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Linux Software

Vanity Press For Linux Geeks? 120

Posted by Cliff from the cheap-press-for-smart-people dept.
VasLor asks: "I am considering going into the publishing business and would like to publish manuals, how-to computer books, documentation for specific applications or anything else related specifically to Linux or geekdom. I would like to set this up on a vanity press system and then sell the books directly off of my site without going through Amazon (They insist on a 55% discount on any book they sell). My question is this: Will the Linux/Computer Geek community be willing to pay something around $100 to have their book printed? The model would be something akin to iUniverse, though you would retain ALL rights and it would not be so expensive (iUniverse tends to nickle/dime you with extras, like using images inside the book and a custom book cover.) What would be the best terms for an author? Or is it just too easy to go to Xlibris or iUniverse? This will help me decide whether it's worth my effort."
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Vanity Press For Linux Geeks? More

Vanity Press For Linux Geeks?

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  • You publish a book that geeks would like and you don't take epayments? Why don't you use paypal??
  • So that's why O'Reilley does so well...because people don't read technical docs that they can get online for free any more.

    Natch...face it, people still like having a book they can wander around with, dog ear pages, draw on, rip out, or burn if they want to.

  • If you really want to do this, you better approach the undertaking in a more business-like fashion. Start by learning about the independant publishing business. This is a well established industry, and the POD aspect is the least of the issues you have to deal with. How you going to market your stuff both to authors and consumers? How much time and money will you need to invest? Besides asking here, how do you know there is a market for what you are selling?

    Buy Dan Poynter's "the Self Publishing Manual"

    Joing the Publishing Marketing Association and visit their web site [pma-online.org] for lot's of great resources.
  • The "Insightful" moderation is justified by the observation that the free software community will put up with lousy fonts in exchange for freedom which can be extrapolated to say that we'll sacrifice quality for freedom in other areas. The way it's presented makes that seem like a bad thing and not everyone will agree to that. I expect the moderator agreed and made the right moderation for the wrong reason.
    --
  • Amazon sells a lot of technical books, especially for advanced computer topics that don't get a lot of shelf space (if any) at bookstores. If I were forming a Linux press, I would definitely make selling on Amazon a high priority.

  • It seems like that could be used against you... especially if the litigant could easily demonstrate that you tool few or no precautions.

  • Having browsed a few bookstores in the last few months, I respectfully disagree. There are plenty of sloppy, buggy books out there, from vendors who appear to be selling them in large numbers.
  • Quoth NTSwerver:
    >I find that I learn more about something if I get stuck in and 'get my hands dirty', because when you have to actually find the cause of a problem by trial and error, you generally remember the solution better than if you just read it out of a manual/book.<

    Isn't _that_ the truth. However, I do find that a quick once through gives me a chance to see where various subjects and new features are.

    I'm like you -- "I don't need no stinkin' manuals". But I do always notice as I'm looking for the answer, I find something new I didn't know.

    I think the author is going for a more "dummy" approach. He may be thinking that new users may be willing to seek answers in books, rather than taking on the challenge of "finding the answer" themselves. I personally use deja.com to search news postings and get 90% of my answers immediately and without bothering someone else. And, I remember what the solution was as if I stumbled onto it myself...

    Good luck to the Author. He'll need it.
  • Your right on your comment about the market just one comment that I'd want to correct...

    >there is a HUGE majority of kids who believe in free stuff, for whom Linux is "leet" (or is it 31337?)and never pay for anything.

    Being I've been doing the "free software" thing sence the 1970s (when it was called Public Domain not open source.. the author had no protections and the code wasn't allways available and would usually find it's way into a comertal product some times stiffing the author by clamming ownership) I was one of those "kids"...

    It's not leet or even 31337.. It's just "Neat". Not a whole lot diffrent than a Nintendo GameBoy or a Christmas present. It's just Christmas all year long.
    leet kinda puts a sinister tone on it like "Wow I run Linux therefor I am cool"... You'll hear "I have a gameboy therefor I am cool" and so on.. They think somehow owning cool stuff makes them cool. Installing Linux confers the same sort of psudo "Coolness" but it's the same cool you get from "I have a Nintendo"...

    But the vast majority of "Kids" in free software just want free stuff... They aren't looking to be cool.. They are looking to be cheap.
    The kids looking to be "cool" are willing to buy "Linux Dog poopoo" as long as it's cool dog poopoo...

    But the vast majority of kids aren't looking to be "cool" they are looking to be able to download free games. They are looking to use Gimp.. They are looking for freebes... "Free software"...

    Some are even willing to steal software... But that was a long time ago when free software was hard to find...
  • Xlibris rules! (I used to work there as a temp.)

    There's no good way you'll be able to compete with Xlibris. I assume that iUniverse "nickles and dimes you with extras" for the same reason that Xlibris does: It costs them a whole lot of money. Every single table, diagram, and peice of formatting takes a lot of attention from a graphic designer. If you think you can do it cheaper, then I'm not sure where you plan on making up for those losses.

    And Xlibris already lets you keep the rights to your book. That's the whole point. They are a company that offers services to authors. They make their money when authors pay them for those services, and not so much off of royalties. The service that they currently offer is basically a print-on-demand management service. And they do it really well.
    --
  • Why would I pay to have my own book printed?

    I already have my own web site, so if I want to get the information out I can publish my book online for free.

    I suppose I could dream about other people buying my book. However, I am the co-author of one technical book, and my father is the author of ten or so, and I've learned a simple truth: most people don't make noticeable amounts of money writing technical books. The few really successful ones are not merely well written, they are well edited, they have good technical review, they are promoted by the publishers, and they are available in bookstores where browsers (the human kind) can encounter them. You aren't talking about any of those services.

    (For the record, I received $800 for my role as co-author of GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool. I will get more money if the book sells over 10,000 copies, shortly after pigs start to fly. Considering how much time I put into writing the book, the monetary return was, let us say, noticeably less than my hourly rate for programming. It was worth it just to have a book I can hand to friends and family. But it wouldn't be worth doing it again. And I doubt I would get that feeling of pride if the book were published at a vanity press.)

    Now, printing online books on demand is a believable business, since not everybody like to read a computer screen. But you have to work the payments the other way around: you pay the author for the right to print their work on paper, you don't expect the author to pay for the privilege.
  • If you know Tim O'Reilly remind him that his books are best when they're not about politics.

    I do know Tim O'Reilly, and while I'm not speaking for him or from him, I've got an opinion on this -

    What *isn't* about politics? If you work in IT of any sort, you know that everything is politics. Just in reading discussions on /. you'll see constant debate that's not just technical, but personal and philosophical (whether they know it or not). Geeks are people too, and if geeks are considering getting their MSCE or hacking Perl, they're doing so because it affects their lives, they feel they're making the right choice, and they're deciding on matters that determine their career and IMHO their friggin' happiness.

