Oh look another rant about the disconnect between the publishing industry and how developers consume information.
Category Archives: publishing
One important thing to consider if you are planning on writing a free book is the license for the work. Traditional software licenses have some clauses that are not relevant to books or electronic media. Lessig’s Creative Commons makes sense because he wrote it with books in mind. So where a license like Apache or […]
This post should be something everyone who has ever received a royalty check should read. I’m not going to say I’ve ever received a royalty check that was anything less than truthful, but I do resonate with the idea that publishers don’t understand how to pay royalties on digital downloads. (Oh, and for some reason, […]
From today’s NYTimes article on SAS and the challenges it faces from IBM here is an interesting scene. Goodnight built an audience sending free books. Granted, this was before the advent of electronic booksellers, but I’m fascinated by the idea of Goodnight packing up free book shipments and sending them to potential customers. It is […]
I’ve got an interest in the answer to the following question: What is the right price for a 300-page book that is freely available online? If you have an opinion, please vote in this poll: http://twtpoll.com/8sgvef. Some Price Points Before you vote, here are some data points assuming that you are using a service like […]
Ok, I’ve been using Lulu for book distribution for a few weeks. First reactions follow. Where Lulu Works Domestic Distribution (US): – I’m frequently sending 40 book shipments throughout the US and Europe. Domestic distribution is a big win for Lulu. Although the site itself states that it should take between 3 and 5 days […]
Jury is still out, I’ve decided to do some self-publishing experiments so I can get a sense of what is out there. I’ve uploaded a book to Lulu (I’m not telling you which one, and it is still a private book, so you can’t buy it.) Some initial reactions… It is very affordable to self-publish […]
O’Reilly Tools of Change 2009: Tim O’Reilly makes the argument for Open Publishing from Open Publishing Lab @ RIT on Vimeo.
If you are just tuning in, Common Java Cookbook is an experiment in transparent, open writing. I’m trying to develop this book and make frequent releases every one to three days. The idea behind this book is that open source writing should be no different than open source software. This is the first post in […]
Andrew Savikas of O’Reilly writes about Piracy on O’Reilly Radar When Authors Ask Us About the Consequences of “Piracy”. He quotes Nat Torkington: Fantastic! There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it, and unless you see sales dipping off then I don’t think there’s anything you *should* do about it. The HF books work really […]
