Thread: Publishing and PostgreSQL
Josh Drake pointed me to a recent thread titled "Thoughts after discussions at OSCON". (I'm his editor on PostgreSQL: The Definitive Guide) The main thrust of the thread didn't seem to be book publishing, but a few comments caught my eye, so I'd like to jump in and respond. Robert Bernier said: >I would imagine companies like >Oracle etc. have a subsidy system that makes it possible for authors >to earch income while they write (does anybody know for sure?). Publishers often give writers an advance. It would be highly unusual though, for a company like Oracle to to subsidize authors directly. Were that occurring, I would almost certainly have heard about it. What Oracle *does* do is give authors entry into beta programs and access to product managers who can answer questions. McGraw Hill / Osborne has the Oracle Press deal. I don't know the details of that deal for certain, but I do know a little of "X press" type deals in general. McGraw Hill likely pays Oracle a certain percentage of sales for the right to stamp "Oracle Press" on the covers of their books. Oracle might have some leverage to ensure that books get published that would otherwise not make economic sense. And I have known Oracle to subsidize certain books by paying the publisher (as opposed to the author doing all the work<grin>). Oracle has significantly changed the way they work with authors over the past few years. From the standpoint of getting access into Oracle, there is no real advantage to writing for Oracle Press. They've really reached out on an equal basis to everyone who wants to write about their products, which is a smart move, IMHO. But I'm digressing too much. The short answer is that I'd be very surprised to find Oracle subsidizing an author directly. Rick Morris said: > Speaking of education, I think the coolest thing we can do is put > together a library of examples that show how to save time and effort > with the relational model, while increasing the value of your data. "Why > the Relational Model Saves you Time", or something like that. You might have the germ of a good book idea there, actually. Greg Sabino Mullane said: > We certainly are not gaining "geek mindshare" as fast as we should. > It doesn't help that O'Reilly seems to be in bed with MySQL AB > (exhibit one: the joint MySQL conference). We're "in bed" with MySQL only to the extent that any company would be "in bed" with an important client. O'Reilly's Conferences division is its own profit-center, and they have done well at growing their business. MySQL is a company that wanted to put on a conference. Our conferences division bid on that deal and won it. Please don't hold that against us. We lost in the bidding for the "MySQL Press" deal, much to our chagrin. So we're not as tight with MySQL as we'd like to be. Christopher Browne said: > It seems to me that APress is a plausible publisher to "bias towards;" > the last couple of books that I have found *very* interesting were > published by them. > They have published some things O'Reilly wouldn't (on zsh, Common > Lisp), in areas that actually have gotten them sales (as in "having to > do second printings"). It is true. I have seen APress publish on topics that I can't touch. Their cost structure is obviously different enough to let them publish titles that O'Reilly would lose money on. > Lisp people got in something of a snit because O'Reilly had a > published policy that they wouldn't take such books. The *wise* move > was and is to take would-be book offerings elsewhere. O'Reilly has no "policy" against Lisp books. That said, for some reason we've had several people approach us recently about publishing on Lisp, and we've consistently had to pass. The entire Lisp book market this year, so far, amounts to only some $74,000. That's according to Neilsen Bookscan (see http://www.bookscan.com/about.html ), which tracks through-the-register sales as reported by some 4500 bookstores across the country. That $74,000 is divided amongst two titles. Were we to enter the Lisp market, we'd fracture it; we'd be lucky to reap 1/3 of $74k. We have a limited number of editors and editorial bandwidth, and we need to focus on books with greater revenue potential than what I currently see in the Lisp market. Jobs depend on our doing that. Oh, by the way, don't read too much into a second printing. Some publishers do very small print runs. We do. APress probably does as well. We prefer small runs over large inventory. Knowing that a publisher had to reprint a book says nothing about sales unless you have intimate knowledge of the publisher's printing practices. Tom Copeland said: > Just a thought on this. Self-publishing is another route to take; if > you print 5000 softcover books for about $10K and then sell them for > $29.99 each, well, do the math :-) Self-publishing is not an easy road to take. But, were I not working for a publisher I'd be sorely tempted to