[FRIAM] Book publishing advice needed
Edward Angel
angel at cs.unm.edu
Mon Jul 6 19:04:19 EDT 2020
Sarbajit,
You are just touching the surface of how authors are not making profits.
If a book is sold in a college bookstore (all of which rip off students) I get my contractual royalties (18% of net which is about 80% of gross). Sounds good but then there are a number of side deals (my six monthly royalty statement is over 20 pages long).
Net from an Amazon sales is almost nothing.
Any international sales reduce any royalty by 50%. An Amazon sale in India or China nets me almost nothing.
But it gets worse.
There is an International Edition which is handled through Pearson in Hong Kong. To avoid possible copyright issues they get the tex files from Pearson USA and change some of the exercises such that the pagination is exactly the same. The changed problems are idiotic and I believe violate my contract. The best I could do for the new edition is get a clause in my contract that forces them to take my name off a version if they make changes I don’t approve.
But there’s more.
Pearson HK competes with Pearson US and other Pearson subsidiaries, So they can offer a lower cost International version on the web to US students. So not only are my royalties reduced by over 50% but Pearson HK is said to be doing well and Pearson US and my editor are not even though they and he did all the work. (he’s not longer with the company).
And finally there’s China. Pearson sells the rights to China for a few thousand dollars, of which I get a small piece, and China can then print as many Chinese copies as they like. When I questioned management about what appeared to me to be a ridiculous deal, the answer was that if they asked for more, the Chinese would simply copy it for free.
Re: drug prices. A large percentage of the generic drugs in the U.S. are imported from India. Because insurance companies can negotiate drug prices, if you have insurance such as Medicare Part D, prices can be very low. We pay $5 month for most generics and our monthly statement from the insurer shows that their part of the cost is never more than a dollar or two per Rx. The tragedy of drug prices in the US is that people who most need inexpensive drugs are uninsured and get hit by outrageous prices at the pharmacy.
We also found on our trips to India that drugs we really wanted to have with us on treks, were unavailable in the U.S. but were over-the-counter in India.
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 6, 2020, at 3:59 PM, Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Gary
>
> Actually I agree with you to a considerable extent.
>
> Let us consider Edward's book, On Amazon-India his book (the 7th edn) is available to us at a Kindle price of approx $9.50. Amazon sells the same Kindle book in China at $45 and at $155+ for Kindle in the USA.
>
> What does this suggest to you ? For me it's that the authors are not making the profits - Jeff Bezos &Co. do
>
> Now to come back to the question of why prices in India are affordable, it's because we have (had ?) a few activist judges who ensured that India's constitutional status as a socialist state means the needs of the many (parasites ?) takes priority over the profits of the producers (creators).
>
> The prices of most life-saving quality drugs in India are probably 1/20th of what you would pay in the States. That's because the same court enforced our nation's sovereign rights under TRIPS/CUTS/WTO agreements etc . When I read about poor people in USA not being able to afford their next insulin shot because it's so darn expensive, you may like to know that a 30 shot insulin Flexpen costs about $5 while the same manufacturer sells the identical pen for 20 times the price in New York.
>
> Sarbajit
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 6:09 AM Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com <mailto:gary at naturesvisualarts.com>> wrote:
> No offense to the government of your country, but just because its courts have judged it to be legal, doesn't make it right. Of course "right" is a subjective, moral concept, and I hasten to add that morality is relative and personal. Additionally, I don't know how subject other countries are to the pronouncements of a particular country's judgments. I'll leave that to the United Nations. But in the case of copyrights, my own view of what is right is that the availability for copying of material should ideally be in the hands of the author. My two cents worth.
>
> On Sun, Jul 5, 2020 at 7:11 PM Sarbajit Roy <sroy.mb at gmail.com <mailto:sroy.mb at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 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 <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 <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 <mailto: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 <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 <mailto: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>
>>> ============================================
>>>
>>>
>>> <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 <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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