Since January, I have been advocating more electronic numismatic books. Up until this past year, the only e-books I have found were the books on CD/DVD and downloads from Krause Publications. After I posted those comments, I heard from Dennis Tucker at Whitman Publishing who partially corrected me and said that they do have plans to sell more e-books. Subsequently, I heard from Scott Tappa, Publisher at Krause Publications who said, “This year you will see more and more KP books available for e-reader devices like the iPad, Kindle, Nook, etc.”
Although both companies have started to publish e-books, it looks like Krause has embraced electronic as a full business model.
Earlier this week, sent out emails advertising their 4th of July Weekend sale by offering four of their Warman’s e-books to download for free. The Warman’s books are basic guides with the essential information in full color. For example, Warman’s Coins & Currency Field Guide is a solid price guide, but not as extensive as the U.S. Coin Digest. In fact Warman’s Coins & Currency Field Guide would be great to have on a smartphone when attending a coin show.
After receiving the notice from Krause, I was able to ask Meghan McKeon, Publicist for F+W Media, Krause’s parent corporation, about the number of e-books that were available on line. McKeon wrote, “Currently we have over 1,500 eBooks at all of our vendors (Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Sony, Google, iTunes). As of right now, we will continue to make our catalogs available in CD form with selected downloadable PDFs (from their website).”
I spot checked iTunes, Google, and Amazon.com to find quite a number of Krause books available on in e-book format. In fact, while checking iTunes, I download three of the four free e-books (I omitted Warman’s Stamps Field Guide since I am not a stamp collector).
While there, I also spot checked what was available from Whitman Publications. Comparatively, there were fewer choices than their competition. I was able to find e-books for titles like Cherrypicker’s Guide and 100 Greatest US Modern Coins, but not the Red Book or other books in their Red Books series. I like the Red Books series, but if Whitman is not delivering them electronically, I am looking for books elsewhere.
I currently own several e-books from Krause including two of the Standard Catalog of World Coins, U.S. Coin Digest, and now the Warman’s Field Guides in their recent advertisement. As long as Krause and F+W Media is publishing books in the form I want, I will continue to buy their products.
Book cover image courtesy of Krause Publications.
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