tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post6730801136742483472..comments2024-03-17T08:14:57.577-07:00Comments on The View from Aristeia: Publishing Effective Modern C++, Part 1Scott Meyershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-72306099252066263392015-07-19T09:16:09.803-07:002015-07-19T09:16:09.803-07:00Great post, thanks for sharing.Great post, thanks for sharing.Varun mishrahttp://java67.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-4706895983447979782015-05-22T01:32:13.553-07:002015-05-22T01:32:13.553-07:00informative post, Thanks for sharinginformative post, Thanks for sharingVarun mishrahttp://www.onlinegatha.com/take-a-tour-onlinegathanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-70482918427454282302015-05-18T10:02:30.484-07:002015-05-18T10:02:30.484-07:00...I hit enter too soon....
It is unknown if I wi......I hit enter too soon....<br /><br />It is unknown if I will be authoring another book any time soon. As I look at the available titles I find it harder and harder to pitch something which would be new and useful. I have started blogging though will continue to do that as the ideas strike. <br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14032962054860350019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-25726489186432659552015-05-18T09:58:52.939-07:002015-05-18T09:58:52.939-07:00Great insight on the process Scott and even more e...Great insight on the process Scott and even more eye-opening for a nascent author such as myself.<br /><br />I have been fortunate to work with a publisher who makes things as easy as possible leaving the author to focus on the content and the layout (though the layout of my second book was way beyond my control and is, in a word, ugly). I have discussed self-publishing with other authors at length and some are well-suited to the task of taking on the publisher's role where others just don't have the knowledge or want the hassle.<br /><br />I personally fall into the second camp and my publisher, at the moment, has slowed their process on asking for new titles. I have tech edited a couple lately though.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14032962054860350019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-20024747585916462872015-05-16T03:56:44.390-07:002015-05-16T03:56:44.390-07:00Hello Scott,
My last comment contained a couple ...Hello Scott, <br /><br />My last comment contained a couple of mistakes: a typo and a reference to the underlying technology instead of the actual automation technology or tool. <br /><br /><b>1.</b> I have, so far, only managed to test most of my work, the stylesheets written when I was evaluating the browsers for the book and most of the other stylesheets that I have written since then — on PC and Mac “platforms,” a couple of different platforms actually.<br /><br /><b>2.</b> The “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node.js" rel="nofollow">node.js</a>,” a project sponsored by <a href="https://www.joyent.com" rel="nofollow">Joyent</a>, provides the underlying infrastructure or the API that powers the front-end development automation tool <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/introduction-gulp-js/" rel="nofollow">Gulp JS</a> (link to an article that provides an excellent introduction to Gulp JS, and How to make it a part of your workflow). In my last comment, I had mistakenly mentioned Node as the workflow automation tool. If that comment caused any confusion or resulted in wasted time on the Internet searching for the right package, then I offer my unreserved apologies. <br /><br /><b>3.</b> Although I would, if given the choice, use Gulp.js as the workflow automation tool, however, if anyone or any one of the readers wants to read more about Grunt, then the following article tries to introduce the tool: <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/introduction-gulp-js/" rel="nofollow">Automate Recurring Tasks with Grunt</a>. As I have neither read the article in detail nor used the technology, so I can not comment on the quality of the content, or whether it manages to introduce the tool satisfactorily. <br /><br />Just wanted to make sure that the mistakes made in the previous comment would not lead to wasted time on the Internet. <br /><br />Irfan.Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-45568796452370871652015-05-15T10:02:38.459-07:002015-05-15T10:02:38.459-07:00@Brett: Don't feel bad about buying the book o...@Brett: Don't feel bad about buying the book on sale. I'd do the same thing. Who wants to pay list price?<br /><br />As for my cut of the book's selling price, I do better than the "default" numbers I mentioned in the post, because I have a track record of selling more than the "normal" number of books. I'll have more to say about this in part 2 of the post. What I wanted to do with this post is give you some insight into (1) the non-writing factors that go into publishing a book and (2) the general financial situation from the perspective of a technical publisher. I also wanted to explain why self publication is, for me, not a terribly attractive option.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-85242055051621162142015-05-15T08:25:20.776-07:002015-05-15T08:25:20.776-07:00I bought your book as it was only one of those 50%...I bought your book as it was only one of those 50% sales, I would not have otherwise as I'm poor. And I do like to support the writers if I can. So it was a bummer to see that you get such a small cut. <br />I like the idea of the $9 ebook, I would even be happy if it was more like a journal than a book. <br />I would also be interested in buying a book via a Kickstarter project. When I could give a couple of dollars or a few to buy the book or more to also get some of your past books.<br />Thanks for your book it helps me to understand C++.Bretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06734668872197233954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-85536719860931315602015-05-14T11:08:40.353-07:002015-05-14T11:08:40.353-07:00@Scott Although I can not deny the fact that I hav...