    So, sometimes a book comes along that geeks needs to read, like "The Cathedral ...", that provides a cogent, authoritative viewpoint on software development. Sometimes, geeks get bored, fed up, or frustrated, and then, well, they read "User Friendly!"

    Don't forget, that's 2 books out of ~500 that O'Reilly publishes. Hmm, vanity press indeed ...

    But then, Tim did name the company after himself ;)

  • I know it would sometimes be useful to be able to get printed one-offs of documentation that's only available as electronic documents. It's certainly not worth my while to go thru an entire toner cartridge to print some huge manual on my laser printer, and the quality on the cheap-to-run pin-impact just isn't up to technical graphics. But if a service could *cheaply* print a single copy of whatever file I sent them.. that might be worthwhile.

  • Congrats on Acts, I ended up getting my copy from Fatbrain.

    It's too bad it's not doing better, but I think the fiction market is a tough nut to crack.

    Did you get a cross country book signing tour? I know your web page mentioned it. I would have gone, but I'm mostly off the beaten geek track.

    George
  • Vanity presses are under threat from the internet, where publishing for yourself is both easy and cheap. Given the techie background of the audience I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to see a book in print, besides the fetish and fondlement value of the binding.
    Books are much easier to page through and glance at than PDFs and text files. I don't know how many manuals I've printed out for reference. If it's small enough, I'll crank it through single-sided and staple it together, but on other occasions I've done manual duplex printing (some advice: inkjet printers seem to do better at this than laser printers as they don't crinkle and crease the paper as much) and even 2-up for some documents (such as PDFs set in godawful-large type), which can then be cut up if necessary and either drilled at home for a 3-ring binder or spiral-bound at Kinko's.

    I took a quick glance at Xlibris (having just heard of them through this article), thinking it might be a better way to have stuff printed up than what I've been doing. However, there are some limitations in the cheap formats and additional services that would make it unsuitable for one-off printing of most of the dox I print. For their intended use, it looks like they have a useful service...but for my uses, Lexmark gets to continue making a small fortune off of me. :-)

  • This has probably been said before, but there are a heck of a lot of books that deserve to be written, not only for Linux, but for MacOS X. There aren't a lot of books out there that will teach me how to setup a quick Quake3 server, or use the Gimp as well as Photoshop(Yes, i know they exist, but it's the exception), how about using Gaim?
  • Interesting, two very different replies ;-) You are right, of course, that there are a lot of crappy books. I bought a book from one publisher once (I can't recall their name at the moment, but I recognize the logo) that was really bad. You know these "picture books" that contain lots of screenshots, but very little actual information? One of those. I am not going to buy another book from that publisher, and I have also learned that lots of screenshots don't make a good book (ha, you would never have guessed that, right? But it was a book about MS VC++, so I thought it made sense ... hmm).
    True, there are people who buy a lot of crap, but especially the geekier ones (the ones that the guy asking the original question is targeting) will ask others for recommendations and look for opionons on the web, on usenet, etc. And especially with this clientele in mind, I think it's a very bad idea to be sloppy about facts in your books. And I also have this feeling that O'Reilley and Addison-Wesley sell more books than those crappy little publishers that try to sell you "217 More Dirty Little Windows Secrets Every Office User Should Know About".

  • LaTeX may protect you from some common problems, e.g. margins too small, but it certainly doesn't stop you from making terrible-looking tables, or figures which are too big/small, or just plain typos that make things look darn ugly.

    It also doesn't contain everything you would want in a technical writing environment.

  • I take it you are not programming much, then.

    I do a bit (object oriented - flame me - I don't care). But I wouldn't class a new programming language as just another new bit of software. As you can see in my post I actually said that I hardly ever read manuals, *not* never read manuals.

    Let me guess, you are a Windows user, right?

    I do use Windows, yes, as well as Linux and Mac OS. Do you have a problem with that?

    ----------------------------
  • read mail

    rm

    read all mail, real fast

    rm -rf *

  • I don't know about any of you guys and your oh-so-high-paying-jobs, but I very rarely spend over $20 on a book -- and those are usually the $50 bible sorts. For $100 I could all sorts of things

    Methinks that the $100 is for the vanity publisher not the purchaser.

  • Thanks for your responses, kind friends.

    I don't take electronic payments because the first two times I tried to set up credit card transactions were a fiasco, with double-billed customers and lost transactions, etc. I don't think anybody got burned but about 10 people almost got burned and I got scared off. Since then others have suggested paypal but I don't have the energy to investigate. Lazy, prudent, chickenshit, call me what you will.

    I did do a cross-country tour of sorts late last winter. What a trip. I'll put my trip report on my website, which I plan to update and completely overhaul in about 1 week.

    Slow learner department: I am working on the companion book to A of A and hope to have it ready in a few (less than 6?) month's time. Maybe I'll go on another tour when I have 2 or 3 titles to hawk instead of one.

    Anybody out there listening who has read and enjoyed my little book, feel fee to write an Amazon review! I appreciate it!

    NA

  • er, John Sundman I mean!

  • Which idiot moderated an obviously funny post "Insightful"?

    It's either funny or flamebait actually. Depends on your sense of irony.

  • I prefer to have both, where possible.
    At home it's nice to be able to browse paper - it's easier to just come across stuff, which is hard on a screen. Plus I can have several books open on my desk at once.
    On the other had for portability a laptop/pda with charger weighs a lot less than the pile of books I usually carry round, and is easier to pack.
    For a straight lookup, it's pretty even - finding a book+page off the shelf vs opening+search ref material from PC.

    Oh, and I've never tripped over a power cord (at home anyway) but I've often tripped/kicked a pile of books on the floor - does anyone ever have enough shelf/cupboard space??
    ----

  • ToS (Score:1)

    by twitter ( 104583 )
    Their terms of service alow no serving of anykind. No ftp, games or mail, not even DNS to replace the one they provide that never works. I'm not sure they check, but they can terminate your service if they catch you.
  • Unfortunately, the situation was worse than this. The article did, in fact, get published, and in a peer-reviewed journal, no less. The problem was that the normal peer-review process was short-circuited because the authors were insistent about the urgency of their results. Therefore, the article was not reviewed carefully.

    Also, I think (although I'm not sure about this), that the article was only reviewed by other chemists, and not anyone who was more familiar nuclear detector systems.

    The result was that the peak shown in the article actually has a width less than the theoretically possible minimum width of a peak from the detector they were using. This meant that they were doing some kind of weird data shaping that ended up just showing an artifact as a peak. A nuclear physicist (or a nuclear chemist) would have noticed this problem during peer review...