try it on my next book. But I say that having been published a few times, and having learned a bit about the industry. BTW, I've a friend who actually makes a decent, part-time income from self-publishing books and CDs. Here's a link: http://www.greatlakeslegends.com/cd.htm My friend puts a lot of work into making his money though. He's got a product that appeals to tourists in a given geographical area. During spring and early summers he spends weeks on the road going from one small gift-shop to the next, working to get his books and albums stocked in as many places as he can. He makes money, but he works *really* hard for it. And during the off-season (late summer through the end of winter), he works as a painter to make money, because tourisim here is seasonal. I don't have a geographical niche, but I'm fairly well-known in the Oracle space, and it'll be interesting someday to see how much I could leverage that noteriety (not that I have all that much to leverage) to market a self-published book. But that day hasn't come yet. Somebody pointed out that O'Reilly has only one PostgreSQL book. That's true. It's something I hope to change in the long-term, but first we (as in O'Reilly) need to get one PostgreSQL book on the shelf that sells in good numbers. If we can do that, more investment will follow. (BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp) Sometimes too, an extraordinarily good outline will often move a publisher to publish on a topic that they might otherwise pass by. I guess that's all I have to add to the discussion. I hope no one minds too much my jumping in. Feel free to ask questions about anything I've said. Best regards, Jonathan Gennick Editor, O'Reilly Media 906.387.1698 mailto:jgennick@oreilly.com
On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: > BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k > of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp Hi Jonathan, Good to have you post and very interesting too. You had me until that statement above, cos that just sounds too much like a self fulfilling prophecy.... especially since, as we know, the current books are all out of date. If your average spend on books per download of PostgreSQL is about 6 cents, I think there's something wrong somewhere. [775,000 downloads this year] Mind you, a salutory lesson for us all.... Best Regards, Simon Riggs
> > If your average spend on books per download of PostgreSQL is about 6 > cents, I think there's something wrong somewhere. [775,000 downloads > this year] Yes but how many of those downloads turned into someone actually using the software? Probably 5%. How many of those downloads are from people who already use the software? I have downloaded it myself probably 30 times this year. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > > Mind you, a salutory lesson for us all.... > > Best Regards, Simon Riggs > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://archives.postgresql.org
Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 7:28:38 PM, Simon Riggs (simon@2ndquadrant.com) wrote: SR> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: >> BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k >> of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp SR> Hi Jonathan, SR> Good to have you post and very interesting too. SR> You had me until that statement above, cos that just sounds too much SR> like a self fulfilling prophecy.... especially since, as we know, the SR> current books are all out of date. I don't doubt that the out-of-date books hurt sales. That's very likely true. Whenever you look at those Bookscan numbers you have to give a bit of thought pub dates. But the numbers above are the numbers that Bookscan reports. Sometimes you have to think about titles too. I only searched on the word "PostgreSQL". Do most PostgreSQL books have that word in the title? Perhaps so, but for other topics it isn't quite so easy to pin down search terms that take in the entire topic of interest. And Bookscan numbers represent the past, which may or may not correlate to the future. Best regards, Jonathan Gennick Editor, O'Reilly Media 906.387.1698 mailto:jgennick@oreilly.com
On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote: > >> >> If your average spend on books per download of PostgreSQL is about 6 >> cents, I think there's something wrong somewhere. [775,000 downloads >> this year] > > Yes but how many of those downloads turned into someone actually using the > software? Probably 5%. How many of those downloads are from people > who already use the software? I have downloaded it myself probably 30 times > this year. Definitely concur with that, as I know I've downloaded several hundred copies between reinstalling computers, upgrading postgresql versions, etc ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Jonathan Gennick wrote: > Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 7:28:38 PM, Simon Riggs (simon@2ndquadrant.com) wrote: > SR> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: >>> BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k >>> of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp > > SR> Hi Jonathan, > > SR> Good to have you post and very interesting too. > > SR> You had me until that statement above, cos that just sounds too much > SR> like a self fulfilling prophecy.... especially since, as we know, the > SR> current books are all out of date. > > I don't doubt that the out-of-date books hurt sales. That's very > likely true. Whenever you look at those Bookscan numbers you have to > give a bit of thought pub dates. But the numbers above are the numbers > that Bookscan reports. > > Sometimes you have to think about titles too. I only searched on the > word "PostgreSQL". Do most PostgreSQL books have that word in the > title? Perhaps so, but for other topics it isn't quite so easy to pin > down search terms that take in the entire topic of interest. > > And Bookscan numbers represent the past, which may or may not > correlate to the future. The past what? is there a way of seeing last years #s, or the year before? To get some sort of 'histogram of sales'? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 8:44:13 PM, Marc G. Fournier (scrappy@postgresql.org) wrote: MGF> The past what? is there a way of seeing last years #s, or the year MGF> before? To get some sort of 'histogram of sales'? Yes. It's pretty easy to see current and previous years. Try this. Go to the following URL: http://data.oreilly.com/tools/search I believe you can hit it from outside our firewall. Type in a title word (or any other search criteria) and hit Search. You should see some results. You won't be able to drill down from outside the firewall though (sorry). Bookscan actually tracks sales back to 2001, but our interface only shows the current and previous years. Ruby presents an excellent example of my point about "the past" that I made in my earlier note, that Bookscan's past results don't necessarily indicate the future. For years there were just two Ruby books on the market (at least that made it to the Bookscan list): ours and one by Sams. Sales were dismal, so of course we didn't want any more books like that, right? Well, we were so wrong. Along came Pragmatic, they pub'd a book on Ruby in October of last year, and they completely blew us out of the water. I'm rather hoping something like that happens with the book Josh is revising for us now. Best regards, Jonathan Gennick Editor, O'Reilly Media 906.387.1698 mailto:jgennick@oreilly.com
On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: > Josh Drake pointed me to a recent thread titled "Thoughts after > discussions at OSCON". (I'm his editor on PostgreSQL: The Definitive > Guide) The main thrust of the thread didn't seem to be book > publishing, but a few comments caught my eye, so I'd like to jump in > and respond. Thanks very much for your interesting comments! It's always nice to hear about this stuff from someone who does it for a living. > Self-publishing is not an easy road to take. But, were I not working > for a publisher I'd be sorely tempted to try it on my next book. But > I say that having been published a few times, and having learned a bit > about the industry. Yup, it's a ton of work (*), and there's the initial outlay of cash for printing it up that kind of gives one pause for thought. Hearing that PostgreSQL gets 775K downloads a year makes me wonder how many book sales PMD's approx 60K downloads a year will yield, too. But financial risks aside, writing a book on a subject has forced me to dive into many nooks and crannies that I otherwise would have avoided. Why, I've actually had to read those compiler books that have been quietly resting on my shelves for so long! :-) This is preaching to the choir, but it'd be great if some more books on PostgreSQL appeared. I've got the pink O'Reilly one (Practical PostgreSQL?) but it's getting pretty long in the tooth... Yours, Tom (*) http://pmdapplied.com/
On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 22:20 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: > Yes. It's pretty easy to see current and previous years. Try this. Go > to the following URL: > > http://data.oreilly.com/tools/search > > I believe you can hit it from outside our firewall. Fascinating stuff, thanks again! > Ruby presents an excellent example of my point about "the past" that I > made in my earlier note, that Bookscan's past results don't > necessarily indicate the future. For years there were just two Ruby > books on the market (at least that made it to the Bookscan list): ours > and one by Sams. Sales were dismal, so of course we didn't want any > more books like that, right? Well, we were so wrong. Along came > Pragmatic, they pub'd a book on Ruby in October of last year, and they > completely blew us out of the water. I'm rather hoping something like > that happens with the book Josh is revising for us now. Amazing that Ruby on Rails is only a year old. Ruby + Rails + PostgreSQL is a great combination, and it's very easy to get started with since there's a pure Ruby driver (*) for PostgreSQL. I'm working on a thingy for work right now that uses that combination... good times. Yours, Tom (*) postgres-pr at http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-dbi/
