How the e-Books work

[james]

To give everyone an update. The Pompeii oven plans (and all the e-Books) are doing great. We are seeing about 25 downloads per day of the Pompeii Oven e-Book, and the plans have been downloaded over 2,000 times at this point. That's pretty cool. Lots more ovens to be built.

Here's a question. Of the four e-Books, wood-fired cooking is downloaded the least (slightly less than wood-fired pizza and wood-fired bread). The problem I see is that all of the basic operating instructions for a brick oven are in Wood-Fired Cooking, and I'm a little concerned that that information is not getting into everybody's hands.

Any ideas? Should I try to "perk up" the description of Wood-Fired Cooking on the FB Store? Should I break the basic principles out into a separate e-Book? Add the basic "how to" information to the FB Casa, Premio and Artigiano installation guides (and the Pompeii e-Book)?

I would appreciate thoughts on this one.
Thanks.
James

[Archena]

Re: How the e-Books work

Why not just add the 'how to' section to the bread and pizza books as well?

Edit: Having just taken a quick peek at the blurbs for each I'm surprised the 'how to' section isn't in all three since each is described as having complete instructions. Be that as it may, the blurb on the cooking book looks good to me - it's already the most 'flashy' of the three.

[BrianShaw]

Re: How the e-Books work

It is interesting to hear that the folks downloading the e-books are not buying the entire collection. I know that is what I was anxious to do and was very appreciative of what I received. They are very useful and jammed full of good information.

I would be curious to know approximately how many more people (percentage-wise) are ordering just the plans vesus the other e-books.

It might be possible that some people might know enough about brick ovens to want to look a the plans and decide if building an oven is within their skill set. Then, at a later date, might want to come back to look over the rest of the material. Alternatively, it is possible that the community interested in the Pompeii oven might already be knowledable in the basics from the forum discussions, books, etc. As a single data point, I read three books on brick oven construction/operation prior to finding Forno Bravo and the Pompeii oven so I knew a certain amount of theory of operation/construction prior to learning of Forno Bravo and the Pompeii oven.

I found the Cooking e-book to be as useful as the Pompeii Oven Plans because I needed a tutorial in how the Pompeii oven differed from any other type of brick oven. All of my knowledge before finding Forno Bravo was from bread baking books, web sites, or online forums -- all of which seemed oriented toward a different brick oven design. Part of the knowledge I needed came from page 8 of the plans and the rest of the knowledge I sought came from the first 24 pages of the Cooking e-book (temperature diagrams especially). Without both books I don't think I would have been intellectually satisfied. The remainder of the Cooking e-book, of course, satified the dream of being culinarily satisfied!

You could consider bundling the Pompeii Oven Plans and Brick Oven Cooking together. Another consideration is to add just a few key phrases to the Cooking e-book description, like: theory of operation for Pompeii oven, and Instructions for operating a Pompeii oven.

Thanks, James, for all you do here at Forno Bravo!

[RCLake]

Re: How the e-Books work

Personally, I was going to download the cooking ebooks after I was finished building the oven. Since there is information in the cooking books that would be helpful in constructing the oven, I'll download them now.

[Dave M]

Re: How the e-Books work

I say add the pertinent info to each book. It will be a littel redundant, but then at least it will be right were you need it instead of in a seperate e-book.

BTW, I've downloaded most of the e-books and they are great! An wonderful resource, thanks for putting it all together. I'm especially pleased with all of the info in "wood-fired cooking". I'm surprised that more people aren't interested in learning about all of the other types of cooking you can do in a wood fired oven! To me it really helps justify the expense and labor to know how versatile the ovens are (as opposed to just being a pizza oven).

[n2iko]

Re: How the e-Books work

My take on this is that there is a lot or dreaming and planning going on just now. Cooking comes a bit later for some of us.

[james]

Re: How the e-Books work

I definitely agree with the "dreaming/planning" theory, and of course you get to build your oven before you start cooking. :-)

What has me thinking is that while all of the "cooking" e-Books (bread, pizza and cooking) are downloaded about half as often as the Pompeii Oven e-Book, "cooking" itself is the least popular.

Maybe it would work to add the basic operation and types of cooking sections to each of the installation guides. It's a little redundant, but it will always be there for folks reading ahead, and for when they are finished.

Does that work?
James

[Archena]

Re: How the e-Books work

<insert nodding smilie here> Yup, sounds good.