@Scott Although I can not deny the fact that I have only tested my work on PC and Mac platform — an individual with limited budget — however, I must add that your informants probably forgot to tell you about the existence of node and grunt modules that append or prepend, based on requirements, all of the device-specific and orientation-specific instructions. The labor and time required to address those inconsistencies thus amounts to almost zero seconds. <br /><br />Irfan. Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-39947491630353707852015-05-14T10:27:07.030-07:002015-05-14T10:27:07.030-07:00@Irfan: It sounds like you've worked only on m...@Irfan: It sounds like you've worked only on mainstream browsers on traditional "non-mobile" platforms, e.g., PCs. Getting something to look good there is likely to be a lot simpler than getting it to look good both there and on the various Kindles (some support color, some don't, and they come with varying screen sizes and resolutions), the various Android tablets, the various iPads, etc. Bear in mind that just because a standards document says something is true, that doesn't mean it's true on all implementations--a fact of life that C++ developers should be quite familiar with. <br /><br />In practice, my understanding (based on reports from people who've had to do it) is that getting highly formatted text (such as code displays) to look right across a range of devices, device orientations, and device configurations often calls for device-dependent CSS (or its equivalent). It's a labor-intensive, time-consuming, tedious task.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-64608759782814780212015-05-14T10:03:45.819-07:002015-05-14T10:03:45.819-07:00@Anonymous: I'm glad to hear that EMC++ looks ...@Anonymous: I'm glad to hear that EMC++ looks good in epub on your Surface. The production team at O'Reilly has worked hard to make it look good on a wide variety of devices.<br /><br />For some hard numbers regarding the popularity of print versus digital versions of books, check out <a href="http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/11/20/how-my-book-launch-went/" rel="nofollow">Bob Nystrom's blog post</a> showing that in the first two weeks, he sold 796 print books and 351 digital copies, a print/digital ratio of 2.3:1. <br /><br />Personally, I think print and digital books have different strengths and weaknesses. I use both versions (even of my own books), depending on whether I'll be reading longer passages (e.g., entire Items) or looking up short chunks of text or code. For searching and copying, of course, digital is the way to go. <br /><br />Because I think both versions of books are useful, I wish publishers and booksellers would work harder to sell both versions together. For EMC++, O'Reilly makes the digital versions available for only 10% over the cost of the print book alone, which I think is quite reasonable ($50 for the print book, $55 for the print book and the digital versions together), but that applies only for purchases at the full print price. For print sales at discounts off full list price (which is almost all such sales), the option to purchase the digital books for a small additional fee is not present. I think that's unfortunate, and I've encouraged O'Reilly to reconsider their policy.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-42607951407383100142015-05-14T09:43:39.085-07:002015-05-14T09:43:39.085-07:00@J.C.: I'll talk a bit about known versus unkn...@J.C.: I'll talk a bit about known versus unknown authors in part 2 of my treatment of this topic. Note that in part 1, I wrote about "a 'typical' technical book published under the conditions I've describe above." My books tend to sell better than average, and, in theory, that changes things. But does theory equal practice?<br /><br />Stay tuned :-)Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-83301248383740960222015-05-14T08:17:50.690-07:002015-05-14T08:17:50.690-07:00Hello Scott,
The short answer to your question, “...Hello Scott,<br /><br />The short answer to your question, “Did you publish a programming book?” is no. The book, or the booklet considering that it only had around 100 pages, discussed the UX offered by the mainstream web browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. I wrote it with an adult or middle-aged audience in mind either in the process of converting to a digital life style or unwilling to venture outside of their comfort zone, people of the mindset that IE or Safari provides all of the features, or that they provide those features in their most usable form. I wrote the book with the aim to provide such individuals with as much information as I possibly could — I had yet to become truly proficient in the front-end dev technologies — to enable them to evaluate their options without first installing any other alternative available to them. <br /><br />Concerning what permits me to state with such confidence that styling content, even that which includes programming examples, for multiple number of devices should not require any considerable investment of time or effort, it has its roots in at least a few different reasons. <br /><br /><b>1.</b> Prior to commencing the testing of the features exposed by the aforementioned web browsers, I thoroughly studied the CSS 2.1 standard, not exactly a demanding undertaking in itself. To test the features, where the activity began at some point in the last quarter of 2009 or early 2010, I wrote multiple number of stylesheets to evaluate the accessibility options available to the users, either directly, via an interface exposed by the web browsers, or indirectly, by installing third party apps: you must have heard of Greasemonkey. <br /><br /><b>2.