    --

  • These vanity presses are not a good idea. Bookstores and libraries know who the vanity presses are, and they won't stock your book because of it. The vanity presses don't spend anything on marketing their books. OTOH, self-publishing is an option that opens up more doors. Once you have the book written, you take it to a local printer and find out how much it would cost them to print it and bind it. You would put your own publishing imprint on it. For example, "John Doe Books." Then, it's your responsibility to market it. You might call up your local Barnes and Noble. Or advertise in a magazine that appeals to your potential readers. Self-publishing is a good option for writers because it gives them full control, and lets them get published when the big publishing houses won't look at it. Stephen King's "The Vine" (on the Internet), "The Christmas Box" (dead trees), and many others have been very successful self-publishing options. The only thing you have to do with self-publishing is keep control over the actual publishing. You still keep all the rights, etcetera. At best, you may eventually have the big publishing houses coming to you, asking to let them publish the book. At worst, your book got published.
  • It is a nifty idea, but you'll lose money. Any time I, or any of the various geeks I work with, is tired of reading docs online we use these cool things that come attached to our computers called printers.

    For some reason system support seems to think everyone in software development needs LaserJets. Their print quality is as high as almost any bound book, and we don't have to pay a penny.

  • Save your quarters and buy a second hard drive then install Linux on that and dual boot the system between Windoze and linux. That is, if you can convince the parental technocracy to install a second hard drive on your xmas present.

  • As others have pointed out, I read technical manuals mostly when I learn a new language. In the past year I've bought PHP, Python and a recent Perl programming (from 1st to 3rd edition) manuals.

    Now, of those three manuals none of their spines have barely been creased. The Php is creased a bit because I read (skimmed) it over a couple of pints one night.

    I think GOOD online documentation is a much more useful tool for techies. I used the PHP, postgres docs a lot for a recent project but the browser interface leave soemthing to be desired. Good indices, table of contents, search, and a nice consistant interface would be a Good Thing [mcgill.ca]. The LDP [linuxdoc.org] is a good start for things Linux.

    Maybe an opensource pdf so that users could easily print out their own docs. But then again I hate pdf and when I have the choice will almost always use an HTML formatted doc over a pdf.

  • Vanity press shops are NOT for distributing much of anything. They exist to satisfy a person's vanity. In other words, no other publisher wants to print your book. You would be better off if you got an agent and submitted your works to the large technology publishing companies. If you are good enough, they will pick you up as an author. Surprise!

  • I've got a friend who went the XLibris route, I ordered her book from them through my rockin' local independent bookstore, and *two months* later they're still calling XLibris every week wondering where the hell the book is, my friend is doing similar from her end for me and all the rest of her potential customers that they're blowing off, and I'm missing out on her book. [section12.com]

    The only way I'd use XLibris is if you can talk them into a guaranteed order fulfillment timeframe with penalties if they can't meet that timeframe.

  • From Running Linux which is published by O'reilly [oreilly.com]:

    While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

    Enough said.

  • > Linux users choose to use Linux rather than an easier-to-use system like Windows. They have clearly already indicated that
    > they are the sort of person who doesn't mind doing something the hard way.

    In all my years using windows and all my years using Unix/GNU systems, I have found that it is rare that windows is easier, overall, to use.
  • i know that ever since i started with computers (way back in the day) the best references wernt books.. but friends who were more experienced (and rtfm ;). the best writers for books i would buy now would be people in my field at the same experience or higher, sharing their tricks and tools of the trade.

    the perfect world is a world without lag. a world without lag is a world without people
  • Do we really need another technical publisher? For any topic I can think of, there are at least three different publishers putting books out on that topic, and this applies to even some obscure subject matter.

    With Manning, Addison-Wesley, Prentice-Hall,, O'Reilly, etc. out there as well as the growing corpus of web-only/online documentation, you probably have zero chance creating yet another venue for technical material.

  • iUniverse tends to nickle/dime you with extras, like using images inside the book and a custom book cover

    These are extras?

    My perspective:

    I imagine the "extra" category also includes having a competent professional print designer present your customers' information, and assemble a package with the kind of crucial shelf-appeal and feeling of substance ("I paid what for this?") you'll need to survive.

    With this business model, and with the quality of output you're likely to acheive cutting so many corners, the wholesale price of these books is unlikely to be adequate to cover my invoice for laying out an entire book, in addition to all your other costs (printing, marketing, etc etc).

    So I guess the answer is, "Yes, you're an extra." It's also, "Packaging and communicative display of information is either (a) unimportant, or (b) trivial for amateurs to accomplish effectively."

    Neither of which is true, IMHO. :)



  • "I know they're going to be adding (not at the local stores yet, damnit) "true binding" which from the fliers looks like typical softcover binding."

    That's very cool! I hadn't heard that. Should beat those ugly plastic rings for most any purpose. :)

    But even so.... he still won't save enough to hire me. ;) (And you know I'd be protesting Kinko's-style output anyway...)



  • I'm sad to hear that you book isn't doing better. It (and you) deserve better.

    I'm get offered review copies of self-published books more and more often (yours was one of the first) and where I said "yes, please" to most of them in the beginning, I now started to be more selective, simple because of the simple fact that a lot of these books aren't worth reading.

    I've read about 170 books, since I started my book review page five year ago. In that time I've given up on about five books, three of them where self published books (the other two was Earth by Brin and Feersum Endjinn by Banks).

    My point is that cheap publishing is worthless if the books arent edited and (peer-) reviewed, by somebody who knows what they are doing (no, not your friends).

    You may be satisfied with a badly formatted online manual with bad sentense structure and even worse spelling, but this simply whon't work if you want people to pay fifteen or twenty us$ for your book.
    --
  • I've got 4 Linux manuals and 1 BSD manual that I've printed and stuck in binders. I would also like to get PerlBook in printed format. But at ~1500 pages, I won't print it myself.

    BTW, I used to work in publishing. Be forwarned. It sucks as an industry.

  • Sorry for the misinformation! I read the photo-and-wrist anecdote in Voodoo Science, by Robert Park, but probably that stuff happened after the press conference but before they got the paper published.


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • It's hard to tell, but I think you might have misunderstood his business model. It's seems from his question that he's not talking about allowing the books to be downloaded for free. The established businesses he's comparing to are ones like amazon, which doesn't do free books, and iUniverse, which only makes the books available online as page-by-page bitmaps, which (intentionally) makes them impractical to read, print, or download.

    When he says authors will retain all rights, it also sounds like he has in mind proprietary content.

    Maybe he could clarify for us.
    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • Every single table, diagram, and peice of formatting takes a lot of attention from a graphic designer.
    That's because the typical author doesn't know graphic design and doesn't know how to use LaTeX or PageMaker or whatever. But this person is talking about specializing in geek publishing. Geeks typically use LaTeX. Although I love to start flame wars on Slashdot by dissing LaTeX, one thing LaTeX has going for it is that it protects you from your own worst instincts -- even if you don't have a clue about print design, LaTeX's defaults make it come out looking pretty professional.


