Re: Back to books

[John Belmonte <jvb@...>]

Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> Now I am starting to plan how to distribute the final version.
> The obvious option is to publish it, but for that I must find a
> publisher. (Suggestions? Contacts??). Other option would be to sell it
> eletronically by a small fee (I do not plan to get rich with the book,
> but it would be OK to get something from it). I am still not sure whether
> a freely available version of a draft could interfere with those plans.

This was your invitation to start the longest lua-l thread ever ;-).

I suggest following the example of "The Linux Cookbook", by Michael 
Stutz, published by No Starch Press (see http://dsl.org/).  This book 
sold well despite being freely available.

From an interview with Michael Stutz 
(http://www.ravenmatrix.com/interviews/31/):

    The book publishing industry today suffers from a lack of vision. I 

    don't even think they know what a book even is, literally! The bound
    paper object is called a "codex," and a _book_ is more than that.
    Publishers could make so much money with copylefted books. Just as
    record labels could make a fortune publishing copylefted music. I'd
    like to show them how. And this book was a first step in doing that
    -- No Starch Press was willing to try the experiment. It's been a
    hot seller, and the very reason that's so is because the book is
    freely available. It's not just available in PDF or HTML formats but
    the very manuscript is available -- and that has done nothing but
    increase sales of the bound book. Debian distributes an electronic
    version of it now, so my book comes right along with the operating
    system. What better publicity and endorsement could an author ask
    for?


If you make your book freely available, I promise to buy a copy :-).

-John




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