I’m a bibliopurist, which is a word I just made up that means that I don’t like writing in books. I like my books pure and untouched, like a virgin. And I like to leave them like that.
I remember one year in college our assignment was to interact with a book by underlining things and writing in the margins, it was so hard and difficult for me. The entire time I felt like I was committing some supreme from of blasphemy.
[quote=“ashtkerr, post:10, topic:9175”]I’m a bibliopurist, which is a word I just made up that means that I don’t like writing in books. I like my books pure and untouched, like a virgin. And I like to leave them like that.
I remember one year in college our assignment was to interact with a book by underlining things and writing in the margins, it was so hard and difficult for me. The entire time I felt like I was committing some supreme from of blasphemy.[/quote]
Thank you, I now have that Madonna song stuck in my head…" like a virgin…hey touched for the first time…"
Thats cool though. Everyone is different. I write on EVERYTHING !! Notebooks, books, paper, my blue jeans have hearts drawn on them. I draw sigils on the palm of my hand. All my school work had doodles in the margins. Nothing is safe from me 
I almost wrote “…pure and untouched, like a virgin, like Madonna.”
But, ultimately decided against it. It’s nice that my intention ultimately came through the text and you received it.
I like a nice paperback, the size that’s around 15cm x 23cm (6ins x 9ins, trade paperback as it’s usually called), it’s not made of anything that makes me feel terrible if it gets tea spilled on it, and books printed in that format are usually readily available, so if one get’s busted up I can get another on Amazon, but without the eyestrain inherent in e-books (for thems of us as spend a lot of time looking at a screen).
But I’m not a collector and honestly probably not your target market for this anyway. 
Still, a book like that is the one most likely to find its way onto my bookcase and into my life.
A free e-book with audio download for pronunciation that buyers get if they sign up for a book-specific mailing list might be a nice touch, and a way to acquire people who buy resold books into your mailing list? Also the pronunication thing might be bloody useful, it comes up all the time on here and thankfully we have videos, but a lot of authors don’t.
You could even have mantras and stuff people can download and play in the background to attune to the currents, and to sanctify their space etc. Recording an MP3 (not a video) can’t be overly taxing, and would add value and engagement to the book.
All JMO!
Also, hard copy isn’t that specific, because you have the high-end stuff like BALG do with fancy leather and all kinds of refinements, which is one market, then you have standard hardback like every established author (fiction or non) gets published in, which certainly lasts better for the reader than paperbacks, then you have the various sizes of paperback, which I like but (as anyone who owns NAP can tell you) the spines tend to either dry out disintegrate, leaving you with loose pages - some of my dad’s old Pan horrors are in that condition now, and almost unreadable.
So what kind of heritage you want to leave is also a factor in what you choose, and e-books don’t go near that because they usually rely on proprietary software that may rapidly become incompatible with modern OS’s.
PDF is okay for now, but we’re talking less than 30 years in use and something could come along that blows it out of the water, plus it’s harder to take a PDF into the woods or whatever.
Just some brainstormed ideas anyway, I’m more familiar with marketing than choosing what TO market.
I feel the same, although all my favorite books are stuffed with loose leaf paper of what I would have scribbled in the margin.
Speaking as an author myself, having an e-reader just feels impersonal. The paper, binding, and even the cover art give a feeling of life to my books.
I’m new to BALG and want to learn the basics, but I’m not financially able to buy the hard cover, out of print books. I also have a hard time reading on a screen. My eyes are old school and like real books. My question is, if I buy the collected works in E book or pdf can I print them on my printer? I use computers only when necessary so I can’t do anything fancy. Thanks.
You can certainly print off pdfs. It’s totally legal as long as you don’t intend to sell the pages you print.
Thank you, ashtkerr, so I’ll buy it in pdf, not e-book? I usually ask advice about digital issues from neighbors, but I think if they saw the content there would be trouble!!
If you can. It’s not possible to print off an ebook. However, there are ways to transfer an ebook into a pdf and then print it out. Just ask Dr. Google.