</b> As an individual with vision (eyesight) related issues, to peruse book length digital content or even those posts which now enjoy, more-or-less, industry wide acceptance as “Long Reads,” posts with approximately 4000 or more words, I have to first customize the appearance to lessen the strain on my eyes. The foregoing has necessitated writing stylesheets for epub versions of the books and “Long Reads” on various topics within the field of computer science, which invariably involve plenty of programming examples. Although I’ve yet to finish the chapter on “Move Semantics” in modern C++ — ongoing investigations in the field of web dev, Bash scripting, and insomnia induced by well wishers — that you shared in your previous post, however, it already has a new stylesheet, and the chapter certainly includes a few programming snippets. <br /><br /><b>3.</b> As an individual currently working on the 3rd rewrite of my soon-to-become-available website, I have already tested a fully responsive beta version. Although I had to rely on in-browser testing suites to test the responsive features, however, if I had to base my conclusions on the feedback provided by web browsers’ testing suites, then the second rewrite would have worked on devices with 320-480px (iPhone 4 and variants) to the 27" inch screens. Third rewrite has more to do with incorporating latest features and reduction of page weight.<br /><br />Based on the aforementioned experience with writing stylesheets, regardless of the underlying reason, I can, probably, make such a statement. Since finishing the standard, I have only occasionally, and <b>just occasionally</b>, encountered issues requiring more than an hour’s sleuthing on the Internet to find a proper solution not relying on any type of JavaScript polyfills. <br /><br />Irfan. (If it has already been submitted, then accept my apologies; I’ve been having issues with blogger since noon.)<br />Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-18152282465650269962015-05-14T08:11:22.880-07:002015-05-14T08:11:22.880-07:00On Publishing With Major-League Players.
Hello ag...<b>On Publishing With Major-League Players.</b><br /><br />Hello again (complete response exceeded the limit imposed by Blogger), <br /><br />When it comes to the mammoths of the publishing industry, the major league players, although I can not say with certainty how much an author eventually benefits by agreeing to their terms, however, their books certainly find a place on at least a few thousand, if not a few hundred thousand, shelves. The books published by O'Reilly, Addison Wesley, Prentice Hall, Simon & Shuster, either because of the importance or the tacit agreements with the institutions, not only find a place on the shelf of the interested reader but also the shelves of the government libraries and the libraries of almost all of the institutions teaching courses relevant to that niche. When I left the education system in 2000, Effective C++ and More Effective C++ enjoyed the status of must reads almost all over Pakistan. Anyone applying for a C++ job had to know the concepts discussed in those books inside and out. When publishing with the heavyweights of the publishing world, whether such arrangements — I have come across book marketing websites promoting placement of books in thousands of libraries as part of their marketing packages — benefit the author, I can not say with certainty; however, I can say this much with certainty that their print runs certainly exceed the 5 digit mark, probably even 6 digit mark (conservative estimate). <br /><br />With the hope that your new book would soon become a must read, as well, <br /><br /><br />Irfan.Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-13980121288828677052015-05-14T08:06:49.223-07:002015-05-14T08:06:49.223-07:00Hello Scott,
The short answer to your question, “...Hello Scott,<br /><br />The short answer to your question, “Did you publish a programming book?” is no. The book, or the booklet considering that it only had around 100 pages, discussed the UX offered by the mainstream web browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari. I wrote it with an adult or middle-aged audience in mind either in the process of converting to a digital lifestyle or unwilling to venture outside of their comfort zone, people of the mindset that IE or Safari provides all of the features, or that they provide those features in their most usable form. I wrote the book with the aim to provide such individuals with as much information as I possibly could — I had yet to become truly proficient in the front-end dev technologies — to enable them to evaluate their options without first installing any other alternative available to them. <br /><br />Concerning what permits me to state with such confidence that styling content, even that which includes programming examples, for multiple number of devices should not require any considerable investment of time or effort, it has its roots in at least a few different reasons. <br /><br /><b>1.</b> Prior to commencing the testing of the features exposed by the aforementioned web browsers, I thoroughly studied the CSS 2.1 standard, certainly not a demanding undertaking but mandatory for the aforementioned task. To test the features, where the activity began at some point in the last quarter of 2009 or early 2010, I wrote multiple number of stylesheets to evaluate the accessibility options available to the users, either directly, via an interface exposed by the web browsers, or indirectly, by installing third party apps: you must have heard of Greasemonkey. <br /><br /><b>2.</b> As an individual with vision (eyesight) related issues, to peruse book length digital content or even those posts which now enjoy, more-or-less, industry wide acceptance as “Long Reads,” posts with approximately 4000 or more words, I have to first customize the appearance to lessen the strain on my eyes. The foregoing has necessitated writing stylesheets for epub versions of the books and “Long Reads” on various topics within the field of computer science, which invariably involve plenty of programming examples. Although I’ve yet to finish the chapter on “Move Semantics” in modern C++ — ongoing investigations in the field of web dev, Bash scripting, and insomnia induced by well wishers — that you shared in your previous post, however, it already has a new stylesheet, and the chapter certainly includes a few programming snippets. <br /><br /><b>3.