I’m not saying we should always pay the same price for electronic information as we pay for the paper version. I can see the logic behind charging less for an ebook or an epaper than for a hard copy, because production and distribution costs will be lower. There will be costs, though, associated with producing an ebook or updating a newspaper’s website, which have to be covered by someone. When the vast majority of readers were buying old-fashioned newspapers, maybe companies could afford to make their online content free to the end user, but as fewer and fewer people buy physical papers, that becomes more of a challenge for publishers. Murdoch hailed the launch of the Apple iPad in the States on Saturday as the potential saviour of the newspaper industry. If he’s right and increasing numbers of readers move away from newsprint to the screen, some kind of charging model is going to be essential to the survival of titles. The only other option is advertiser-funding – but that’s another blog, for another day!

In the meantime, if you fancy getting your hands on an iPad before its worldwide launch, check out this article in The Inquirer.  Interesting marketing move …

I wasn’t trying to be clever – I think in pictures and that was the picture which kept coming to mind. (The fact that someone who works primarily with sound, and has a guide dog, thinks in pictures may seem a bit odd to you, but that’s another story!). Anyway, it rang a few bells with the audience on the night.

As time went on, others started asking me about putting some podcasts together to help people at different stages of business – start-up, expansion etc – and eventually the two ideas came together (or should that be “collided”?) shortly after 5:00am last Friday, 6th November 2009 and “The Savvy Business Mountain Guides” were born. I’d already written an ebook, on an aspect of law for non-lawyers but this time, I thought, I could do something a bit different and combine the book with some audio and audio-visual material so that contributors can, literally, speak for themselves. I’ve run it past several people and so far the response has been fantastic – what do you think? Constructive criticism is as good as enthusiasm – so let me know.

It’s a major project, which I must be mad to take on at this stage in my own business life – but then, as I said to a fellow business author last week (who is in the process of completing her second book) – “You don’t have to be bonkers to go into business – but it certainly helps! The trick is to find the method in your madness, so you can infect other people with it”.

I’m aiming to get the first book launched within the year. Over the coming months, I’ll keep you up to speed with how it’s going, who I’m talking to and, no doubt, what I’m learning from the exercise. If I can work out how to upload multimedia material here, I’ll do some of that by way of audio and perhaps even some video.

If you want to get involved, email me at sherie@savvybc.com.