (770 books).
Amazon.com/Electronic vs. Amazon.com/Paper-Based
Selling paper-based books at Amazon.com would mean much higher costsmore than
quadruple the costs for publishing an electronic book. These higher costs are attributable
mostly to printing. There would also be some extra shipping costs, since the author would
need to ship books periodically to Amazon.com.
To offset the increased costs, the project would need to sell the book at a higher price.
Otherwise, the printing costs per book would outweigh the net proceeds. For estimation
purposes, Ive assumed paper-based books would sell for twice the price of the electronic
version ($9.99 instead of $4.99).
At twice the price, more than twice as many books would still need to be sold to recoup
costs within a year (1,839 books vs. 770 books).
Conclusion
Although the Web Site/Electronic option offers a better profit margin and a lower breakeven threshold, the dollar figures dont take into account the substantial time required to
maintain an e-commerce Web site. Nor do they take into account the marketing costs
necessary to promote the Web site.
The high costs associated with printing make the Amazon.com/Paper-Based option
unattractive. Having to maintain an inventory of physical books and periodically ship
them to Amazon.com are also negative factors. Raising the cover price to $19.99 could
help recoup costs faster, but that would also mean more price competition.
All things considered, the Amazon.com/Electronic option represents the most
economically feasible option of the three options analyzed.
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Recommendations
Considering the benefits that electronic books offer over paper-based books and the
advantages that the Amazon.com/Electronic strategy has over other business options, I
recommend that the Electronic Book Project be pursued. The following are additional
recommendations:
Learn from the experience. The electronic book market is still in its infancy. This
project should be viewed primarily as an experiment to help guide future endeavors and
secondarily as an opportunity to make money. Lessons learned about the business should
be taken into account when evaluating the projects success.
Keep costs low. A key benefit offered by electronic book publishing is that it cuts out
costs associated with traditional book publishing. These include printing costs, distributor
costs, and shipping costs. During the publishing process, avoid adding to the projects
scope in ways that significantly increase costs.
Set a low price. Given the low costs of electronic publishing, you can afford to sell your
book for a low price. Dont allow price to drive away customers.
Act quickly. The faster the book can be made available on Amazon.com, the sooner it
can offer clues about how to improve your next book project. A short time-to-market also
means the content will stay current for a longer period.
Retain control of the intellectual property. Retaining full ownership of the content and
marketing rights for this book means that you can repurpose it for future titles.
15
Implementation
Implementation will involve an administrative phase, which includes ordering the ISBN
and signing up as a seller at Amazon.com, and a book-creation phase, which includes
writing and editing the book.
Tasks in the administrative phase should be initiated as soon as possible, since they
involve less work on the part of the author and also arent fully under his/her control.
Writing and editing of the book should proceed as described in the content development
flowchart (Appendix A). To save time, tasks such as writing instructional steps and
capturing screen shots can be performed in parallel.
Time permitting, members of the target audience (senior citizens) should review the book
before it is uploaded to Amazon.com.
The author could also distribute free copies of the book to relevant online and offline
publications for review. These might include the magazine and Web site of AARP and
other publications aimed at senior citizens.
As this is the first electronic book published by the author, he should make use of the
resources for electronic-book publishers available on the Web, including:
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Type the text define: in the search box (be sure to include a :).
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Type the word for which you want a definition. Example:
define:technology
3
Google displays definitions for the word. You can click a green hyperlink for
more information about a definition.