Now Available- The Mad Art of Caricature DIGITAL COPY!

Since I self-published The Mad Art of Caricature! I’ve had a lot of people ask me when or if I’ll ever have a digital version that can be downloaded and read on the ubiquitous iPad or other tablet devices. I have been reluctant to do that because I didn’t want to make it so easy for the inevitable pirating of my book and its distribution for nothing via unscrupulous “sharing” websites.

I have rethought that position, and now am happy to announce that The Mad Art of Caricature! is available via a PDF digital download immediately in my Studio Store!

Why the change of heart? Well, it really isn’t so much a change of heart as it is both the appropriate passing of time since the book’s release, and facing the reality that pirating is going to happen no matter what I do, so I might as well make it available for digital purchase to those who are willing to part with a few dollars to have a good, digital copy. That’s really the only way to combat piracy: offer it anyway for as cheap a price as you feel you can, and let the people with a conscience and some respect for authors, artists and other creators have a legitimate way to pay for the digital copy.

Yes, I know a number of people who lack said conscience and/or respect for authors, artists and other creators will upload the file to several unscrupulous “sharing” websites, but that’s already being done by people who bought the book and then spent hours scanning every page to do just that. Yes, no doubt some people will download that illegal copy and have the results of about 9 months of writing, illustrating, editing, designing and production… not to mention the 30 years of experience learning the things I am imparting in those pages… for nothing. How many of those people would actually have ever bought the book anyway? That’s the real question. If that number is less than the number of people who end up paying for a legitimate digital copy, then it makes sense to offer it digitally and let the chips fall where they may. If that number is more than those who do buy a legitimate copy, then I am shooting myself in the foot. I believe it’s the former, but I guess we’ll never really know anyway.

I did add this message to the front matter of the PDF book:

Thank You for Purchasing a Digital Copy of My Book

Supporting artists and authors by purchasing legitimate copies of their works is the only way to ensure artists and authors can continue to create the work we all love to enjoy.

The contents of this book took many, many months to write and draw, and it took almost 30 years of learning and experience drawing caricatures to gain the knowledge being shared here. A PDF of this book is available for purchase on my website for a very reasonable price. If you downloaded this book illegally and you like the content, please consider purchasing a legitimate digital copy for about what it costs you for lunch at a fast food restaurant.

Help support self-publishing, ebooks and most importantly the artists and authors that create them by purchasing the books you download and get something from.

Thank you for supporting the work of creative artists and writers everywhere.

-Tom Richmond

That will probably fall on deaf ears 99.9% of the time when we are talking about people who will download an illegal copy of a book, just like the FBI warning at the beginning of a DVD elicits mostly guffaws and snorts from bittorrent users. However it’s never a waste of time to remind people that the content they are stealing was created by someone, and creators need to be supported if anyone wants then to keep creating.

So, all those of you who would like to get a PDF copy of The Mad Art of Caricature!, follow this link to my Studio Store and you can get one for the low, low price of $9.99 (cheap) with instant access to the download, and no shipping fees!! The PDF is 16.2 MB, so while it is pretty big it’s not enormous. The link will allow you to download it only once, but from there you can add it to your iTunes library for use on your Apple devices, onto your Google, Nook, Kindle or Android devices or read it on your computer, laptop, etc… anything that will allow you to read a PDF file. The table of contents is fully inked to the various pages and chapters, and the entire book has been reformatted to single page reading for a better experience on your tablet.

I’d love feedback on how the book looks on your various devices. I can increase the resolution if people think that’s warranted, although it will also increase the file size. It looks good on my iPad as it is, but results may vary.

EDIT- So I already have been told that if you download it on an iPhone, you need to make sure you save it as a PDF in iBooks before navigating away from it in Safari. Here’s a link on how to do this.