Disrupting the document world

© 2016, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA© 2016, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA
Disrupting the world of document creation and distribution
Bruno Lowagie, CSO ThinkFree / iText Group
PDF Days 2016, Berlin

© 2016, iText Group NV, iText Software Corp., iText Software BVBA
Disrupting the world of document creation and distribution2
Lesson learned in my second year as an engineer in the IT business (1997):
The secret to success is…
… good documentation

Prehistory
Online tutorials

iText tutorial
First 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

Claim to fame
Writing a book for an American publisher

Book contract offers
November 2004: Offer to write a book for O’Reilly
April 2005: Offer to write a book for Manning
Which publisher to choose?
I went for Manning Publications

Preparing a book
First contact: Publisher’s Assistant
After evaluation: Acquisition Manager
Helps writing the book proposal
 Short summary
 Detailed table of contents
 Marketing overview
Industry review

Book contract
Five deadlines
 Chapter 1
 1/3 of the manuscript
 Final manuscript
Author launch

Writing a book
Development Manager assigns:
Developmental Editor
Helps the writer develop their book
Obey the Manning style guide!
Review Manager
Coordinates the review process
Anonymized e-mails with feedback
MEAP releases

Production
Production Manager assigns:
Copy Editor
Technical Editor
Layout Designer
Proofreader
Cover Designer
Marketing Manager: GO or NO-GO
Back cover: written by the publisher himself!

Timing
First 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)

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

Some disadvantages
Writing 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

Can I do this myself?
Experimenting with self-publishing

Pure self-publishing
Still working with Word
You 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

Publishing with LeanPub
Written in Markdown
Published 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

Competition for books: StackOverflow
up-voted
down-voted

StackOverflow reputation
up-votes
down-votes
accepted

Questions and Answers in Markdown

#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.

Do I need to write books?

Who are the masters of PDF?

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

Publishing revised
Creating a new publishing tool based on lessons learned

Creating a Q&A book
Advantages
 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

New site: test with ZUGFeRD book

On the site: readable examples

On the site: links to GitLab
code
resources
results

Examples stored in one place: GitLab

Web-site = authoring tool

Instant gratification

Designed for collaboration

Ready to be translated

Export book to LeanPub

Generate book

The result

Metrics: PDF is king!

New business models
Alternative ways to monetize documentation:
• iText
• Bookboon
• Zerocopy

Traditional model: pay for the book
You can offer your book at a minimum price:
Readers can pay and choose
to remain anonymous

Free model: lead generation

The Bookboon.com model

Share your data, get a free book

Empty space is used for ads

The zerocopy.be model

The target audience

To be continued?
iText and Hancom joined forces in December 2015

The future of PDF

wepubl: co-publishing platform
Originally developed for ePub
After joint-venture with iText:
exploring publication as PDF

flexcil: from e-reader to i-reader
See you at the
PDF Days 2017
For more info
about wepubl
and flexcil

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Editor's Notes