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So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

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Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#31

Post by rmc »

silentbicycle wrote: post #9
jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

I've had a similar experience with http://hlrb.org . Sales flagged until I gave away the PDF/HTML; not that they're smashing now, but they are way better than they were. I keep saying this: People don't like to pay for eBooks (yet). When I wrote the Rails Upgrade Handbook, I initially put out market feelers at $20, but most people said that was too expensive. I settled pretty arbitrarily at $12. It sold well, but as…

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

Tech books depreciate quickly. I'd guess a 5-10 year old Ruby or javascript book would not have a lot of resale value.

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#32

Post by silentbicycle »

rmc wrote: post #31
silentbicycle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

Tech books depreciate quickly. I'd guess a 5-10 year old Ruby or javascript book would not have a lot of resale value.

Not necessarily; that says more about Ruby and Javascript than anything. I have plenty of tech books from ten or twenty years ago that are still valuable resources. Actual computer science books have a much longer shelf life than "$Tech_of_the_moment In Action".

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #30
silentbicycle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

Who pays (sticker - $5) for a used book? Add the shipping cost and you're more expensive than a new one! Plus, what kind of book do you buy that have resale value? They surely aren't programming/IT books, because those become worthless after 3 years or so.

[deleted]

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#34

Post by gjm11 »

roel_v wrote: post #30
silentbicycle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

Who pays (sticker - $5) for a used book? Add the shipping cost and you're more expensive than a new one! Plus, what kind of book do you buy that have resale value? They surely aren't programming/IT books, because those become worthless after 3 years or so.

They don't all become worthless after 3 years or so, though the ones that don't tend to be the ones you aren't going to want to sell.

Some categories of programming books whose utility and/or interest needn't drop much years after they were written: Algorithms books (Knuth, Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein). Books on fundamentals and high-level principles (SICP, Code Complete, Pragmatic Programmer, Design Patterns). Books whose tool-specific content relates to tools that aren't changing much (Paradigms of AI Programming, Thinking Forth) or at least that have a large enough stable-enough core (Effective C++).

(Note: "hasn't lost much value" isn't quite the same thing as "has a great deal of value". Some of those books are better than others.)

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#35

Post by gjm11 »

atgm wrote: post #20

I'm currently trying to self-publish my (non-IT) ebook on Amazon, Lulu, and Barnes & Noble through www.branchrock.com. Here's my impression: 1. Lulu is the easiest to work with. They accept the widest variety of files, don't require any special formatting, allow you to choose your price and discounts, and most importantly, update changes almost instantly. The only down side to using Lulu is that they don't have the s…

60% of your sales by number, or by revenue? (60:40 * 0.99:1.53 is pretty much 1:1. But maybe the fraction of that money that you actually get is difference in the two cases.)

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#36

Post by atgm »

gjm11 wrote: post #35
atgm wrote: post #20

I'm currently trying to self-publish my (non-IT) ebook on Amazon, Lulu, and Barnes & Noble through www.branchrock.com. Here's my impression: 1. Lulu is the easiest to work with. They accept the widest variety of files, don't require any special formatting, allow you to choose your price and discounts, and most importantly, update changes almost instantly. The only down side to using Lulu is that they don't have the s…

60% of your sales by number, or by revenue? (60:40 * 0.99:1.53 is pretty much 1:1. But maybe the fraction of that money that you actually get is difference in the two cases.)

By number.

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#37

Post by bemmu »

silentbicycle wrote: post #9
jeremymcanally wrote: post #4

I've had a similar experience with http://hlrb.org . Sales flagged until I gave away the PDF/HTML; not that they're smashing now, but they are way better than they were. I keep saying this: People don't like to pay for eBooks (yet). When I wrote the Rails Upgrade Handbook, I initially put out market feelers at $20, but most people said that was too expensive. I settled pretty arbitrarily at $12. It sold well, but as…

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

I actually consider physical books to have negative resale value. I recently moved to Japan so I wanted to get rid of all my heavy belongings. I listed all my books on an auction site and on bookmooch. All in all I ended up spending hours thinking about those books, mailing them, meeting people who came to pick them up etc. and all for some insignificant sum compared to the time spent. It would have been cheaper to throw them in the trash, but being a physical thing potentially useful for someone, I didn't have the heart to do that.

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#39

Post by jules »

bemmu wrote: post #37
silentbicycle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a data point: I'm reluctant to pay too much for ebooks, because they have no resale value . There are plenty of print books that I've happily spent $30-100 for, because I know that I can resell them for most of the cost (typically $5 less, at most) if I don't consider them worth keeping. Arguably, this makes their effective cost more like $5-10, give or take - mostly shipping. I'm quite willing to pay more for boo…

I actually consider physical books to have negative resale value. I recently moved to Japan so I wanted to get rid of all my heavy belongings. I listed all my books on an auction site and on bookmooch. All in all I ended up spending hours thinking about those books, mailing them, meeting people who came to pick them up etc. and all for some insignificant sum compared to the time spent. It would have been cheaper to t…

Give all of them to a boy or girl to sell them. The money is significant for a kid, and he or she will have fun and learn valuable skills.

Re: So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book?

#40

Post by wladimir »

mkramlich wrote: post #17

He climbed a bit steeper hill than he would have had to climb otherwise because he chose to create something that has lots of free acceptable alternatives already easily findable and useable, and it's (effectively, though not strictly speaking) a commodity product. It might be a pretty darn good one, but it's still something that just fills a commodity need, for most people. On a related note, I myself have developed…

That's the same distinction that I make;

a) Fundamental technical or scientific books, that will keep their value at least a few years, preferably longer.

b) Books about a certain version of a program or technology.

I do buy books in the (a) category, even hardcopy. But for (b) I first look for a free online alternative, and otherwise an ebook. I've also made that mistake of buying Java 1.2 doorstops back in the time ;) The world of IT moves too fast for print.

Fiction books I usually buy as ebook, because my bookshelves are already over-full and most I'll only read once anyway.

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