[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed

Sarbajit Roy sroy.mb at gmail.com
Sun Jul 5 20:11:07 EDT 2020 

I got your book from here
https://www.pdfdrive.com/interactive-computer-graphics-a-top-down-approach-with-webgl-edward-angel-and-dave-d38281420.html

The Indian judgment is clear, Reproduction is limited to a copy which the
teacher/institute has LEGALLY purchased.

There are other judgments from the same court directing that thousands of
infringing movie piracy websites (and their whack-a-mole clones) are
blocked in India for copyright violation and harm caused to producers.
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Utv_Software_Communication_Ltd._..._vs_1337X.To_And_Ors_on_10_April_2019-1.pdf

Sarbajit

On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 5:17 AM Edward Angel <angel at cs.unm.edu> wrote:

> 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, 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 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
> 505-453-4944 (cell)  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> 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
>>
>> On Jul 4, 2020, at 2:25 PM, Jochen Fromm <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>
>> Date: 7/4/20 20:10 (GMT+01:00)
>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <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
>> 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>*
>>
>> ============================================
>>
>>
>>
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=icon> Virus-free.
>> www.avast.com
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail&utm_term=link>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:29 AM Jochen Fromm <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.
>>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
>>
>> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
>> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
>> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20200706/9207e2ee/attachment-0001.html>

More information about the Friam mailing list