Re: New books and new authors - and experience?
- From: "Ryan" <ryan.gaffuri@xxxxxxx>
- To: <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 21:29:23 -0500
it seems to me that most authors are consultant. How much does it help to
market yourself to have a book?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Freeman Robert - IL" <FREEMANR@xxxxxxxx>
To: "'Melanie Caffrey '" <melanie_caffrey@xxxxxxxxx>;
<oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 8:23 PM
Subject: RE: New books and new authors - and experience?
> Good point about the money. Mike Ault and I joke on occation that when we
> write, we are doing so for something akin to minimum wage. I've not gotten
> rich off of any of my books. Bottom line is that an Oracle book, a book
that
> sells really well, is going to sell maybe 5-10 thousand copies... the
(few,
> maybe 1 in 20) better sellers will do maybe 20k+ and some like Loney's
> (maybe 1 in 100?) will do much better than that (but that is rare rare).
>
> When you are making a buck or two a book (or less if you have co-authors),
> that dosen't add up that fast over say 4-5 years....
>
> Then, there was the publisher that went broke and nobody got ANYTHING for
> their efforts....
>
> Robert
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melanie Caffrey
> To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: 3/16/2004 6:55 PM
> Subject: Re: New books and new authors - and experience?
>
> Mogens,
>
> I agree. It was one of the hot topics at the
> publisher's seminar this past September at
> OracleWorld. And I would say that most authors or
> publishers at that seminar would agree with you.
>
> Since Oracle customers and users have less money to
> play with these days, they are becoming decidedly more
> savvy about which books they actually purchase.
>
> And as for this statement:
>
> "You're approached by a publisher who wants to publish
> fast and make lots of money for them and you."
>
> Lots of money?? What fantasy are you living in? :-)
>
> Maybe I need a definition of *lots of money*.
>
> Seriously though, I believe that authors ultimately
> write books to learn (whatever that may mean to them
> at the time.) However, I also agree with you that not
> all learning experiences are stable enough (or
> perhaps, complete enough) to be shared with a general
> user community.
>
> Cheers,
> Melanie
>
> --- Mogens_Norgaard <mln@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Friends,
> >
> > I recently wrote this message, but then sent it just
> > to myself in order
> > not to offend anyone or perhaps be misunderstood.
> >
> > But after 14 days with this message in my inbox, I
> > have decided to go
> > ahead and send it to the list:
> >
> =================================================================
> >
> > It's becoming a habit to churn out books about
> > topics that cannot
> > possibly have been explored yet. And certainly not
> > in any scientific manner.
> >
> > How on Earth can we have books out with the word
> > "10g" on the cover when
> > 10g just came out, and we all know, that getting
> > something as basic as
> > OEM (and certainly AWR/ADDM/ASH/Advisor services)
> > to work during the
> > Beta phase has been damned near impossible? If that
> > is the case, how can
> > the books talk in detail about how fantastic these
> > features are?
> > Sandra's last name is...
> >
> > I don't really care whether the books were
> > "betatized" or not, or
> > however various authors try to impress on people
> > that their books are
> > better than the other's. These are all books written
> > by people without
> > real experience in 10g (because it's bloody well
> > impossible to HAVE real
> > experience yet!) talking about people writing books
> > about something they
> > don't know enough about yet...
> >
> > I fully understand Oracle's wishes here. I fully
> > understand the
> > publisher's wishes here. I might even understand the
> > author's wishes
> > here (or maybe not). But it's too much now. iAS.
> >
> > I think it's time for all of us to stop buying
> > sensationalist or
> > un-finished or whatever books and wait until books
> > by people who've
> > actually done real work, in the real world, with 10g
> > appear.
> >
> > Hands down: Shouldn't we all be reading James
> > Morle's book (titled *8i*)
> > or Jonathan's (titled *8i*) and LEARNING real stuff
> > instead of just
> > running around in real and virtual book stores,
> > looking for new sound
> > bites or cut/paste's from Oracle's own
> > documentation?
> >
> > Read Oracle's documentation first, try out 10g, then
> > see if anybody with
> > REAL experience has written a book.
> >
> > Of course they haven't. They don't exist, since the
> > Oracle version
> > hasn't been out yet.
> >
> > Oh, I know how this happens. Been there. You're
> > approached by a
> > publisher who wants to publish fast and make lots of
> > money for them and
> > you. If you don't say NO, then you're caught between
> > delivering
> > SOMETHING and being blasted by the publisher. So you
> > choose - perhaps -
> > to generate text and examples and stuff that make it
> > appear as if you
> > actually WORKED with this new version of Oracle.
> >
> > Of course you didn't. Ask the authors what customers
> > or partners they
> > worked with using 10g. Ask them if this was real
> > production or just the
> > usual "let's try this, let's try that" stuff. Ask.
> > Then think. Of course
> > they havne't been able to do anything realistic yet.
> >
> > Man, when I looked at the books offered from various
> > publishers at the
> > RMOUG, there were a few good Oracle-related books
> > (Dave Ensor's Design,
> > Cary's, Lawson's, Connor's, etc.) and about 90% of
> > the displayed books
> > being ... well... not worth the money.
> >
> > Mogens
> >
> >
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