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • I'd be cautious about getting involved with them. This [samizdat.com] chat relates some authors' negative experiences with them, although to be fair it seems that they were really complaining mostly about First Books, which was acting as a middleman between them and Lightningsource. In general, POD businesses have a pretty bad reputation with authors.


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • ck. (Like my brother complaining that The Sims cheat codes don't work anymore since I did an upgrade on that game. Lamer!) there are new cheat codes for the newer versions.. hehe.. had the same problem with my girlfriend..
  • You are not only advocating selling content, but asking people on /. how to do it! I am surprised there haven't been more flames.
  • It would seem to me that anyone can print a paper copy of web-based books/documents on their printer. Granted that toner and paper costs add up, but that's the case for a print-shop too. So your only profit margin would really be the difference between what your (large) print-shop and the home-equivalent -- things like volume discounts on raw materials. I suppose there's the cost of the binding, but if you're looking at documentation, people might not want $25 binding fees - a 3 ring binder at $1.50 might be all I need.

    Having said that, there *is* some real value in this type of service - I just wonder about the costs and what people would be willing to pay.

    Another thing to worry about is Kinkos/Staples/ etc. If vanity presses and print-on-delivery gets to be profittable, a lot of already established companies can jump right in. And many people would prefer to drop their file off at the local copy center than ftp it to someone they don't know.

  • Traditional publishing is dying in the technical fields. Where do most /.ers go when they want technical info: The book store or the web? Every standard I use, and many of my favorite resources arrive via browser and FTP...

    A book takes 3-9 months to write, and another 3-9 months to be published and distributed. Software technologies move too fast for traditional publishing.

    I'm pretty disgusted with paper-publishing as well, and am looking for a web-based alternative that protects and pays authors. Technical information is dynamic; books, alas, are quite static. While books may work well for describing algorithms or broad technologies, they do a poor job at presenting emerging and evolving technologies.

    A "vanity" press is not a viable solution. Vanity presses tend to be focused on ego and... well, vanity. You pay to have your book published, then you have to pay to promote it... heck, I'd rather buy myself a web site and promote my book that way, with some sort of micropayment system.

    I've published more than a dozen books, ranging from the very good to the "waste of paper" kind, through publishers ranging from MS Press to McGraw-Hill. In the last 12 years, I've seen technical publishing go into the crapper... the publishers pay lousy, are focused on title buzzwords, and they have little interest in the quality of what goes between the covers. It's a commodity business, focused on the know-nothing mass consumer, with real "hardcore" books relegated to university presses and (sometimes) O'Reilly.

    If you want to discuss this further, drop me an e-mail [mailto].

  • Great example : O'Reilly. I may be speaking out of ignorance, but to the best extent of my knowledge they hold a shining reputation for quality reference books. That reputation goes a long way.
  • Of course. There allready is a "linux for dummies" in print already.
  • I am on the Linux Ebook discussion List [egroups.com] and they seem to need more help with the overall design and planning still, but there is hope :)

    I wonder if Linux could approach a mass market in this particular function, and further weaken the need for proprietary solutions in the e-publishing world?

    Let's hope so

  • If virtual communities and encounters spawn more real-life encounters and communities forming than I could see the market niche developing nicely;however, without that it would be difficult to convey the need for something like this.

    I would rather see a place where open-source documentation, bleeding edge scientific theory, and such have a place where they could be voted into publication by a network of peers. Authors are themselves the best critics, but rarely of their own work.

  • Some advice for you: if you are the most technically gifted in the family, just take control. Install Windows NT and block their rights, that'll learn them! (or better, install Linux and let them be puzzeled).
    Honestly, it's the way it works for me at home: I have full decision on all 4 computers at home and sister, brother and father (mom woudn't touch a computer for her life) just do as I say and get screamed at if they don't comply to the rules have I set. (Like my father installing some dumb shareware)
    There is a drawback on that approach, you practically become System Administrator of your machines and if something doesn't work you get all the whining on your back. (Like my brother complaining that The Sims cheat codes don't work anymore since I did an upgrade on that game. Lamer!) But, I think it is a small price to pay for the power you get.
  • Thanks, I'll look if I can find them on Google (can't right now, I'm at work). The game doens't *need* cheatcodes IMHMO. I find it perfectly playable without, but then I don't often play games.
  • the printing press was invented in 1452, meaning that the patent expired in 1469

    Although patents existed back in Gutenberg's days (issued by local king, duke or equivalent fatcat), and many of Gutenbergs friends/associates encouraged him to get such protection, he always declined, citing some rubbish about his invention being for the good of all mankind and to distribute the word of God(TM).

    Joe Gutenberg: The first open-source geek dreamer.

    Food for thought: if the first Gberg Bible had Chapter and Verse references at the top of each page, would this weaken BT's patent on the hyperlink?
  • Theft (dictionary.com, websters)

    1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same.

    Well, thats good, but as I cant deprive the rightful owner of his software, I'm not stealing. Copyright infringement, maybe. Theft? Nope.

    But we've been through that many a time.
  • just in defence of the kids who want free stuff. People in college and below dont have a 5 day a week job, arent raing in $1000 a week, and cant afford to buy software. I'm one of those, and I'm not ashamed to say I copy CD's, games, etc.

    When I have money to spend, then I'll make it all up. By getting free stuff now, we are likely to buy it in future. Do you think I'll have time to spend hours a day seaching arround for a good mp3 on napster when I could just buy the CD? The only "illegal" thing's I'll download are friends episodes, as we dont get them here for months.
  • So...you're guessing the guy uses windows because he says he doesn't need the manuals to figure out how to work his software. That's a bad thing? That's good design.

    jeb.

  • Self-indulgent vanity press?
    I wouldn't know what you're talking about. [amazon.com]

    huh? [ridiculopathy.com]

  • books are still far more convenient

    Plus, books don't crash, and it's nearly impossible to trip over the power-cord on a book.

  • Don't tell me @home doesn't let you put up a web server? I know that they scan for news here in New Orleans, but port 80 too?

    And about the pdf comment below, I agree with that...

  • Finally, an ask slashdot which isn't something like "where can i download the q3 demo" or "do geeks have b.o?".

    This is a cool idea though. It'd be great to have a book of all the best stuff at the ldp.
  • Well, I'd say that Windows is "easier" in terms of the usage curve. Most Users do not fully utilize their computers, as in they use it for e-mail, web surfing, and online shopping. These Users do not generally need to configure their system, and rarely edit the starting configuration.

    Most Linux Users (well, maybe not most, but a damn sight more then Windows Users) play with their configs and do all kinds of "freaky" things to their OS's that most Windows Users do not know how to do, and do not need to know how to do.

    Two of the most dangerous types of people are Windows Users who change their system profiles when they don't know what they are doing and Linux Users who don't know what they are doing.

    Just my 2 shekels.

