[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Sun Jul 5 19:47:50 EDT 2020

Thanks but the story is more complex. 

What transpired is in retrospect somewhat amusing. I received an email from someone at a university that was using the book asking if I knew there was a ps file on the web of the whole book. I checked it out, contacted the instructor who had it taken down. I had no idea how anyone had obtained a perfect copy of the book. Even during copyediting, I never was given access to a final ps version with even the typesetting marks. My editor started a big investigation at Pearson to see who had violated security during production only to find out after weeks that the people at Pearson who dealt with accessibility issues were sending out the file to every school that adopted the book (at the time around 200 just in the US).

What is odd to me is that the last time I checked libgen.io <http://libgen.io/>, which was a while ago, the version there was not a ps version put a pdf in which you could use the TOC interactively so I figured it was the kindle version which my editor, who had become somewhat expert at this, showed me how easy it is to get the kindle version. Apparently what is the the situation now is that the ps version is libgen.is <http://libgen.is/> so someone else must have uploaded it.

The material on the Indian decision on respect to fair use was very interesting. I was familiar with the fair use policies in the U.S. and the U.K. In spirit, they are the same. However, the problem is not fair use but with sites like libgen, where anyone can upload a file irrespective of copyright or ownership  That file is then available worldwide to everyone. Consequently, the holders of the copyright have no protection at all other than some people having ethical issues with libgen. Sadly, I find many of my colleagues and students do not see this as an ethical issue. 

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 <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu>
505-453-4944 (cell) 				http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel <http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel>

> On Jul 5, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Edward
> 
> The PDF of the 7th edition of your book being widely circulated was very likely not generated from its Kindle version, but from the Postscript version used to print your book. It was generated using Adobe Distiller 7+ for a Macintosh. Must have been cloned from one of those unwatermarked copies dished out by your publisher's marketing team to "potential" customers.
> 
> Sarbajit
> 
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 2:52 AM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu <mailto: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 <http://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 <mailto:angel at cs.unm.edu>
> 505-453-4944 (cell) 				http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel <http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel>
> 
>> On 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 <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)
>> NM Foundation for Open Government <http://nmfog.org/>
>> 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 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/mar/26/novel-writing-during-coronavirus-crisis-outbreak>
>> 
>> -J.
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