On 8/10/05, Jonathan Gennick <jgennick@oreilly.com> wrote: > Ruby presents an excellent example of my point about "the past" that I > made in my earlier note, that Bookscan's past results don't > necessarily indicate the future. For years there were just two Ruby > books on the market (at least that made it to the Bookscan list): ours > and one by Sams. Sales were dismal, so of course we didn't want any > more books like that, right? Well, we were so wrong. Along came > Pragmatic, they pub'd a book on Ruby in October of last year, and they > completely blew us out of the water. I'm rather hoping something like > that happens with the book Josh is revising for us now. > I hope the new edition of Practical PostgreSQL sells well too. Please replace the chapter on LXP (http://commandprompt.com/ppbook/lxp) with something else. For me, the LXP chapter was the deciding factor in not buying the book. The LXP chapter seemed like filler or a means to promote a product. I have never seen LXP discussed anywhere else. George Essig
>I hope the new edition of Practical PostgreSQL sells well too. Please >replace the chapter on LXP (http://commandprompt.com/ppbook/lxp) with >something else. For me, the LXP chapter was the deciding factor in >not buying the book. The LXP chapter seemed like filler or a means to >promote a product. I have never seen LXP discussed anywhere else. > > I decided to remove the LXP chapter some time ago. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake >George Essig > >---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- >TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend > >
Tom, Jonathan, Folks, > This is preaching to the choir, but it'd be great if some more books on > PostgreSQL appeared. I've got the pink O'Reilly one (Practical > PostgreSQL?) but it's getting pretty long in the tooth... Actually, the big problem with PostgreSQL books is not lack of demand but lack of authors. I've had requests from a number of publishers, and our own book (me & Joe) is running behind due to overwork. Finding database book authors period is hard, because the people most qualified to write database books generally don't have time to do so. The MySQL community, for whatever reason has done a good job of promoting qualified people to write. So what I'm saying is that nobody can criticize ORA for not publishing Postgres books when they're not getting any proposals. If anyone reading this thread would *like* to be a postgreSQL book author, e-mail me, I'll hook you up (not necessarily with O'Reilly). BTW, Jonathan, I get the feeling that Bookscan results (for some reason) only cover about 20% of sales for tech books. At least, I was able to check royalty statements with couple of authors, and they indicated that the authors sold at least 4x what BookScan reports. Does this match ORA figures? -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
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I have asked by our russian publisher to write book but they pay too
little. This is a main reason I'm not an author, in spite of I understand
it's important
Oleg
btw, Josh, your messages contain some bad characters which break my1;2c termina1;2cl1;2c1;2c1;2c1;2c1;2c.
1;2c
On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Tom, Jonathan, Folks,
>
>> This is preaching to the choir, but it'd be great if some more books on
>> PostgreSQL appeared. I've got the pink O'Reilly one (Practical
>> PostgreSQL?) but it's getting pretty long in the tooth...
>
> Actually, the big problem with PostgreSQL books is not lack of demand but lack
> of authors. I've had requests from a number of publishers, and our own book
> (m1;2ce & Joe) is running behind due to overwork.
>
> Finding database book authors period is hard, because the people most
> qualified to write database books generally don't have time to do so. The
> MySQL community, for whatever reason has done a good job of promoting
> qualified people to write.
>
> So what I'm saying is that nobody can criticize ORA for not publishing
> Postgres books when they're not getting any proposals. If anyone reading
> this thread would *like* to be a postgreSQL book author, e-mail me, I'll hook
> you up (not necessarily with O'Reilly).
>
> BTW, Jonathan, I get the feeling that Bookscan results (for some reason) only
> cover about 20% of sales for tech books. At least, I was able to check
> royalty statements with couple of authors, and they indicated that the
> authors sold at least 4x what BookScan reports. Does this match ORA
> figures?
