Embedded systems publishers

First, refer to the definition of vitriolic in a dictionary and use it properly next time. I said nothing with such a tone, just pointed-out a simple fact. Maybe you will understand it better from someone more respected than I. Einstein once said, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I have simply attemted to point-out that bruitishly trying to "protect" content from "thieves" hasn't worked in the past and won't work in the future, so it is hard-headed (insane by Einstein's definition) to keep heading down that path and expect things to get better. I simply advocate using all information available to think of new ways to monatize your products. Before anyone responds, please read exactly what I wrote throughout the thread. Don't make baseless claims like, "Why do you consider it hard-headed to expect payment for work performed?" that don't accurately represent anything that I wrote.

---Matthew Hicks

On Thu, 8 Nov 2007 19:58:56 +0000 (UTC), I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Matthew Hicks instead replied:

Your comment was vitriolic. In your world, it seems the thieves win. How sad for you.

-- Ray

That's a good book! This teaches "just enough" Excel to make an engineer happy, without getting bogged down in millions of "who cares" types of features. This should be required reading for all EE people.

I do tech editting for Wrox Press. Most tech editors are junior people who aren't really able to catch problems. They simply don't pay enough for the amount of work you have to do. I mostly do it for the career exposure and I pick the books carefully to co-incide with stuff I want to learn more about.

The rate paid by various publishers can vary quite a lot, for both authors and tech editors. Authors are often interested in royalties, which means less money when the book is published. It can take up to 6 months for the first royalty check to arrive. You won't be cheated, but there can be a notable delay. If you opt for fixed payments, an author can get around $10-20 per page, I think. The rate can go a lot higher if they think the book will be a best-seller, but you probably want royalties instead of fixed payment in that case.

Tech editors only get $2 - $3 per page.

Some publishers are also notoriously bad at feeding accurate info to Amazon. Amazon is extremely important and you simply must get an accurate book description there. It also helps to have good user reviews there. A lot of people check the reviews at Amazon, and then they might buy the book somewhere else. It's a good idea to have people you know post reviews when your new book first appears on Amazon.

Many new authors are going for self-publishing now. Sites like lulu.com will publish on demand. This is great for new authors because almost anyone can write a book and sell it. But it won't be on Amazon in that case.

Eric

properly

I believe the proper term is "infringer", not thief.

And the subject is far more complex than simply labeling everyone that has copied a document or a diskette a thief.

Simply because there is a law against a particular act does not automatically make that act morally or ethically right or wrong. Was it ever ethically right to own a human being? Was it ever ethically wrong to sell alcohol to an adult? Who *really* has the law on their side, Larwe or Disney?

People that publish creative works need and deserve to be compensated. How that's going to happen in the future as the cost of making a perfect copy approaches zero is the big question. I'm pretty sure it's *not* going to happen by throwing everyone in jail or fining everyone that makes a copy.

Self-publishing has significant downsides which you didn't mention:

1. Most impartial observers will assume the reason the book is self- published is because the author couldn't get it picked up by mainstream press. It has a distinct flavor of alternate lifestyles and hemp.
2. All the risk is assumed by the author. You have to pay the production costs, distribution costs, advertising costs.
3. The book isn't catalogued.

Can't that be solved by getting an ISBN for the book? I personally know of at least two services, right now without looking, selling ISBNs and barcodes for those doing self-publishing.

Or did you mean something other than ISBN when saying "catalogued?"

Jon

He wasn't talking about morality, he was talking about economics. The question how many sales he is losing to thieves is an empirical question. Nobody denies that they are thieves, but they may be costing him far less than some people think.

Yes, I should have said something more like "stocked" or "in anybody's retail catalog".

Some would consider that the publisher reminding you every second page of how they don't trust you with the merchandise you bought.

On Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:08:32 -0800, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Jim Stewart instead replied:

properly

Einstein's

don't

No. Thief works.

Really? In your world the taking of something that doesn't belong to you isn't something being stolen? How curious.

Of course something against the law is morally and ethically wrong. Where do you get to decide? The only chance you have is if you owned the property and chose not to complain about the theft. If someone takes your MP3 player because he really, really needs it, you believe that's all right?