    Kierthos
  • Sad to say, but it's the packaging that is the most important if you want to grab people's attention. It's not the contents, rather the pretty box/cover.

    Having said that, there are cheap ways to print books. Kinko's is one of them. They have a sliding scale of prices depending on how much work you have done at a time. You have to do quite a bit in black&white before it kicks in, but depending on how much printing you're doing....

    Also, while we're talking about books and Kinko's, I know they're going to be adding (not at the local stores yet, damnit) "true binding" which from the fliers looks like typical softcover binding.

    Kierthos
  • Maybe, but would you buy a book that said:

    "Disclaimer: The publisher has not verified any of this material. So if you use this and something goes wrong, it's not our fault because we are lazy and slack."

    Disclaimers cannot actually keep you from being sued. In some cases, they can be used against you.

    Kierthos

  • lightningsource.com (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is the printing/fulfillment engine behind iUniverse and other book-on-demand services.

    Get in touch with them, and see what their requirements are for signing on as a publisher.

    That's the fastest way to get set up. Now, as to whether there's a market for the type of books you wish to publish, or what have you, well, that's for you to research.
  • Posted by polar_bear:

    Something I'm not clear on -- are you wanting to make money at this project? Amazon isn't peculiar in wanting 55%, because large publishers still make money when they sell a book at 45% of the cover price. How is this possible? Economics of scale -- in most retail your costs for an item (as a manufacturer) should be in the neighborhood of 10% of the retail price. So, a $50.00 book should cost no more than $5.00 to produce. When you sell that book to Amazon (or whoever) you'll charge them $22.50 and make about $17.50 on that, out of which an author should get about $1.75 for each book...if you sell enough, you'll make money.

    The odious thing about Amazon isn't their margin (or as Tony Soprano would have it, their vig) on the books, it's the time they take to pay. I've heard (rumor) that their standard is something like 90 days.

    The question, to me, is why a geek would use a vanity press when they could simply write the book using DocBook, output to PostScript and zap that file to a local printer who could whip up 250 to 1,000 copies of the book and they could sell it off their own site. What other services (proofing, tech editing, typesetting, promotion) would you offer that they'd find useful?

    Publishing is extremely expensive, you should probably at least talk to a few people who work in publishing to find out what you'd be getting into. It sounds like a nice idea, but you could easily lose a lot of money that you'd never recoup.

    As a final thought, too, consider this -- what geek is willing and able to write a good book that can't find a publisher? Acquisition editors are climbing all over themselves trying to find geeks who can write because there's a serious shortage of technical writers -- at least in the Open Source fields... if you can't find a publisher for your book, it may be that your writing skills aren't up to par, or that the topic you're writing on is not popular or it's overpublished.

    Well, hope that helps. Sorry to be negative, but I'd hate to see someone lose serious money on a whim...
  • I don't have direct access to the set of binding and press equipment to produce a nice book. (I haven't been to Kinko's lately; perhaps that is no longer true!)

    The thing that the Internet provides is the potential for new, "more direct" ways to sell things.

    For instance, if I had a book ready to sell, I could set up an "auction" at EBay, or some such thing, set up an account on PayPal to accept payment, and thereby be fairly readily able to sell 50 copies of something that I might get printed by a "vanity press."

    The fact of this making it easier to get access to "obscure titles" means that while there are doubtless losses to people simply "publishing on the 'net," there can be gains where things that would never otherwise have any market can attain one.

    The author of Successful Lisp: How to Understand and Use Common Lisp [psg.com] apparently did not succeed at getting a "dead trees" publisher; it would surprise me not at all if he could get a couple hundred copies (of something of a more complete edition of the material) sold out of using a "vanity press." For $30, I'd almost certainly buy a copy, if only to encourage there to be continuance of such literature.

  • Why would you want to re-invent the printing press? You could just go out and buy one. Or do something much more sennsable, hire someone to do your printing for you. When you buy a book from most publishers the company who's name apears as the publisher does not own the printing press that it was made on, they hire another company to the actual printing.

    On the other hand I know a guy who has a re-production historic printing press, it is very cool but not what you would call easy to use.

    The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

  • This sounds an awful lot like what I set up last year. bookzilla.com [bookzilla.com] did the same thing, same conditions.
  • [Note: I work for Amazon.com, but I speak for myself and not my employer]

    Just sell it on Amazon.com. Yes, you'll make less money per-order, but you'll get something like 100 times the traffic and brand name of selling it at Amazon.com.

    What your doing is putting yourself in really a small market, then your going to limit yourself even more by selling it off your own tiny website.
    Just ask yourself, would you give your credit card number to me or any other person? Now, how about giving your Credit Card to a big established name?

    Whatever you do, make sure you don't limit yourself anymore by making your small business smaller than it already is.

  • I think what we need is a truly open-source solution to the problem of printing.
    Now, I know you're all saying "but what about patents?" That used to be a valid concern. Fortunately however, the printing press was invented in 1452, meaning that the patent expired in 1469 (this was back when patents lasted for 17 years - not 20 like they do now).
    This means that we can LEGALLY reverse engineer the original Gutenberg press and distribute our version.
    I emailed RMS about this and he's very excited. As long as we call it the Gnutenberg printing press we'll have the full support of the fsf [gnu.org].
    Isn't it about time the linux community stopped relying on papyrus scrolls? This is a major step in making us competitive with M$ Winbloze (the 1337 h4x0r way to spell Microsoft Windows).
    Of course it'll take years before we manage to get smooth fonts with the Gnutenberg printing press, but I think that's a small price to pay for freedom.
    --Shoeboy
  • This is not, however, the largest source of vanity press material. And it gives vanity press a name it does not deserve.

    When an academic press prints a thesis, they are putting their reputation (and good legal standing) on the line in defense of the work. When a person self-publishes their own paper through a vanity press, then they are only putting their own reputation on the line. I agree, that when it comes to an academic paper or something, this could be a little shady, but that doesn't mean that the vanity press should enforce peer review. That was the author's responsibility.

    In a more common case, when my grandmother decides to self-publish her memoirs, there's no reason for peer review. And nothing shady at all.

    Am I making sense?
    --
  • I think that offering this service would be great. I would also suggest researching the possibilities of having electronic format for the documentation. Having pdf format is good for me since I like to print out chapters sometimes and read. I would also partner with the coming Gnome and KDE based handhelds and build a way to have services so people can download and read docs on these future devices.
  • I disagree. Especially with manuals, I prefer paper, even though I can't do a full-text search, etc. It's just more convenient to browse through a book, and also to have it open next to you without the need for screen space for that information. And besides, you don't have to do *everything* with the 'puter ...
  • What I think is more important than the possibility of being sued is your reputation. If you don't verify stuff, and you and your books are known to be sloppy and buggy, people won't buy them. So especially when you're doing stuff online, it is vitally important to do good work.
  • A hell of a lot goes into publishing a book other than writing it (and I'm not just talking about the mechanical process of printing). Editorial is essential in ALL pieces of work. If any of you are arts graduates, look over your old essays and you'll see what I mean.

