[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Sun Jul 5 17:07:47 EDT 2020

Hi, Tom, I take that to be a rhetorical question.  

However, in my experience, no publisher has ever failed to give me back a copyright when I asked for it, so I have never had to put the concept to the test.

If you ask me to express my honest feelings in the matter I would say that I was overwhelmingly lucky to be paid by my university to write, and to the extent that that writing brought me income beyond my salary, I was doubly and unreasonably blessed. 

Nick 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 3:01 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Nick: How and who is going to define "no longer promotes it."?

t

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
 <http://nmfog.org> NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>                  

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On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 2:46 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

At the very list, the contract should explicitly say that rights revert to the author when the publisher no longer maintains the book in print and promotes it.  I often edited my magazine contracts to give only first rights.  I agree with Tom, that copyright should stay with the author. 

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Tom Johnson
Sent: Saturday, July 4, 2020 2:32 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Another advantage of self-publishing is that you retain the copyright.  Ergo, you can license it to a publisher for an updated edition or just distribution.

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
 <http://nmfog.org> NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>                  

============================================

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On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 2:25 PM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net> > wrote:

Thanks. Yes, self-publishing is an option. I am looking for an official publisher mainly for one reason, namely that other scientists and researchers can cite it, since I still cling to the illusion that someone would actually do it. Normally self-published texts are not considered as reliable or trustworthy sources. I didn't expect that finding a decent publisher would be so difficult. 

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: Tom Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> > 

Date: 7/4/20 20:10 (GMT+01:00) 

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> > 

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed 

Jochen:

The deal being offered strikes me as a bad deal.

Background:  I have been practicing and teaching about "Be Your Own Publisher" for nearly 15 years.  There are, in my opinion, some major problems with all publishers today.  It starts with control of the copyright.  I think YOU should want to maintain control of the copyright to your work.  It will depend on the contract, but many or most publishers will try to lock down the copyright in their favor for all -- ALL -- forms of your work in perpetuity and throughout the universe.  Sometimes quite literally.

Second, you should assume -- especially with a small publisher and you, not being as well known  as Stephen King or Daniel Steele  -- the publisher will do little if anything to promote your book beyond a mention in its catalog and, maybe, some promotional links on Amazon.  Given that, a 5 percent royalty should be seen as a con.

Third, given your computing experience, you should find it easy to format and produce the book yourself.  I have used Lulu.com <http://Lulu.com>  for years.  It is especially good if you want to have both hardback, paperback and PDF editions.  Again the advantages: you keep the copyright, you can set (and change) the prices and to a degree the royalties.  Also, Lulu and Amazon handle all the backend financial arrangements and administration and pay directly and quickly.  I also use a very good, high quality digital printer in Albuquerque for paperback editions.  It is Lithexcel <https://lithexcel.com/services/print.html> .  It handles all the printing (one copy to any number) quickly, along with all the fulfillment and accounting. The folks there will also, for only $25, set up your book in the Amazon inventory search engine.  Finally, there is Amazon's self-publishing arm <https://www.bookbaby.com/free-publishing-guides?utm_campaign=GOOSL31&utm_source=SITELINK&utm_medium=cpc&mkwid=sNzCXe5z8_dc%7Cpcrid%7C238281756657%7Cpmt%7Ce%7Cpkw%7Camazon%20book%20publishing%7Cslid%7CcWU1oXIv%7Ctargetids%7Ckwd-362938383597%7Cgroupid%7C48812614458%7C&pgrid=48812614458&ptaid=kwd-362938383597&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0YD4BRD2ARIsAHwmKVnFci42apQ6vWUruvHuYX-FOum9VCF7bx83c_tSMHGoby8yylL_RTMaAjOEEALw_wcB> .  While Amazon might take a bigger slice, the control over all aspects is in your hands.

Here's the problem/challenge with all of these.  YOU have to do the marketing/publicity/promotion.  But so what?  If you today sign with any publisher of any size you will have to do the same thing.

Hope this helps.  Feel free to contact me with questions.  Also you might want to see https://bit.ly/2ZvihKc 

Tom

============================================
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com <mailto:tom at jtjohnson.com> 
Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
505.577.6482(c)                                    505.473.9646(h)
 <http://nmfog.org> NM Foundation for Open Government
Check out It's The People's Data <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Its-The-Peoples-Data/1599854626919671>                  

============================================

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On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:29 AM Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net <mailto:jofr at cas-group.net> > wrote:

At one end of the spectrum there are the 5 big commercial publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. They only publish stuff their agents select to make a lot of money. There are also the big academic publishers like OUP, CUP, HUP and MIT Press, which preferably publish strictly peer-reviewed content from professors at Ivy League universities who made their PhD at the age of 20.

At the other end of the spectrum there are "predatory publishers" who publish anything you submit as long as you pay enough money for it. Open access books can also be very expensive. Publishing an "open access book" at De Gruyter for example costs up to 8000 $. You pay for it so that other people read it. It is basically some kind of advertising of your own work.

For my own new book I finally have an offer from a small publisher in Washington D.C. who is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. They are really small and offer 5% royalties. Should I accept this offer or wait for a better one? It is the only one from more than 25 publishers I have asked, and the publishers at the moment are flooded with submissions. :-/
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/26/novel-writing-during-coronavirus-crisis-outbreak

-J.

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