Just to affirm the answer is yes, in Timothy’s own words:
That’s OK.
Copyright includes permission to print for personal study.[/quote]
Thank you all, I appreciate your care!
If i could ever find a pysical copy for a resonable price!
We’ve had the idea come up on here before, to evoke the spirit of the grimoire itself then ask it to allow one to come into your life at a price you can afford.
I mean that’s probably a woo-wooo answer :o) but it’s got to be worth a try!
Also, please check your Messages tab above - you have mail!
i recently discovered a new form of learning, which includes - rewriting (translating) to my own langauge the grimoire i’m learning from
so the best combo for me is:
buy a high quality physical magick book
rewrite and translate it into my own magick book
???
AGAIN, PROFIT!
Me, coming more from the esoteric and buddhistic ways,
i would say that a book radiates its “imprinted energy”
-the content and the intention of the author and everyone who holded that book since its creation.
Ebooks are a backup. ~As much as i love “certain websites”, i absolutly hate it to sit or kneel in front of a laptop or something -and tablets contain no use to me.
~If i want to learn something, i wanna carry it as my “bible” until i find somthing better or until i’m simply done with all the content.
I want a physical evidence, that those teachings are part of my life and me.
I want to be reminded to the teaching over and over again, even without facing it directly.
I don’t want to be dependet on some powersource for the laptop or tablet.
(also: the battery time is pretty limited)
~A kindle or something similar would be my primary backup for loosing a book (well a backup to my entire collection of books)
But even with a kindle, i would have an secondary backup ~data on some usb-stick(s)
And another, a tertiary backup in my cloud.
i think it should be in both. the physical leatherbound books are amazing and special perhaps even sacred to some. but many are just interested in the information. EA and his partners seem to want to spread this information as far as possible so the whole world can become gods. (an observation of someone who doesn’t know any of them personally. so it might be wrong) the best way to do that would be to put it all on the website for free and encourage people to share it freely and often. but of course he needs to make a profit and that’s his right. so the the best of both worlds is ebooks. cheap to produce (once it’s all written and licenced) easy to read and ship. and can be sold much cheaper while still giving BLAG the money to continue their work. personally i don’t have a lot of money so this is a priority. but still sell the leather bound tomes themselves for people that have enough money to spend on stuff with that grade of quality.
that’s my opinion anyway.
I tend to try to own both a physical copy and a digital certain books if able to. Reasoning behind this is I much rather read from a physical copy, but with a digital version I have an app that reads most ebook formats to me (mostly used while walking or while doing boring network configuration where there isn’t a whole lot of focus needed)
Physical books. For some reason it’s easier for me to remember what I want to find when I read a physical book and then need to go back to find the information again. And also electronics have their own energy signature that my aura is sensitive to.
Both have their merits.
I know from physical books that it’s much more difficult to amend and edit after a print run has been committed (obviously) - you end up with errata sheets and they get remaindered if the information is transient or versioned. Having contributed to several books myself in recent past lives, it almost becomes a hamster wheel, the whole process of getting the book idea together, chapters, authors herded and cooperating, timescales etc and if it has to go to physical print it gets expensive if you have a specific deadline.
Ebooks whilst useful, sometimes lack that physical presence and ability to skip and flip, bookmarking, annotation easily and the print option should you require it. Realistically and I really have no idea why they never implemented this, they should allow an on demand print option but to embed some kind of watermark across the page to indicate that this is a print from an e-book. If you are a valid user and it’s your personal copy, it shouldn’t bother you but if it then is redistributed it should immediately appear.
I’m sure that there are other options such as DRM keys and steganography but I’m too tired to discuss those.
You really need to consider how often the book will be updated and what your quality processes are in place in order to identify if both options are cost effective - I suppose something like an on-demand print service would work - kanban - just in time, so you don’t have remaindered stock levels.
I wonder why Velotak posted this and to my knowledge he’s never written a book 
Not like him to worry about EAs work. 