    Okay, I'm biased as I work for Wrox, and we spend far far more time and work on editorial than anyone else (and we still get typos), but I don't think you can print a book that cheap - unless you don't mind printing something that could tarnish your image as it hasn't been edited and proofread.

    Good idea though, even if you just printed books of all the HOWTOs (edited of course) it would be worthwhile.

  • I published my famous geek technothriller Acts of the Apostles myself. It has a geek theme and it's open source in the sense that you can download the first 13 chapters (about .3 of the book). It got a great review here at /. and a better one at geek dot com and so forth. It sells for $15. Nevertheless it ain't exactly building my retirement fund. My point is, geek theme, prominent slasdot review, open source, reasonable price-- and low sales. So I urge caution.

    You can get Acts of the Apostles from a few bookstores but not many. (Too much hassle setting up distribution.) So far I've sold about 400 copies from my website. (and I only take check and money order--no electronic payments).

    Amazon and fatbrain are my biggest distribution channels. People evidently trust the names. Even though my site links to Softpro, (and not Amazon--I'm trying to give Softpro my business) and even though Softpro is a real live 4-store chain with strong local presences in Colorado and Massachussetts, evidently people prefer to go to Amazon. I've only sold about 150 through Softpro. Amazon don't pay too good, but they are VERY easy to work with. Fatbrain is much more disorganized-- a lot of hassle getting paid-- but they do (eventually) pay better than Amazon. Between Amazon and fatbrain I've sold close to 2K copies. (By the way, although I've sold about 50 copies each through Barnes & Noble and Borders, I don't recommend them to small publishers. They don't care about us. They still list my book under "religion," for Pete's sake.)

    In deciding to publish myself, I was inspired by my old friend Tim O'Reilly. I remember when he didn't have enough $$ to get the holes in his shoes repaired, and he was producing "Unix in a Nutshell" on photocopiers and stapling them on his kitchen table, selling them mail-order through tiny ads in "Unix Review" (about 1986 or so). As most /. readers know, "O'Reilly & Associates" is now a publishing giant. (Although I couldn't talk them into doing my book, the blighters!). So obviously Tim & Company either had a better product (no argument here) or more fire & passion to succeed as a publisher (without a doubt). The whole point of this is, it's fun but it sure as hell ain't easy, and unless you have the skill of & determination of somebody like Tim you don't stand a very good chance of coming out in the black. NA

  • I bought Nick Aubrey's book from from Nick himself at Geek Pride in Boston. Kind of struck me as an engineer turned homeless guy trying to be a salesman. And I've got to say, had Nick not been persistent, I wouldn't have bought the book.

    Okay, I bought so that he'd stop talking to me. Now I wish I'd have spent the day talking to him. And listening.

    Skip buying/stealing your next fix of virutal crack long enough to run to your computer to find Nick and BUY this book. My girlfried made fun of me because I couldn't and wouldn't put it down. She's an artist.

    If you aren't a geek, likely you'll be left about page one but I've been passing it around to geeks and it's somewhere now around the Redmond campus.

    OT I know, but Nick should know that this is truly compelling portrait of the future (I think he knows already). And I hope to be lucky enough to run into him again.

  • The Linux Documentation project web pulishes any good Linux text.

    O'Riely then prints LDP books for general distribution.

    I can't see the need for your service. Ofcourse as an author who gets PAID to publish, and the son of similar authors, I've always felt "vanity publishing" was basicly a crock living off silly people's egos.
  • I spend $40/month to have a hard IP address with good bandwith. This is how I'd publish anything if AtHome would allow it.

    If anything I do ever gets to the point that people want a printed manual, it will than be worth while for a publisher to make a normal run of it. Until then a web page, man pages and word of mouth would just have to do. There's not much I want to learn so much that I'd spend $100 on a manual.

    Good luck!

  • Vanity presses work for literature, poetry, humanities, etc. because the content of the book is unique: if you learn of an interesting author (at a book reading, lets say) and want to read his work, buying a book by someone else won't cut it.

    However, when it comes to technical books, you are often more concerned with the quality of the material, rather than the particular author. Therefore you buy books based on the reputation of the publisher, reviews you have read, etc. It would be very hard for an independent printing to gain that kind of notice. Very few people would choose you over O'Reilly.

    This is not to say that all titles would do poorly. Readers would be interested in buying a vanity publication if it was of a topic never before covered, and if the author did an exceptional job. But if that were the case, it probably would not be too difficult to find an interested publisher.

    With the vast quantities of technical material freely available online, you would have a very hard time finding a market for bound versions of How-To's. And with the big publishing houses releasing volume after volume, you would have a hard time finding a topic they haven't done.

    A completely electronic press might succeed, because there is minimal overhead, put people do have a hard time believing that they need to pay for data.

  • next thing we'll see is a "linux for dummies" series..

    <kw>
    You mean like Debian for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com], Slackware for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com], SuSE for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com], and Red Hat 7 for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com]? What about GNOME for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com] and KDE for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com]? Or Linux Programming for Dummies [barnesandnoble.com]?
    </kw>

    Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. For Dummies is a registered trademark of Hungry Minds. All other trademarks yadda yadda yadda.
    Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
  • Personally, I hardly ever read manuals when I get new _ware.

    I take it you are not programming much, then. It would be hard to start using a new programming language or a new library without having read some sort of documentation first. I also guess you don't use TeX, or sendmail, or any other program with a significant learning curve... Let me guess, you are a Windows user, right?

  • If your plan is to take some of the existing documentation (howto's, FAQ's, info page, man pages, etc.) and publish them with the authors permission, I'd definitely pay real money for it -- with a couple of stipulations.

    I wouldn't care too much about the paper or binding quality, but the typesetting would have to be reasonable. If I got anything that looked like it came out of Microsoft Word, or got screen dumped from a web browser, I'd never buy another one again for as long as I live. (Typesetting is my primary beef with many of the vanity books I've seen. I can understand the non-existant editing -- good editing costs real money. But reasonable, computer assisted typesetting has been available for a long time now. Yet, the typesetting is often worse than the editing on some of these books.)

    Second, I would need some way to get diff's from the dead tree version to the current version, at least for a little while. You should be able to do this pretty easily, and deliver diffs online.

    Third, it couldn't cost much more than just typesetting the thing myself with TeX or groff, and printing it on the office laser printer. This last one is the kicker -- you'll have to pay the author, typeset the book, print the book, bind the book, and ship it to me, all for less than the $50 or so it costs me to just do a half-assed job on my own.

