Printed Instruction Manual Or Not

[YoungChazz]

I posted this on RCTech and would like answers from here too:

We work very hard on our instruction manual -- it's one of the most important things we do. We take 8-9 color pix for every one that goes into the manual, and the SCX - 60CF manual will have about 100 pix. No, I haven't actually counted...

Each pic we use gets Cropped, Chopped, and Leveled, then turned B & W, then printed. Because the cars are mostly black, a lot is lost, and the color pix are usually much better. But printing thousands of full color manuals would be far too expensive. Forget it.

We are thinking about putting a CD of the entire instruction manual, Paul's Race Prep, Tuning Section, and all, into every Kit. No more printed inst. manual. You would need a computer when you build your Kit. As usual, all instructions would be on our web site. The CD, of course, would be color -- far better quality. Cost would be only slightly cheaper than now.

We would make a printed book of Paul's Race Prep and the Tuning Section together as one book, about 12-14 pages, that would sell @ $4.99. Hobby stores could carry the books if they wanted to, and this stuff pertains to all off-road R/C cars. They would also be available from us. The idea here is that when I took a manual to the track, I didn't want the instructions -- I know how to build the car -- I wanted the tuning info, and carried around a giant book so I could reference just a few pages in the back.

Because these sections are part of the regular manual, they would be available free for download on our web site. The way we set up the manual on the web site, it's easy to download the instructions for each bag individually, and the Tuning Section is no exception. The CD would be the same way, and of course you could print out what you wanted, in color if you want. In truth, we don't expect to sell many Tuning Sections because you can get 'em from the web site for free and they come on the CD.

I'd like to hear from 20 or 30 guys, Family or not, whether no more printed manuals in the Kits -- CD instead -- is a good or bad idea.