Lego Survey : The Results

Here are the results.

Many thanks for your participation ! It is very useful for me to know what you want and what you need. According to the result, I have decided to develop the digital PDF sale shop, then the printed building instructions. Despite the large amount of people who are interested in complete package, there are not enough for paying 125%-150% of the Lego price. Because this is the real price for crafted sets (depends on the price of Bricklink). Consequently, I have decided to NOT release this type of product at the moment.

Concerning the E-shop for buying building instruction, I am currently working on a E-shop which enables ALL builders to sell their PDF. The builders will be able to use the E-shop to put the instructions up for sale and receive incomes with an automatic retailing and a download section.

Erratum 07th may 2011 :

 

I have figure out all problems I have for the payment BUT I will not launch finally the service.
I explain you why : In fact I have always done my work in lego for free and now selling instruction embarrasses me. I think (finally) that selling thing from hobbys is not the correct way to develop it. Although the price is low, I consider that the most valuable thing I can do to develop and encourage the production of instruction is providing for free.
I don’t judge people who sell instructions, because this is their choices but for me I assume that it is not the right way to monetize our passion (I already receive incomes from youtube for my videos so the money is not the point for me). Concerning the amount of time to create an instruction, if I had launched the service, I would have spent lot of time to create instructions and not to create models.
So many thank for people who contact me to become a instruction sellers. I continue to give for free, it is more rewarding for me 🙂

Erratum 01th jan 2015 :

After reconsidering the option to sell instructions in 2011, I decide to sell some of them in 2015. The time gives me wrong about not selling instructions because mocplans has came and many builder sell instructions of it and many customer purchase if, there is a big market for people who want high quality instructions, so I decide to try it ! The aim is to support the growing fee for the website (server and host) as the incomes from youtube are now arround zero, plus enable me to buy more lego and new material to enhance the quality of the picture, videos. The only thing which changes is that now some instructions are for sale but are better quality. But of course, there are still a free one, so is up to you to support my work by purchasing an instruction or not. The goal is only to enable you to rebuild a creation of mine.  For this you can purchase on the blog by using the paypal button or on rebrickable which has merged with mocplans recently.

 

(4) Comments

    I do not have the sets you mentioned as I did not start collecting till the beginning of last summer. First kit I ever purchased was 8043 motorized excavator. Thereafter oldest kit I ever purchased was 8258. Like I said money invested in kits is only over less than a year span. I have made intelligent kit selections for personal creation building believe me, I have been known to purchase large available sets just for a differential element. I do not like to tear down flagship builds. I currently have on display in full power functions and readyness the following kits, 8053, 8043, 8041 (2 speed trans), 8052 (full PF drivable), 8258 (full PF, all mods both axels driven, and 8070 (full PF drivable). My MOC copy collection includes the Raptor TT by Zblj, the Lynx TT by Zblj, and your Tantra 4×4 T815, all are in full readyness. I am currently building Tatra 6×6 813 V2 by yoraish without having to touch any existing builds. My MOC’s are more on the robotics/pneumatics side. My largest current NXT/Technic MOC creation is a heavy duty holonomic drive base robot with a 4 DOF arm (servos) and a four pneumatic circuit gripper. It contains four pneumatics autovalves thanks to Sariel. It impliments 2 NXT bricks, 2 ultrasonic sensors, 2 Hitechnic color sensors, Hitechnic PF IR link for NXT, Hitechnic compass, accelerometer, and EOPD sensors. Is capable (current program)of full autonomous roam + pick and place. It can find and object on your floor and place it on your coffee table up to the weight of a D cell battery. This MOC creation contains parts from the following kits 8069 (x3), 8043 (I own 2 of these), pneumatics from five 8049 and a few others I have lost track of. I also have a packbot by brdavis42, and a NXT version of Sariels 8 leg octopod, all in full readyness. Anyways thanks for the tip on Eurobrick, sorry if I offended, much respect. The USA technic AFOL scene is weak so I appreciate any direction you have to offer. I consider you and Sariel my professors and embassadors, thanks for all your help on your great site.

    And to answer to

    Another example is out of my $8,000+ US dollar Technic element collection I have never seen a 0.5 x 7 liftarm

    I have only 7 sets and I have 0.5*7 beam, for instance in the buldozer 8275 or 8436 truck. I d’ont think you don’t have the bulldozer because it is a bestseller. Otherwise, try to buy carefully your sets. I only buy a big set of the year (as other builder I think) and I have enought part to do all I want so I think my collection is enough heterogeneous to build building instructions and to fit with the collection of my fans. Also, if you have a
    $8000 collection, I think you can buy some 0.5*7 beam regarding the cost. Regards

    Hello, thanks for your comment. I assume you don’t read the topic on eurobrick. Because I won’t be charge all instructions, there will be some instruction for free. A picturing version (free) and a PDF version (not free). So If people don’t want to pay, ok they can download the picturing version (for instance, I provide total of 31 building instruction and other detailled picture, it representes half of my own work so I think it is not “only for paid”). Also, the survey show that some people are ok to pay so we will see in the future. The shop will be also for community, I think for people who do many instructions and the develloper of the software (like SR3D builder, Lpub and so on). To finish, on the shop, there will be also free instruction. I think you don’t understand the aim because it is not the profit margin but the sharing, the profit margin I take is only for the cost of the website (because it is veru expensive to compare with a normal frozen webiste). For instance, Sergio (developer of SR3D builder) is currently thinking to stop the development of his software because the provider is expensive, I said not and I gave him a online sharing and a possibility to have incomes for his fantastic software. I invite you to read the topic on Eurobrick to no more about the aim (maybe not clear in this post) and share your opinion with the other members. Regards

    Sell? Uhhhggg. The Lego community is better off sharing then selling (unless involves parts). Besides most of us using and sharing ideas for such projects would rather MOC them anyways. The lack of “rare” parts in my collection seem to be my only project limitation. One prime example is most of your projects involve the old style differential, my collection only has the new bevel style. Another example is out of my $8,000+ US dollar Technic element collection I have never seen a 0.5 x 7 liftarm. Love your stuff. Instructions are appreciated but I believe it is wrong for anyone to charge money for them. You would do much better just selling parts. If a project is elaborate enough to require PDF instructions chances are others are missing a few proprietory parts to mimic said project. Some decent assembly or dissassembly photos are all most of us need to recreate a project if we have the parts. Thanks.

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