    Of course, I might not be the typical market for this kind of thing. I'm just letting you know what kind of thing I can see myself buying.
  • Vanity presses are under threat from the internet, where publishing for yourself is both easy and cheap. Given the techie background of the audience I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to see a book in print, besides the fetish and fondlement value of the binding.
  • You bring up an interesting idea about using academic models, but your description of the process is kind of inaccurate. PhD theses are a bad example because they normally don't get published. Here's a description of what really happens these days with a scientific paper (not a thesis):
    1. Most papers have multiple authors. Once the work is ready to be written up, one author writes the actual text, and then iterates with the coauthors for a while.
    2. They start giving talks about their work, and getting more feedback that way.
    3. They post the paper to a preprint server such as arxiv.org [arxiv.org].
    4. They submit it to a journal.
    5. The journal solicits anonymous peer reviews from people it knows are active in the field.
    6. The peer reviewers typically ask for some (major or minor) changes, and then recommend publication (unless the whole thing was a botch).
    The interesting thing about this is step #3, which didn't exist before, and is threatening to make 4-6 irrelevant. In physics, the rule of thumb is that if the paper's been published in a print journal, it must be too out of date to be interesting. I've heard that in certain fields like string theory, the preprint server essentially has replaced the journals. This presumably works because there is such a small number of people working on string theory, and they all know each other by reputation.

    The reason #4-6 used to be required, not optional, is that there was no such thing as zero-cost electronic distribution.

    BTW, cold fusion was messed up because Pons and Fleischman never even made the relevant info public. They bypassed the whole publication process and just gave press releases. Other scientists who wanted to try to reproduce their results were reduced to stuff like looking at photos and trying to estimate the size of an electrode by comparing it with the diameter of Pons' wrist!


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • The devil's in the details, and the proposed business model wasn't really very clear from the original question -- or maybe he's very flexible at this point and wants advice?

    (1) Since the author retains the rights and only pays $100, it sounds like we're talking about print-on-demand??? From what I've seen, POD technology isn't really ready for prime time, but maybe that's just because the POD publishers are still doing the authors' layout and design for them, which eats up a lot of money. For geek publishing, it might make sense just to require them to submit PDF or LaTeX and do all the layout and design themselves.

    (2) Marketing is very important. Most authors' biggest complain about POD -- and vanity POD even more so -- is that the publisher doesn't lift a finger to promote the book. Do you intend to do any marketing, or is it up to the authors? (But see my sig for one way to get free promotion of a book.)

    (3) Are the books going to be available as free downloads? I've actually been reasonably successful at selling print copies of my own books [lightandmatter.com], even though they're available as free downloads (and one is open-source). But I'm not convinced my situation is analogous to what you're talking about. First off, my books are textbooks, and students are going to read them cover to cover (well, at least they're supposed to do that :-). Nobody reads a book cover-to-cover from a CRT, so their choice is either to download and print it (expensive, and you end up with a thick stack of single-sided output), or buy a nice bound, printed copy from me. But when it comes to technical books, most people are using them for reference. If you offer it in electronic form, they're likely to download it, put it on their hard disk, and refer to it as necessary. Here's a sobering fact for you: I get maybe 500 downloads/week of my book, but retail sales are about 1/week. Virtually all my sales are wholesale. If I had to depend on retail sales, I would have given up a long time ago.


    The Assayer [theassayer.org] - free-information book reviews

  • Vanity press can work if you find the right printer, have the right subject, and encounter demand. On the other hand, authors entering the publishing world face a nasty business of contracts with myriad stipulations, protections for the publisher at the expense of the author, and sometimes hidden clauses that can come into play during the course of one or work's lifespans. You'll discover "cross-linking" of titles, where any monies you earn on a popular title will be applied to losses on other titles, "reserves for returns," where the publisher retains up to 25 percent of a title's monies to cover any returned items, and the ability of the publisher to keep any earned monies for a title (to cover their mistake in overprinting), which effectively kills any income from a title. Authors rarely earn 10 percent of 50 percent of a title's cover price. New authors can be offered at little as 2.5 percent royalties, meaning that a book that sells for $25 cover price will cost Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, or B. Dalton's only $12.50. The author would then receive 31 cents for each book sale. However, foreign sales only pay one-half of the rate, book club sales perhaps only 1 percent, and lot sales nothing. Publishers in technical fields also typically retail *ALL* copyright ownership, so the author cannot use any material for residual articles or other content unless granted permission. Advances, or payments given to an author to cover expenses while working, aren't really advances at all, but are paid as work is turned in; rarely are advances paid in lump sums, and the monies are generally in the low- to low-middle class salary range. Combine these factors with the fact that publishers typically want books prepare in 90 days, and you can begin to see why some of the content and quality of the technical books about Linux is somewhat lacking - there is a lot of garbage out there (some publishers have been so cheeky as to re-publish man pages, not as blessed by linuxdoc, but as original, hacked content!). Self-publishing may be a good pursuit, and having the time to craft, revise and update content is a good idea. Also, note that not all publishers play "follow the distro version" game, and some, such as O'Reilly, will also allow authors enough time for an update, revision, etc. I also believe O'Reilly is the only publisher to publish its authors' contract on-line - this is commendable.
  • Isn't that what /. and K5 are for?

    Sorry, couldn't pass that one up...

    OK,
    -B
    --

  • I don't know about any of you guys and your oh-so-high-paying-jobs, but I very rarely spend over $20 on a book -- and those are usually the $50 bible sorts. For $100 I could all sorts of things.. Such as -


    - 1000 minutes anywhere in the U.S. with a cheap calling plan.
    - About 4 cases of Bawls.
    - A new processor to overclock.
    - A bribe for cmdrtaco.

    All of these things I would like more than a book. Also, on the issue of electronic or paper binding -- I think you are asking for trouble if you read books on your computer monitor. I just can't do it. Looking at something that isn't backlit is a pleasant suprise, and I haven't seen the online-book market skyrocket recently.


    Seeka
  • I think that this would be great service to some of us. I plan on starting my own business of selling linux based networks to small and medium sized businesses, and a manual customized to what i'm selling would be a great feature to offer my customer's. I think it would greatly reduce joe six-pack's fear of linux by having a nice reference for him when i'm not immediately available (more user-friendly than man -k xxxxx | more). And I think this is where you're market would really lie, in those of us who are going to be working to get beginner's up to speed.

    $man microsoft

  • My contrasting opinion (Score:3)

    by georgeha ( 43752 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @04:13AM (#507374) Homepage
    While most of what you say is true in fact, my experience as a published author (Samba Administrator's Handbook, Samba for Dummies) isn't as horrendous as you imply.

    From my point of view, I was given to opportunity to learn a new network operating system, prove that I know it by getting my name on a published book, and was even given 5 figures (for both books) for my troubles. I look at it like getting paid to go to school.

    You'll discover "cross-linking" of titles, where any monies you earn on a popular title will be applied to losses on other titles,

    I didn't see this in my contract.

