this is a warning to all before jumping in without looking at the waters first. i haven't worked with them before, but based on the existing review of their Python books, i would be somewhat hesitant, and i certainly wouldn't approach them without an agent. (i'm also not sure of their marketing and PR... i doubt they have the same type of staff as a more well-known publisher like Pearson [Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley] or O'Reilly.)
the royalties they're offering seem abnormally high, and even scarier is that they tell you over email when this is typically something that's negotiated. the standard royalty rate is 10%, as O'Reilly states publically: http://www.oreillynet.com/oreilly/oreilly/author/ch03.html i'm concerned that they offer a higher rate because they spend less elsewhere, such as editing. read Alex Martelli's review very carefully as well as others' here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/184719494X he is doing both the Python community *and* authors at-large a huge favor by exposing this type of publisher behavior in the hopes that anyone would jump at this project because they: 1) want to be published, and 2) want higher royalties. as long as they sell enough to cover their minimal costs. it is also strongly likely that the editing, if there is any, is outsourced. here's another one (check out the "most helpful review"): http://www.amazon.com/dp/1904811841 anyway, i'm not telling you guys *not* to do it, but just be careful, and have good English writing skills because likely, it won't be edited much so you should be prepared to be practically camera-ready. cheers, -wesley On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 4:52 AM, Sunny Kansara <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All, > > I represent Packt Publishing, the publishers of computer related books. > > We are planning to publish a new book on wxPython which will teach the > Python developers who want to quickly use wxPython to create programs with > high functional GUI's and currently we are looking out for some potential > authors to write this book. > > We pay a royalty of 16% and an advance against it. > > An ideal candidate to author this book will be someone with an experience in > wxPython. He/She should be able to communicate his/her thoughts clearly in > English. Past writing experience will be an advantage though not mandatory. > > If you are interested in authoring this book, please write to me with a > brief information about your experience with wxPython and any past writing > experience you may have.. > > Thanks, > Sunny. > -- > Sunny Kansara > Author Relationship Executive > Packt Publishing > www.PacktPub.com > Skype: sunnyk > MSN: [email protected] -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall, (c)2007,2001 "Python Fundamentals", Prentice Hall, (c)2009 http://corepython.com wesley.j.chun :: wescpy-at-gmail.com python training and technical consulting cyberweb.consulting : silicon valley, ca http://cyberwebconsulting.com _______________________________________________ Python-authors mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-authors
