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I have prepared this questionaire to help me find out what sort of
electronic books my customers would like me to publish.  If you have time,
please print it out and answer some or all of the questions.  (You can also
make a backup copy, then answer the questions with a text editor and print
that copy out.)  Mail it to the address below.

     Jim Henry III
     405 Gardner Road
     Stockbridge, GA  30281-1515
 
I have tried to keep your postage cost down by keeping the questionaire to
only 5 pages.  If you need more space for any question, use the blank side
of the printout.

Other publishers of books-on-disk and shareware books might find this poll
information useful.  I will be giving copies of your responses to Part One
away to the Disktop Publishing Association.  Responses will be anonymous; I
will not give away or sell your name and address.

The first person to mail in a completed response will get a free book-disk
of their choosing, and everyone else will get a coupon for $1.00 off any
book-disk.  Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope with your completed
questionaire.

                   Part One -- Electronic Books Generally

(1) - When and where did you first learn about electronic books?

___ a - When I began downloading them off bulletin boards.

___ b - A friend told me about them/gave some to me.

___ c - On an online service (CompuServe, GEnie, etc.)

___ d - In a shareware disk vendor's catalog.

___ e - When I considered the ASCII format I realized it could be used to
distribute books, not just program manuals and source code.  Later I found
out other people had had the same idea.

___ f - In Tom Easton's book review column in _Analog_.

___ g - In a bookstore.

___ h - In a software store

___ i - In a computer magazine.
        If you remember it, list the magazine, article name, and date: 

_________________________________________________________________

Other:

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
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(2) - What do you see as the main advantages of electronic books?
(Put a 1 by your favourite advantage, a 2 by your second favourite, etc.)

___ a - Being able to search books automatically for words and phrases

___ b - Using hypertext links to jump to related passages

___ c - Inexpensive for both publisher and customer

___ d - Saves trees from destruction

___ e - Speed of publication

___ f - Easier to release revised editions (like the constant stream of
slightly improved versions of software: 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 2.0, 2.1, etc.)

___ g - being able to import the text into your word processor and quote it
in your documents (if it is public domain)

Other:
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

(3) - With what sort of book does electronic form have the biggest
advantage over paper publishing?
(Put a 1 by the biggest advantage, a 2 by 2nd biggest, etc.)

___ a - time-critical publications (which are out-of-date quickly;
almanacs, Guiness Book of World Records, etc.)

___ b - books which must be revised frequently to remain useful (like
software tutorials which must be revised with every new version of the
program, and medical books which must include the best new information)

___ c - Complicated books which are much, much easier to read in hypertext
format (nonfiction books with complex inter-related arguments, and stories
with complicated plots jumping about from one set of characters to another)

___ d - "Small press" and "literary" magazines whose publishers have very
little money

___ e - Books and magazines whose audience will be entirely made up of
computer users anyway (like Computer Underground Digest and QuickBASIC
News)

Other:
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

(4) - What format do you like best for electronic books?

___ a - hypertext, if the reader software is good enough

___ b - ASCII, so I can use LIST and my word processor
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___ c - would be nice to have both hypertext and ASCII versions of
everything (this would mean half as much could be put on a disk, though)

___ d - varies greatly from one book to another (explain:

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________ )

(5) - What features would you consider most important in a hypertext
program?

___ a - Can search for text like in LIST and most word processors

___ b - User can save his place (or several places) in a bookmark file

___ c - User can "make notes in the margin" of his copy with a built-in
text editor

___ d - Lots of neat features in this built-in text editor
(search-and-replace, printing options, select, cut, paste, copy, etc)

___ e - User can customise the screen colours on his copy

___ f - User can print out selected text, or the entire document

___ g - Lots of printing format options (headers, footers, margins, control
codes etc.)

___ h - Can export selected part of hypertext document to ASCII file

Part Two -- More Specific Questions


(6) - What kind of books would you like *me* to mainly publish? -- part one
(Put a 1 by your favourite, a 2 by your second favourite, etc.)

