RE: Question for This Discussion List

[Freya Anderson <freya_anderson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I would think that the length of your document would have a large impact on
your ability to sell it.  Some publishers have done well posting full text
of some books online for free, while conveniently offering the same texts
for sale.  Reading the content allows potential purchasers to determine
whether or not they would like it, while purchasing the book is easier than
printing out the entire text for easy reading.  If your document is just a
few pages, it would be easier to print it, and thus this model might not be
as effective.  That said, there are many free documents on web and database
searching.  It's hard to imagine that people would pay for a short pamphlet
on this topic unless they could see enough ahead of time to be sure that
there really was additional value worth paying for.

You might want to consider using something like PayPal or Amazon's Honor
System to allow people to easily pay you what they think your content is
worth.  See:

Amazon's Honor System: http://snipurl.com/811r
PayPal: http:www.paypal.com


I also wanted to point out that under current copyright law, you do not have
to "get" copyright.  Your work is automatically copyrighted when first
placed in a fixed medium.  There are benefits to registering your copyright
with LC, but they relate to the amount you can receive in damages if you
sue.

I don't know that this really answers your question, but I hope that it
helps,
Freya