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_at_freelists.org
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_at_miracleas.dk> 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
>
>
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
> http://www.orafaq.com
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Received on Tue Mar 16 2004 - 19:20:14 CST