___ a - out-of-print books which are difficult to find in paper editions

___ b - excellent books which may be available in dozens of cheap editions 
but would be nice to have in electronically searchable format

___ c - New books written specially for electronic publication

Other:
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

(7) - What kind of books would you like *me* to mainly publish? -- part two
(Put a 1 by your favourite, a 2 by your second favourite, etc.)

___ a - Classic fantasy stories (William Morris, George MacDonald, Lord
Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, E.R. Eddison, etc.)

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___ b - Classic science fiction stories (Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edgar
Rice Burroughs; Murray Leinster, Eric Frank Russell, Raymond Z. Gallun,
C.L. Moore)

___ c - Science fiction about computers and robots (Karel Capek's _R.U.R._;
Isaac Asimov's robot and Multivac stories; etc.)

___ d - Nonsense poetry (more of Lewis Carroll; Edward Lear, Walter de la
Mare, etc.)

___ e - Ballads (Robert W. Service (The Cremation of Sam McGee, the Ballad
of Gumboot Ben, the Shooting of Dan McGrew), Samuel Colerige's The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner; etc.)

___ f - Epic poems (Homer's Oddyssey and Iliad; Vergil's Aeneid; Beowulf;
Kalevala; The Song of Roland; Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene; Dante's
Divine Comedy)

___ g - Politics and economics (Aristotle's Politics, The Wealth of
Nations, The Federalist, Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation)

___ h - Theology and philosophy (Aristotle's Ethics; St. Augustine,
Confessions and The City of God; St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica; The
Imitation of Christ; G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man;

Other:
_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

(8) - What kind of books would you like *me* to mainly publish? -- part
three

___ a - Lots of small, short books (pamphlets really) (like "What the
Tortoise Said to Achilles", "The Candlemakers' Petition", "On Magic", and
"The Babe Unborn")

___ b - Somewhat fewer medium-length books (like "The Hunting of the
Snark", "The Tale of Ivan the Fool", "Freedom of Education Will Solve Our
Education Crisis")

___ c - Fewer still long books (Lud-in-the-Mist is 275 pages in paper
format, and will probably be 300-400 kilobytes when finished; about twice
as long as Just So Stories)

___ d - Long collections of related stories, poems or essays (like Just So
Stories, or a collection or Robert W. Service's poems)

___ e - Really long books like The Wealth of Nations (I would estimate at
least a megabyte or so) and Summa Theologica (these would probably sell at
$100+ and require a hard disk)

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(9) - In the future, I will probably be releasing only short books and
abridged preview editions of longer books as shareware, while selling the
longer books on disk starting at $4-$5.  How do you feel about this? (check
all that apply)

___ a - It's nice to make them available to people who don't have modems.

___ b - You've betrayed Shareware!

___ c - Fine.  "The labourer deserves his wages."

___ d - I'll be sure to mention them to the manager next time I'm at the
bookstore.


(10) - I am considering releasing "incremental" revised editions of some
books such as "The Hunting of the Snark"; for example, adding one or two
more of Carroll's short poems in each edition, and correcting any typos
readers point out to me in any book.  New versions will be available to
those who have already bought the book on disk for about $2-$3.  (This will
be about the same for most books regardless of how much it cost to begin
with.  It covers postage, disk cost, and copying labour.  The original book
cost did not include postage.)

___ a - Good idea -- go ahead just like that.

___ b - Don't release a new edition with just one or two tiny improvements
-- wait till you have several.

___ c - At least, don't send us a press release every time you correct one
or two typos.


(11) - Do you know of any good bulletin boards in your area which
specialise in text files and electronic books?

Name                              Phone          City       Minimum baud rate
-----------------------------+-------------------+------------------+--------

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________


(12) - If you have any suggestions for improving revised editions of any of
my electronic books, or have noticed any typos in them, please list them on
the reverse side.

revised 7/18/92
end of file