[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Sun Jul 5 17:58:41 EDT 2020

I think it's just an access code to put in on the site. Haven't received it
yet. Though I've heard from the author :-)
_______________________________________________________________________
Stephen.Guerin at Simtable.com <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
CEO, Simtable  http://www.simtable.com
1600 Lena St #D1, Santa Fe, NM 87505
office: (505)995-0206 mobile: (505)577-5828
twitter: @simtable
zoom.com/j/5055775828

On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 3:10 PM Tom Johnson <tom at jtjohnson.com> wrote:

> Steve:
> I, too, have not heard of the card you speak of.  Does the card contain
> the book?  If so, is it a flash drive type card or what?
> Tom
>
> ============================================
> Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
> Institute for Analytic Journalism   --     Santa Fe, NM USA
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> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 5:47 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Ed,
>>
>> I just ordered your 8th edition from Pearson
>> <https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/ANGEL-Pearson-e-Text-Interactive-Computer-Graphics-Access-Card-8th-Edition/PGM2160099.html?tab=order>
>> as I was blown away by the awesomeness of the new cover. :-)
>>
>> The confirmation email tells me a *physical* access card is being shipped
>> for my digital order.
>>
>> First time I've seen this - are physical access cards for digital
>> products common for textbooks these days? I just thought it was lazy
>> programming in the shopping cart requiring a physical address for a digital
>> product.
>>
>> I have an urgent need to use your book this weekend and can not wait for
>> delivery. I will be calling the author directly while I await arrival :-)
>> It actually has to do with implementing the cover and getting the
>> decentralized capture and rendering to realtime which hinges on realtime
>> depth-image based rendering using spherical light fields while skipping any
>> 3D cartesian intermediate shenanigans. Thank you for your help so far!
>>
>> -S
>>
>> PS, I also checked out Amazon and they appear to be the same with the
>> physical card.
>>
>> PPS: 8th edition isn't the default choice edition on Amazon or Pearson
>> when searching.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 4, 2020 at 3:22 PM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> I’ve been a book author since 1972 and a textbook author since 1989. My
>>> computer graphics textbook has been the most popular book in the area for
>>> 20 years and just came out in its eighth edition with various editions
>>> being available in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Russian. Sadly, the book
>>> business has changed over that time; changed in way that is bad for almost
>>> everyone, especially authors. I think you’re faced with a lot of bad
>>> choices. I hope some of the following will prove helpful. And if not
>>> helpful, at least interesting.
>>>
>>> Before I forget, you might enjoy reading of my adventures writing the
>>> first edition of my present textbook while on sabbatical in Venezuela,
>>> Ecuador, Hong Kong and Nepal. There’s a pointer to it on my home page
>>> www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>>>
>>> When I had to pick a publisher, I knew the editors and  local book reps
>>> at Academic Press, Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall and Benjamin/Cummings.
>>> They dominated the CS field and did so largely because they had editors who
>>> knew the field, excellent book reps who knew the needs of the faculty and
>>> students, a willingness to invest in a book, and in-house production. None
>>> of these exist anymore and, as Tom pointed out, you're largely on your own.
>>> It’s unfortunate if you care about how many copies get sold and your
>>> royalties. I have many friends who self-published in the past. It’s a lot
>>> of work either way but I prefer to put my effort into content and not
>>> type-setting or marketing. None of my self-published friends have ever sold
>>> many books.
>>>
>>> I had three excellent editors over 20 years. When I did my first
>>> edition, my editor hired a development editor at great expense to improve
>>> the quality of my writing. She worked with the CS faculty and grad students
>>> at Caltech and Stanford. It made a huge difference. Now almost none of
>>> these jobs exist within the publishers. All production is contracted out to
>>> the low bidders (art, typesetting, copy editing, etc) most of whom are in
>>> India. I no longer have an editor. There is one person working for the
>>> publusher with whom I communicate with to try to get things done correctly
>>> with the contractors. This last edition has been a long painful experience.
>>>
>>> So what happened? Books were always expensive for students, especially
>>> when sold through college bookstores. Then used book sellers appeared and
>>> Asian students started importing low cost Asian versions of the standard
>>> textbooks. Under US copyright laws, both are legal. The publishers
>>> responded by upping prices which reduced sales even more.
>>>
>>> And then came electronic media. At first, my book, like most others, was
>>> still print-only. But the publisher sent perfect unwatermarked pdfs to all
>>> the schools what adopted the book for use by students with special needs.
>>> Wasn’t long before those pdfs made it to the Web. Then they had a
>>> electronic version and a kindle version that students could rent for a
>>> semester or year. The publisher, the largest in the business, was clueless
>>> about web security and had no idea that Kindles are not secure. Very
>>> quickly, the book appeared (with most of the other cs texts and various
>>> best sellers) on a Russian website as a “public service.” End of paid sales.
>>>
>>> The new edition is only available in electronic form and the publisher
>>> claims it is only available on a secure site. I doubt anyone on this list
>>> believes that.
>>>
>>> Although I never in the past had issues with the publisher having the
>>> copyright, which was pretty standard, I wish I had it now. Since there is
>>> no hope of making significant royalties now (we used), my coauthor and I
>>> would like to put the book out for free on our websites rather than having
>>> it appear on various illegal Russian sites known to most students.
>>>
>>> Personally, I no longer care about royalties but the long term issue I
>>> worry about is why would any young person write a textbook. It’s a huge
>>> amount of work and usually not something that in the academic world is
>>> valued as highly as research papers and grant funding.
>>>
>>> Ed
>>> _______________________
>>>
>>> Ed Angel
>>>
>>> Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory
>>> (ARTS Lab)
>>> Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
>>>
>>> 1017 Sierra Pinon
>>> Santa Fe, NM 87501
>>> 505-984-0136 (home)   angel at cs.unm.edu
>>> 505-453-4944 (cell)  http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
>>>
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