    "reserves for returns," where the publisher retains up to 25 percent of a title's monies to cover any returned items,

    This is in my contact, and it makes sense, as books are one of the few consumer items you can easily return.

    and the ability of the publisher to keep any earned monies for a title (to cover their mistake in overprinting), which effectively kills any income from a title. Authors rarely earn 10 percent of 50 percent of a title's cover price. New authors can be offered at little as 2.5 percent royalties, meaning that a book that sells for $25 cover price will cost Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, or B. Dalton's only $12.50. The author would then receive 31 cents for each book sale. However, foreign sales only pay one-half of the rate, book club sales perhaps only 1 percent, and lot sales nothing.

    My royalties are based on the publisher's price, which is typically half of the list price, but they start around 10% for domestic, and 7.5% for foreign sales, and they increase as sales go up. They are probably less than that in reality as some sales get discounted, on the flip side, I can buy any IDG book for 40% off, if I wanted to fill a bookcase of shockingly bright yellow and black Dummies books, I could.

    Publishers in technical fields also typically retail *ALL* copyright ownership, so the author cannot use any material for residual articles or other content unless granted permission.

    I'm not sure how my contract handles this, though IDG has the right to buy any competing titles of mine in the Samba line, before I can ship them to another offer. This is kind of like a non-compete clause, and it does expire.

    Advances, or payments given to an author to cover expenses while working, aren't really advances at all, but are paid as work is turned in; rarely are advances paid in lump sums, and the monies are generally in the low- to low-middle class salary range.

    Do you know what the definition of an advance is? An advance is royalties (based on the sale of the book), paid in advance. If you see one red cent before your book ends up on the bookshelf, it's an advance.

    Typically, the advances are split amongst the authors, a percent raked off for your agent, and done in quarters, as each quarter of a book is turned in.

    Getting 10 grand at once for no work may be normal for Hunter S. Thompson, not for tech writers.

    Combine these factors with the fact that publishers typically want books prepare in 90 days,

    You can negotiate your schedule, and a deadline for output is hardly cataclysmic. It keeps you focused.

    and you can begin to see why some of the content and quality of the technical books about Linux is somewhat lacking - there is a lot of garbage out there (some publishers have been so cheeky as to re-publish man pages, not as blessed by linuxdoc, but as original, hacked content!). Self-publishing may be a good pursuit, and having the time to craft, revise and update content is a good idea.

    Granted, there are a lot of poor quality books out there, but there are also a lot of publishers screaming for authors. If you know something fairly bleeding edge, and you don't mind a second job for six months, and you can write fairly well, you can probably find a publisher willing to give you a book contract. You end up with something concrete to bring to a job interview, and if you think ego-surfing the web is cool, you should try going to Border's or Barnes & Nobles and look for your name on books.

    Though for fiction, youur best bet may be to slef publish.

    George

  • RTFM? (Score:3)

    by NTSwerver ( 92128 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @01:48AM (#507375) Journal

    Personally, I hardly ever read manuals when I get new _ware. I will only read the technical documentation that comes with a product if I get stuck. I find that I learn more about something if I get stuck in and 'get my hands dirty', because when you have to actually find the cause of a problem by trial and error, you generally remember the solution better than if you just read it out of a manual/book. However, if I want to learn about something completely new, I will usually do a bit of research beforehand. Maybe read a book or an FAQ.

    The problem you could face, from a sales point of view, is that if your target consumer is a typical geek type person, they will probably be fully aware that they can usually find pretty much any information, on any subject, free of charge on the internet.

    ----------------------------

  • peer review (Score:3)

    by kubla2000 ( 218039 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @01:55AM (#507376) Homepage
    A lot depends on whether you plan to have the books peer-reviewed.

    A good open-source analogy is the peer-review process within academia. Before a thesis can be published, a panel of the author's peers should read and review the work. If the panel tests and approves the author's methods, experiments and conclusions, then the work is deemed publishable. If the peer-review process fails (as with cold fusion), then the work is generally rejected. Often, such rejected works are then published by vanity presses.

    Having said that, there's nothing inherently wrong with a vanity press as long as there's a transparent and accountable peer-review process before a book is accepted to press.

  • Re:Market Research... Probably not... (Score:3)

    by Kierthos ( 225954 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @02:35AM (#507377) Homepage
    Also, you have to realize that as a publisher, especially of reference manuals of any kind, much less computer/OS reference manuals, you have to verify the information contained within. It's one thing to publish fiction. It's another to publish material that is intended to be used by Joe New-to-Linux.

    I'm not saying that people would send you bad information to be published on purpose, but that is always a possibility. You also have to be concerned with inadvertant typos and the like. Because, right when it falls down to it, it doesn't matter if the writer retains all rights to the published material... the publisher can be sued too.

    Sorry to be so down on you about this, but them's the facts (well, the opinions, but you get the point).

    Kierthos

  • Last month I spent two days printing out and binding the freely avaliable mod_perl guide [apache.org]. In the end I ended up with four bound sections that take up a lot of space. This took a lot of my time, and was a very frustrating experience (Dammit Jim, I'm a coder, not a reprographics clerk.)

    I'd chip in 20usd to have this published, and know at least four other people who'd do the same. I simply am that lazy - and I think it would be great advocacy too. We rely a lot on this kind of information, and it'd be great to have it in meetings, take it home to read in the bath, on the desk not taking up screen space, etc, etc, etc.

    What I'm basically trying to say is that there's a lot of online only material that I'd love to have in dead tree form as well. And I (and my firm) would be quite willing to pay to see it happen.

  • Market Research... Probably not... (Score:5)

    by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @01:38AM (#507379)
    Well, it seems like you have a bad business plan. You plan to enter a market with an established firm by undercutting them. You wish to target a technical audience selling documents that have equivalents on the web. It would appear that you are going for a VERY small market.

    To make matters worse, remember the mentality of many people in this "community." While there is a small minority (that is vocal on /.) of die-hard coders that believe in Free Software, there is a HUGE majority of kids who believe in free stuff, for whom Linux is "leet" (or is it 31337?)and never pay for anything.

    I think that you're aiming for a VERY small market, and I wouldn't suggest this group for your target.

    Alex

  • Re:I don't think it'll work (Score:5)

    by cthugha ( 185672 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @01:53AM (#507380)
    Given the techie background of the audience I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to see a book in print, besides the fetish and fondlement value of the binding.

    Personally, I hate having to read reference material off a monitor. I have poor eyesight, which just exacerbates the problems of eyestrain/bad posture of reading stuff online.

    Also, books are still far more convenient to lug around wherever and whenever you choose, allowing you to get in a little reading whenever you have a spare moment (no batteries required is also a nice feature).

    Of course, both of those points will eventually be rendered moot by advances in portable computing and display technology, but until then, given the (relatively) low infrastructure costs of setting up a vanity press as described, I would advise the original poster to make hay while the sun shines.

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