I’ve been a book author since 1972 and a textbook author since 1989. My computer graphics textbook has been the most popular book in the area for 20 years and just came out in its eighth edition with various editions being available in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Russian. Sadly, the book business has changed over that time; changed in way that is bad for almost everyone, especially authors. I think you’re faced with a lot of bad choices. I hope some of the following will prove helpful. And if not helpful, at least interesting.
Before I forget, you might enjoy reading of my adventures writing the first edition of my present textbook while on sabbatical in Venezuela, Ecuador, Hong Kong and Nepal. There’s a pointer to it on my home page www.cs.unm.edu/~angel <http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel> When I had to pick a publisher, I knew the editors and local book reps at Academic Press, Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall and Benjamin/Cummings. They dominated the CS field and did so largely because they had editors who knew the field, excellent book reps who knew the needs of the faculty and students, a willingness to invest in a book, and in-house production. None of these exist anymore and, as Tom pointed out, you're largely on your own. It’s unfortunate if you care about how many copies get sold and your royalties. I have many friends who self-published in the past. It’s a lot of work either way but I prefer to put my effort into content and not type-setting or marketing. None of my self-published friends have ever sold many books. I had three excellent editors over 20 years. When I did my first edition, my editor hired a development editor at great expense to improve the quality of my writing. She worked with the CS faculty and grad students at Caltech and Stanford. It made a huge difference. Now almost none of these jobs exist within the publishers. All production is contracted out to the low bidders (art, typesetting, copy editing, etc) most of whom are in India. I no longer have an editor. There is one person working for the publusher with whom I communicate with to try to get things done correctly with the contractors. This last edition has been a long painful experience. So what happened? Books were always expensive for students, especially when sold through college bookstores. Then used book sellers appeared and Asian students started importing low cost Asian versions of the standard textbooks. Under US copyright laws, both are legal. The publishers responded by upping prices which reduced sales even more. And then came electronic media. At first, my book, like most others, was still print-only. But the publisher sent perfect unwatermarked pdfs to all the schools what adopted the book for use by students with special needs. Wasn’t long before those pdfs made it to the Web. Then they had a electronic version and a kindle version that students could rent for a semester or year. The publisher, the largest in the business, was clueless about web security and had no idea that Kindles are not secure. Very quickly, the book appeared (with most of the other cs texts and various best sellers) on a Russian website as a “public service.” End of paid sales. The new edition is only available in electronic form and the publisher claims it is only available on a secure site. I doubt anyone on this list believes that. Although I never in the past had issues with the publisher having the copyright, which was pretty standard, I wish I had it now. Since there is no hope of making significant royalties now (we used), my coauthor and I would like to put the book out for free on our websites rather than having it appear on various illegal Russian sites known to most students. Personally, I no longer care about royalties but the long term issue I worry about is why would any young person write a textbook. It’s a huge amount of work and usually not something that in the academic world is valued as highly as research papers and grant funding. Ed _______________________ Ed Angel Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico 1017 Sierra Pinon Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-984-0136 (home) an...@cs.unm.edu <mailto:an...@cs.unm.edu> 505-453-4944 (cell) http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel <http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel> > On Jul 4, 2020, at 2:25 PM, Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net> wrote: > > Thanks. Yes, self-publishing is an option. I am looking for an official > publisher mainly for one reason, namely that other scientists and researchers > can cite it, since I still cling to the illusion that someone would actually > do it. Normally self-published texts are not considered as reliable or > trustworthy sources. I didn't expect that finding a decent publisher would be > so difficult. > > -J. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Tom Johnson <t...@jtjohnson.com> > Date: 7/4/20 20:10 (GMT+01:00) > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com> > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed > > Jochen: > The deal being offered strikes me as a bad deal. > > Background: I have been practicing and teaching about "Be Your Own > Publisher" for nearly 15 years. There are, in my opinion, some major > problems with all publishers today. It starts with control of the copyright. > I think YOU should want to maintain control of the copyright to your work. > It will depend on the contract, but many or most publishers will try to lock > down the copyright in their favor for all -- ALL -- forms of your work in > perpetuity and throughout the universe. Sometimes quite literally. > > Second, you should assume -- especially with a small publisher and you, not > being as well known as Stephen King or Daniel Steele -- the publisher will > do little if anything to promote your book beyond a mention in its catalog > and, maybe, some promotional links on Amazon. Given that, a 5 percent > royalty should be seen as a con. > > Third, given your computing experience, you should find it easy to format and > produce the book yourself. I have used Lulu.com <http://lulu.com/> for > years. It is especially good if you want to have both hardback, paperback > and PDF editions. Again the advantages: you keep the copyright, you can set > (and change) the prices and to a degree the royalties. Also, Lulu and Amazon > handle all the backend financial arrangements and administration and pay > directly and quickly. I also use a very good, high quality digital printer > in Albuquerque for paperback editions. It is Lithexcel > <https://lithexcel.com/services/print.html>. It handles all the printing > (one copy to any number) quickly, along with all the fulfillment and > accounting. The folks there will also, for only $25, set up your book in the > Amazon inventory search engine. Finally, there is Amazon's self-publishing > arm > <https://www.bookbaby.com/free-publishing-guides?utm_campaign=GOOSL31&utm_source=SITELINK&utm_medium=cpc&mkwid=sNzCXe5z8_dc|pcrid|238281756657|pmt|e|pkw|amazon%20book%20publishing|slid|cWU1oXIv|targetids|kwd-362938383597|groupid|48812614458|&pgrid=48812614458&ptaid=kwd-362938383597&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0YD4BRD2ARIsAHwmKVnFci42apQ6vWUruvHuYX-FOum9VCF7bx83c_tSMHGoby8yylL_RTMaAjOEEALw_wcB>. > While Amazon might take a bigger slice, the control over all aspects is in > your hands. > > Here's the problem/challenge with all of these. YOU have to do the > marketing/publicity/promotion. But so what? If you today sign with any > publisher of any size you will have to do the same thing. > > Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me with questions. Also you might > want to see https://bit.ly/2ZvihKc <https://bit.ly/2ZvihKc> > Tom > > ============================================ > Tom Johnson - t...@jtjohnson.com <mailto:t...@jtjohnson.com> > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA > 505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646(h) > NM Foundation for Open Government <http://nmfog.org/> > Check out It's The People's Data > <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671> > > ============================================ > > > > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon> > Virus-free. www.avast.com > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link> > <x-msg://8/#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:29 AM Jochen Fromm <j...@cas-group.net > <mailto:j...@cas-group.net>> wrote: > At one end of the spectrum there are the 5 big commercial publishers > Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & > Schuster. They only publish stuff their agents select to make a lot of money. > There are also the big academic publishers like OUP, CUP, HUP and MIT Press, > which preferably publish strictly peer-reviewed content from professors at > Ivy League universities who made their PhD at the age of 20. > > At the other end of the spectrum there are "predatory publishers" who publish > anything you submit as long as you pay enough money for it. Open access books > can also be very expensive. Publishing an "open access book" at De Gruyter > for example costs up to 8000 $. You pay for it so that other people read it. > It is basically some kind of advertising of your own work. > > For my own new book I finally have an offer from a small publisher in > Washington D.C. who is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. They are > really small and offer 5% royalties. Should I accept this offer or wait for a > better one? It is the only one from more than 25 publishers I have asked, and > the publishers at the moment are flooded with submissions. :-/ > https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/26/novel-writing-during-coronavirus-crisis-outbreak > > <https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/26/novel-writing-during-coronavirus-crisis-outbreak> > > -J. > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > <http://bit.ly/virtualfriam> > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/> > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
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