>
>
Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83
---559023410-1857409239-1123738729=:5280--
> >> If your average spend on books per download of PostgreSQL > is about 6 > >> cents, I think there's something wrong somewhere. [775,000 > downloads > >> this year] > > > > Yes but how many of those downloads turned into someone > actually using > > the software? Probably 5%. How many of those downloads are > from people > > who already use the software? I have downloaded it myself > probably 30 > > times this year. > > Definitely concur with that, as I know I've downloaded > several hundred copies between reinstalling computers, > upgrading postgresql versions, etc ... But do you download it through the website? AFAIK, direct downloads from the mirrors are *not* included in the count above - it's just the clickthrough counts on the website.. //Magnus
Yes, I think Josh left out that part of the story... that for a lot of people qualified to write a book you can make more doing consulting work. Robert Treat On Thursday 11 August 2005 01:38, Oleg Bartunov wrote: > I have asked by our russian publisher to write book but they pay too > little. This is a main reason I'm not an author, in spite of I understand > it's important > > Oleg > > btw, Josh, your messages contain some bad characters which break my1;2c > termina1;2cl1;2c1;2c1;2c1;2c1;2c. 1;2c > > On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > > Tom, Jonathan, Folks, > > > >> This is preaching to the choir, but it'd be great if some more books on > >> PostgreSQL appeared. I've got the pink O'Reilly one (Practical > >> PostgreSQL?) but it's getting pretty long in the tooth... > > > > Actually, the big problem with PostgreSQL books is not lack of demand but > > lack of authors. I've had requests from a number of publishers, and our > > own book (m1;2ce & Joe) is running behind due to overwork. > > > > Finding database book authors period is hard, because the people most > > qualified to write database books generally don't have time to do so. > > The MySQL community, for whatever reason has done a good job of promoting > > qualified people to write. > > > > So what I'm saying is that nobody can criticize ORA for not publishing > > Postgres books when they're not getting any proposals. If anyone reading > > this thread would *like* to be a postgreSQL book author, e-mail me, I'll > > hook you up (not necessarily with O'Reilly). > > > > BTW, Jonathan, I get the feeling that Bookscan results (for some reason) > > only cover about 20% of sales for tech books. At least, I was able to > > check royalty statements with couple of authors, and they indicated that > > the authors sold at least 4x what BookScan reports. Does this match ORA > > figures? > > Regards, > Oleg > _____________________________________________________________ > Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet, > Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia) > Internet: oleg@sai.msu.su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/ > phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83 > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings -- Robert Treat Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
On Thu, 11 Aug 2005, Magnus Hagander wrote: >>>> If your average spend on books per download of PostgreSQL >> is about 6 >>>> cents, I think there's something wrong somewhere. [775,000 >> downloads >>>> this year] >>> >>> Yes but how many of those downloads turned into someone >> actually using >>> the software? Probably 5%. How many of those downloads are >> from people >>> who already use the software? I have downloaded it myself >> probably 30 >>> times this year. >> >> Definitely concur with that, as I know I've downloaded >> several hundred copies between reinstalling computers, >> upgrading postgresql versions, etc ... > > But do you download it through the website? AFAIK, direct downloads from > the mirrors are *not* included in the count above - it's just the > clickthrough counts on the website.. How is that applicable? The point is that the 775k # is not a "distinct" #, and doesn't take into account the multiple downloads that happen over the year ... I just happen to get mine directly from an ftp server, but I could just have easily gotten my multiple downloads by doing a "fetch" from the web site itself ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> >>> Yes but how many of those downloads turned into someone > >> actually using > >>> the software? Probably 5%. How many of those downloads are > >> from people > >>> who already use the software? I have downloaded it myself > >> probably 30 > >>> times this year. > >> > >> Definitely concur with that, as I know I've downloaded several > >> hundred copies between reinstalling computers, upgrading > postgresql > >> versions, etc ... > > > > But do you download it through the website? AFAIK, direct downloads > > from the mirrors are *not* included in the count above - > it's just the > > clickthrough counts on the website.. > > How is that applicable? The point is that the 775k # is not > a "distinct" > #, and doesn't take into account the multiple downloads that > happen over the year ... I just happen to get mine directly > from an ftp server, but I could just have easily gotten my > multiple downloads by doing a "fetch" > from the web site itself ... I was thinking people get the first one from the website, but then if they fetch more they get it from the ftp server directly. That of course also means you don't count *at all* in the 775k - the same for everybody who get their postgresql shipped with their faviourite linux/bsd/whatever distro. //Magnus
>But do you download it through the website? AFAIK, direct downloads from >the mirrors are *not* included in the count above - it's just the >clickthrough counts on the website.. > > It depends. Sometimes. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake >//Magnus > >
On Thu, Aug 11, 2005 at 05:04:36AM -0400, Robert Treat wrote:
> Yes, I think Josh left out that part of the story... that for a lot of people
> qualified to write a book you can make more doing consulting work.
