Getting paid for participation
A bunch of recent technical books have gone through a “beta” process, either public or by invite. This is great for everyone, since it allows interested readers to comment and correct ahead of the first print publication, so the “first” print edition is really more like the second. There’s various ways in which people have gone about this:
- Kathy Sierra’s technique was to only use invited beta reviewers.
- Agile Web Development with Rails offered a discount on the beta PDF, with a later upgrade to the final; this limited the number of beta reviewers to those willing to pay up front.
- The Rails book also maintained a private Yahoo group for invited reviewers to work in.
- Others have done reviews in public, or let anyone email in to become a reviewer.
One thing that’s a part of any such approach is that in return for (or in gratitude for) participation as reviewers, beta readers are paid, usually via a discount on the book itself.
This is interesting because it is essentially a kind of econometic transaction…OK, I’m reaching on that one…it’s more like micro-bartering made possible by the Internet. The standing joke about washing dishes to pay for your meal at a restaurant when you’re short on cash won’t actually work at McDonalds, but if you’re willing to help proof a book you really can get a discount.
It also ties in to my previous posts about personal data being used to target advertisements: Users who register at a site are “paid” for submitting their personal data by getting access to content that other’s don’t, and I proposed that users who permit third party tracking should similarly be paid somehow.
To me, one of the most amazing things about the Internet is how people with similar interests can find each other, no matter how obscure those interests. This means that more and more of these kinds of micro-bartering transactions can take place, whether they’re between authors and readers or readers and advertisers.