O'Reilly Network: Book publishing in binary format

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http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/1998/binary_format.html
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Date: Dec 2 1998
From: Martin Giguere
To: ask_tim@oreilly.com
Subject: Book publishing in binary format

Tim,

I living in small city in Canada, I find it difficult to purchase your books at the local resellers (I had to drive 3 hours to pruchase Writing Linux Device Drivers)

I was wandering if there has been any plans to sell books online in .pdf or some other format? The would really make it more accessible for so of the customer base.

Thanks for your time

Martin Giguere

Martin,

We don't have any plans like this at the moment. We still find that the retail bookstore channel is the way that most people want to buy books. And now that you can buy physical books online as well (either direct from publishers or from online retailers), that indirect channel is available in cyberspace as well. And because of the indirect nature of the distribution channel, publishers need to package books up in a way that third parties can resell them. So far, downloadable online formats haven't been a big hit for anyone.

--Tim

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