Do you want us to email the O'Reilly guys? One suggestion since books can take a great deal of time is to get a few tech editors. Maybe one or two per chapter?
On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 10:06 AM, Joseph Balderson <n...@joeflash.ca> wrote: > Anyone is free to do as they wish... I am not standing in the way of > anyone who > wants to write a Flex book. This is simply the path that I am taking. > > In this day and age of self-publishing, of what relevance are traditional > publishing houses? That's a good question. It's not because they print > physical > books anymore, that model has long since died. It's for other reasons. > > 1) Perception: stakeholders and managers still look upon traditional > publishing > houses as thought leaders, or at least responsive to tech market trends as > opposed to developer fanbase trends. The perception is that the dog (market > trends) wags the tail (developer adoption), but in many cases it's > actually the > tail which wags the dog. What's the same in either case is the dog and the > tail, > they are part of the same ecosystem. Self-published books sidestep this > perception. So that you have only the tail, so to speak. All of which > means that > a self/community-published book needs to have an awful lot of buzz to wag > the dog. > > In the case of O'Reilly, they are a publishing house and they're > considered a > thought leader in the tech space, which is why it would have been nice to > have > such a title. An O'Reilly book would have been as good as an endorsement > of the > continued viability of the tech, but that's merely the perception. In > reality > O'Reilly is not so much a thought leader as a thought promoter: they still > respond to perceived market trends as much as everyone else. > > 2) Reach. Traditional publishing houses can guarantee books in > brick-and-mortar > stores and online marketplaces. The former is becoming less and less > relevant, > but the latter is key. No matter what self-publishing capabilities exist on > Amazon and other online marketplaces, the distribution is fragmented. In > the > case of a major publishing house, brand recognition helps distribution and > sales. And increased sales means increased reach. That's not to say that > self-publishing cannot do the same, but it takes more work and more buzz. > > 3) Infrastructure. This one is key. Many people do not realize it, but the > resources a publishing house brings to the table are not only about graphic > design and distribution. They have full-time staff editors with literary > qualifications to ensure that the book itself is well written with no > glaring > typos and grammatical mistakes. Having been through the publishing process > on > several occasions, I can emphatically say that I am eternally grateful for > editors who had my back. The tech editor, usually chosen by the author, > verifies > the quality of the technical aspects of the book. But it takes a literary > editor > to ensure that the book as a whole is well-written. We are so used to > well-written books that all you have to do is read a few reviews of books > from > lesser publishing houses which basically exist to rubber-stamp > self-published > works, and you can feel the heat from the flames in the reviews: it doesn't > matter how engaging the material, but if the grammar is sloppy and the > text is > rife with uncaught typos, the book will tank. > > Not to mention that they have access to legal resources that a > self-publisher > would not have or would be a real pain to do oneself. When I write an > Apache > book, I don't have to worry a whit about copyright or trademark issues: the > publisher deals directly with the trademark suits at Apache, Adobe or > anyone > else referenced in the book. I can use the words "Apache Flex" in the book > title > without getting into long and frustrating conversations with Apache's legal > department. It's already taken care of, because chances are that that > publishing > house already has a few Apache-related books under its belt and the process > becomes automatic. One less headache for the author. I have enough > headaches > just writing the thing, I don't need to deal with that as well. > > 4) Remuneration. No one makes a living writing tech books, it's like > working > retail for the amount of hours one puts in. But at least there is a slight > chance you'll get paid; there is an advance, and if you're lucky the > publisher > will break even and you may even see a dollar or two of royalties. If one > is > fortunate enough to be in a tech that's popular and you have a reputation, > some > authors can write several books a year and make it into a nice part time > job. > For most of us though, after working on a book for 500-1000 hours, it's > nice to > see a few dollars in the bank at the end of it all. With self-publishing, > that's > all up in the air. > > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > Joseph Balderson, Flex & Flash Platform Developer :: http://joeflash.ca > Author, Professional Flex 3 :: http://tinyurl.com/proflex3book > > Jeffry Houser wrote: > > On 1/24/2014 5:10 PM, Justin Mclean wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >>> Well, I just heard back from O'Reilly. And unfortunately they're not > >>> interested > >>> in publishing an Apache Flex book of any kind > >> While it would of been nice to have them as a publisher (print book, > >> distribution, marketing etc etc) do we actually need a publisher? > >> > >> In this day and age it's easy enough to publish ebooks. > > > > I was thinking the same thing. The big benefit of having a > > traditional publisher is that they can get 'paper copy' books into real > > bookstores. > > The real drawback of 'paper' books in real bookstores is that > > programmers will never know this book existed. > > >
