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Hmmm. There are a lot of variables. Are you producing custom
docs for a client, or are these perfect-bound books and you are
trying to decide how many to provide per license (how many
seats per license?) and what to charge for extras? Are you
doing docs for UNIX customers or Windows/Mac customers?
Etc...
I don't know if there is a standard. I just purchased a new
copy of Visual SourceSafe. It came with an online book,
but to get the hard copy, I had to pay $20 (200pp user
guide). At a past company, we developed application development
software and would sell, for example, a 20-seat license for
$5M. We would provide 10 sets of books for free and charge
what the books cost us for extras (which ran a few hundred $).
If I were in the same situation, I'd see how much it was
going to cost me, per book (or set), then add a nominal
mark-up. (Remember to cover shipping costs and hidden
distribution costs.)
Or, price it as if you were going to sell the book at a bookstore.
With the SourceSafe book, I know it didn't cost them $20 to
print that user guide. Probably closer to $5. But $20 would be
fair if I bought it in a bookstore. So I didn't balk.
Hope that helps,
A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software mailto:alexiap -at- sems -dot- com
>-----Original Message-----
>>>Our company is trying to find out industry standards for charging
>>>clients for additional copies of the documentation. Each client will
>>>receive a specific number of copies. If they want extra copies, we are
>>>planning on charging extra for it. We just wanted to know what other
>>>companies are doing.
>
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