Well, I suppose; but I suspect in this line of work, you need to
think of the book as a loss leader. The work is lost opportunity,
but it will later drive up your rates as "Author of _x_". Or, that's
how it's rumoured to work, anyway ;-)
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
Information security isn't a technological problem. It's an economics
problem.
--Bruce Schneier
On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 20:32, Jonathan Gennick wrote:
> Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 7:28:38 PM, Simon Riggs (simon@2ndquadrant.com) wrote:
> SR> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote:
> >> BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k
> >> of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp
>
> SR> Hi Jonathan,
>
> SR> Good to have you post and very interesting too.
>
> SR> You had me until that statement above, cos that just sounds too much
> SR> like a self fulfilling prophecy.... especially since, as we know, the
> SR> current books are all out of date.
>
> I don't doubt that the out-of-date books hurt sales. That's very
> likely true. Whenever you look at those Bookscan numbers you have to
> give a bit of thought pub dates. But the numbers above are the numbers
> that Bookscan reports.
>
Actually I think there is more to it. Apress released a book on LISP and
a book on PostgreSQL both in April of this year, and to date (according
to oriellys numbers) about 2.5 to 1. Now there could be a variety of
factors that are involved with this, but one thing I noticed is that the
LISP book has more reviews available on it than any of the postgresql
books. Perhaps one thing that is needed is people from within the
community being a little more active raising awareness of postgresql to
people outside the community, for example in amazon reviews or slashdot
book review articles.
Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 20:32, Jonathan Gennick wrote: >> Wednesday, August 10, 2005, 7:28:38 PM, Simon Riggs (simon@2ndquadrant.com) wrote: >> SR> On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 18:56 -0400, Jonathan Gennick wrote: >> >> BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k >> >> of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp >> >> SR> Hi Jonathan, >> >> SR> Good to have you post and very interesting too. >> >> SR> You had me until that statement above, cos that just sounds too much >> SR> like a self fulfilling prophecy.... especially since, as we know, the >> SR> current books are all out of date. >> >> I don't doubt that the out-of-date books hurt sales. That's very >> likely true. Whenever you look at those Bookscan numbers you have >> to give a bit of thought pub dates. But the numbers above are the >> numbers that Bookscan reports. > > Actually I think there is more to it. Apress released a book on LISP > and a book on PostgreSQL both in April of this year, and to date > (according to oriellys numbers) about 2.5 to 1. Now there could be a > variety of factors that are involved with this, but one thing I > noticed is that the LISP book has more reviews available on it than > any of the postgresql books. Perhaps one thing that is needed is > people from within the community being a little more active raising > awareness of postgresql to people outside the community, for example > in amazon reviews or slashdot book review articles. I'd associate another factor as being significant... The Matthew/Stones book is a "subsequent edition," a re-issuance of what they had previously published at Wrox, and therefore mostly Not New. "Not news." There are people that already have the earlier edition that wouldn't bother buying the new one. Peter Siebel's book had never been released before, and therefore nobody already had it. 100% "fresh" sales. But I'd not dispute that there is some value to doing some promotion... -- (reverse (concatenate 'string "moc.liamg" "@" "enworbbc")) http://cbbrowne.com/info/ If we were meant to fly, we wouldn't keep losing our luggage.