Now you're coming close to the reality of the situation. The punishment for it is the real issue, not whether or not it's against the law or ethically wrong. Should the man who steals a car receive lesser punishment than one who steals a copy of a DVD? Should the opposite apply? The DVD theft is usually far less in importance than a car theft and the punishment should probably be commensurate with value. Jail or no jail? Fine or no fine? Those are the things to decide - not whether or not it's illegal.

How do you differentiate between the guy who steals one copy of a DVD and one who makes thousands?

The last bit of your post is spot on but the rest is nonsense and excuse making for the thieves who steal others' work.

-- Ray

Well, we certainly have to part company on that issue. There's lots of wrong laws and lots of good people have paid huge prices in the process of changing them.

That's why we have (in the US) the Supreme Court. A place where people that have broken wrong laws often find justice and the wrong laws are tossed out.

It's not for me to decide unless I'm on a jury. And if I am, I'll damn sure use jury nullification to let a person off if I think the law or the punishment is wrong. In that situation, I *do* get to decide.

I can count.

In your opinion, and that's ok.

Anyone can get an ISBN number for a published work. The cost is nominal. LC numbers are issued when a work is copyrighted.

w..

what

for

Eric,

Thanks for the kind remarks. You made my day!

Incidentally, following the same theme and ideas of the book, if you chec out my "plog" on Amazon.com you will find some pointers to some desig ideas and two additional chapters to the book.

-Aubrey

It seems to me that Jan Axelson self-publishes through her ow organization, Lakeview Research.

Probably the exception that proves the rule.

Go and read the letter(s) by Eric Flint at

Baen are giving away books, and their sales of the books that they gave away increased. Basically if you treat people like criminals, they behave like criminals. I can testify to this personally, since I live in South Afrcia, where a large part of the population were in essence treated like criminals. The last generation treated like this is still a huge problem today. The new generations, which have not been treated thus are normal in that they are spread across the range of people in general. When I was younger I had to do a stint of National Service. As a troop we were treated like scum, and it was quite interesting in an intelectual way to see one react to this treatment by becomming resentful etc. and basically seeing the corporals etc. as "the enemy".

It is also easy for people who earn a lot to describe other people as cheapskate thiefs when the average income where you live is a couple of orders of magnitute higher, and coupled to this you pay less for almost everything.

If I want to buy a book that the recommended retail price is say US$39, then after shipping, markup by agent and tax, it will be at least US$100 to US$150. There are also many companies who only ships to areas they consider to be main areas, so even if one wants to purchase the book, one cannot.

I agree with this argument.

Regards Anton Erasmus

I'd agree with that. I downloaded a scanned PDF copy of a book a few months ago and I'm still going through it. In this case it was Simon L Peyton Jones' excellent work The Implementation of Functional Programming Languages, which is out of print and legally available from his web page.

Legal or not, it is still very much a poor substitute for a real book for any number of reasons. If you print out the book, a print of a scan never looks as clear as a typeset page, and it's a lot of printing in any case, particularly if your printer is like mine and starts jamming the minute you mention duplex. That printing doesn't come cheap and you still have the issue of finding binding combs big enough for several hundred pages, even if as in this case the page size is near enough to A4 that that doesn't matter.

In short it's a lot of hassle, and you end up with a second rate product at the end of it.

If it was in print, I would have bought a copy. But even used copies were £125+ on Amazon, imported from the States, and I wasn't willing to stretch quite that far.

You're quite wrong there. Pretty much everybody who's studied the details of this issue seriously, actually denies that copyright infringers are thieves. Mixing up the two is typically performed as an act of propaganda.

The two are both legally and morally strictly distinguished from each other by the fact that a thief takes something *away* from somebody, but making a copy doesn't take away anything from anybody.

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:35:47 +0100, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and Hans-Bernhard Bröker instead replied:

Nonsense. It takes money from the author every time.

-- Ray

Nonsense. The author has exactly as much money after the copy was made, as he did before.

I accuse you of spewing propaganda, by wilfully confusing potential future revenue with actual money. Applying a definition like yours, practically all imaginable business is theft, because it takes away potential revenue from some other business. Obviously the actual legal definition doesn't work like that.