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Cory Doctorow has a strong argument in the same direction, but with slightly different expression: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/#freedownload
Of course the case would be very different if you wanted to publish your book as audio, which is probably much more expensive to produce.
Higher-Order Perl as an audiobook would be quite an experience!
Cory Doctorow has a strong argument in the same direction, but with slightly different expression: http://craphound.com/littlebrother/about/#freedownload
Small publisher here. I believe other factors have contributed to its longevity. I just did a quick lookup of the book on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Higher-Order-Perl-Transforming-Program...) and it has a couple of things going for it that help contribute to long-tail sales:
* Availability of new copies of the book, which signals the content is probably still relevant/not obsolete and may also indicate it’s a classic/foundation title considering how long it’s been in print.
* A relatively high number of professional reviews and reviews from experts in the field
* A moderate number of great reader reviews, including many “Verified Purchases” from the past year
The current sales rank (579,897) indicates it's probably selling 1-3 copies per month on Amazon U.S. The fact that there are so many used copies available, not to mention the free PDF, no doubt reduces sales of the new book, but there are still enough people out there who want a new copy of the print edition for their bookshelves to keep the trickle of new sales.
Regarding the convenience issue: These days, it’s possible to buy a new book online and return it or resell it later (as 63 other owners are doing right now on the Amazon U.S. site). It’s a pain to list it and handle the packing, but so is driving to a bookstore to bring back a return.
A note about free book downloads: Free titles are indeed very convenient for those who are unable/unwilling to purchase the print edition, but they are less likely to be read. I currently have a title available for on Amazon and it’s been downloaded thousands of times, but through various mechanisms (including reviews, follow-on sales of the 2nd volume, clicks to the website from the ebook edition, etc.) I have determined it’s seldom read -- I'm guessing less than 5% of the people who have downloaded the Kindle edition have actually read any part of it. I think many free ebooks and PDFs end up on people’s devices and don’t end up being read because of a lack of time and all of the other free content that’s available out there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In short, publishing houses serve no necessary function in modern technical publishing. ...aside from the economies of scale that they can apply to activities like editing, typesetting, graphical presentation, technical review, release scheduling, marketing, publicity, and cross-format distribution. There's also the risk mitigation that happens when you get an advance that you can't deal with yourself. There's a worl…
Not vouching for him, but Aaron Shepard, a children's author, maintains you can self-publish efficiently and profitably these days. "In fact, by aiming at Amazon, I was able to sell close to 30% the number of copies sold by one of those nationally-distributed competitors including its bookstore sales. And because the profit from my publishing system is so high -- generally half or more of the cover price -- I was ear…
Many higher order concepts eluded me for years (SICP was a good introduction, but this goes much further, as an intermediate level book), but this was very enlightening. I recommend it for anyone working in just about any language. I was able to apply the concepts in Perl and JavaScript quite readily. And, there are translation s of the examples to other languages on the web these days.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not vouching for him, but Aaron Shepard, a children's author, maintains you can self-publish efficiently and profitably these days. "In fact, by aiming at Amazon, I was able to sell close to 30% the number of copies sold by one of those nationally-distributed competitors including its bookstore sales. And because the profit from my publishing system is so high -- generally half or more of the cover price -- I was ear…
The problem is that he is biased. He is selling books explaining how to self publish on Amazon. So it is better for him to say that you will earn more money doing so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ...aside from the economies of scale that they can apply to activities like editing, typesetting, graphical presentation, technical review, release scheduling, marketing, publicity, and cross-format distribution. Most of which you don't care about, unless you have to edit, typeset, review, market, format 100s of books. They are one time costs and with the internet they are becoming very cheap already. The important…
Most of which you don't care about, unless you have to edit, typeset, review, market, format 100s of books. They are one time costs and with the internet they are becoming very cheap already. Maybe you didn't mean it the way it sounds, but I think any author cares about what their reader gets, and if I buy something I certainly care about its quality. I know for a fact that no matter how much effort I put into writin…
Part of this is that it's an unusually good book. But I think the longevity is partly because it is available as a free download. Imagine that person A asks a question on an Internet forum, and person B says that HOP has a section that could help with the question. If B wants to follow up, they now must find a copy of HOP. If the book is out of print, this can be difficult. It may not be in the library; it almost cer…