So you’re thinking about self-publishing an I.T. book? • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by gte910h » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 3:17 PM UTC

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…

I had a philosophy professor who advocated leaving books of any quality about where people could find (and ostensibly keep them).

He'd leave books around GT Campus apparently when done with them.

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

#42

Post by gte910h » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 3:19 PM UTC

wladimir wrote: post #40

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…

To me, that 50 dollar book allows me to earn random thousands of dollars over the next few weeks usually. I see technical books as zero cost profit making devices.

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

#43

Post by gte910h » Mon, Mar 21, 2011, 3:20 PM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #21

Interesting results. Thanks for sharing them! Why is S3 so important for file distribution? Couldn't you do about the same with some cheap shared hosting?

>Couldn't you do about the same with some cheap shared hosting?

Hit Events, i.e. your item is suddenly a hit, come fast and die fast many times. If you're not scalable, when you do get hit with a publicity event, your infrastructure can melt and then you miss out on a huge majority of sales.

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

#44

Post by code_duck » Wed, Mar 23, 2011, 5:35 AM UTC

gte910h wrote: post #43

code_duck wrote: post #21

Interesting results. Thanks for sharing them! Why is S3 so important for file distribution? Couldn't you do about the same with some cheap shared hosting?

>Couldn't you do about the same with some cheap shared hosting? Hit Events, i.e. your item is suddenly a hit, come fast and die fast many times. If you're not scalable, when you do get hit with a publicity event, your infrastructure can melt and then you miss out on a huge majority of sales.

Sure, I understand that I guess. My question is whether the demands on the servers hosting the OP's book ever met the level where S3 was really necessary or not. It doesn't really sound like it did, judging from the numbers.