</b> As an individual currently working on the 3rd rewrite of my soon-to-become-available website, I have already tested a fully responsive beta version. Although I had to rely on in-browser testing suites to test the responsive features, however, if I had to base my conclusions on the feedback provided by web browsers’ testing suites, then the second rewrite would have worked on devices with 320-480px (iPhone 4 and variants) to the 27-30" inch screens. Third rewrite has more to do with incorporating latest features and reduction of page weight.<br /><br />Based on the aforementioned experience with writing stylesheets, regardless of the underlying reasons, I can, probably, make such a statement. Since finishing the standard, I have only occasionally, and <b>just occasionally,</b> encountered issues requiring more than an hour’s sleuthing on the Internet to find a proper solution not relying on any type of JavaScript polyfills. <br /><br /><br />Irfan.Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-3162894678474660582015-05-14T05:42:52.604-07:002015-05-14T05:42:52.604-07:00EMC++ is prolly the 1st book that looks very good ...EMC++ is prolly the 1st book that looks very good in Epub format. It also has proper fonts to be viewable on a typical tablet device in a full page view. Mine is somewhat atypical Sufrace Pro 3.<br /><br />I am amazed folx still prefer printed books. I now go for electronics exclusively. Yes, back in the day I did accumulate a good hundred or so of tech books in printed form, but all they do now is collect dust.<br /><br />I love ability to have all my books in one spot, dust & curl free, not have to have lights on to read them etc. You can highlight and write notes on them too. Add search, instant index, bookmarks etc.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-4451367006336268122015-05-13T22:43:59.496-07:002015-05-13T22:43:59.496-07:00Hi Scott,
Let me start by saying that in a short p...Hi Scott,<br />Let me start by saying that in a short post you dissected how publishing works in 2015. Very impressive!<br />I own a small publishing house, so what I will say is based on my experience in publishing.<br /><br />I feel that you didn't give much weight to the fact that you are a well known author. That detail, I think, is key when thinking about royalties. For a publisher it is only a risk when the outcome is unknown. While I don't know exactly how many copies you sell, I can guess that there is no question that the publisher will sell significantly more than what's required to recover the initial investment. <br />I am not suggesting that self publishing is the way to go. As you conclude, there are several tasks that you wouldn't want to do yourself (e.g. distribution and marketing), but times are changing and for someone like you it should be more like: "Scott pays x% to PUBLISHER for Distribution and Marketing services", and not "Publisher finds a gold mine and gives the miners a penny for each gold coin they get".<br /><br />It was a great read though.J.C.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-29233264648682086282015-05-13T21:49:31.720-07:002015-05-13T21:49:31.720-07:00@John: "Reach" is the kind of thing I ro...@John: "Reach" is the kind of thing I roll into marketing: getting the word out to prospective readers. Publishers are generally better at that than authors, because publishers have invested years in honing how to do it. When I published my first book, AW asked me if there were any people or groups or publications, etc., ("big mouths") I wanted copies to be sent to so that they could spread the word about my book. I submitted about 10 people and places. I then asked AW how many people/groups/publications they had on their list. The number was close to 150. That's extended reach, and I agree, that's the kind of thing a publisher should be expected to bring to the table.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-9932889096755527492015-05-13T21:21:37.127-07:002015-05-13T21:21:37.127-07:00There is another factor to consider—in fact, the p...There is another factor to consider—in fact, the primary factor I considering when publishing my book "Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual" (http://simpleprogrammer.com/softskills) with Manning—reach.<br /><br />What I mean by this is that even though I have a pretty large audience from my blog, I am only reaching and only have the ability to reach a certain segment of the programmer audience.<br /><br />A publisher like Manning, has a different reach than what I do. If I self-published, I probably could make a lot more money, considering I've sold over 5,000 copies in just 4-5 months, but by using a publisher, I'm able to reach a whole group of people who aren't exposed to my blog and my personal brand.<br /><br />So, for me, that value of reaching that many more people is worth more than the money I make from the book.<br /><br />Some of the people who read my book will come back to my site or be exposed to my brand and buy from me in the future.<br /><br />I sell much more expensive products and training courses on my site, so even if I made $0 on the book, reaching more people is worth the effort.John Sonmezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07295089827121929490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-2277947539982188032015-05-13T20:41:31.106-07:002015-05-13T20:41:31.106-07:00@Eirik: I've now revised the post to fix the p...@Eirik: I've now revised the post to fix the printing-cost-double-count problem. At least I hope I have.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-27842405437942706182015-05-13T18:54:09.047-07:002015-05-13T18:54:09.047-07:00@Eirik: Yes, thanks for pointing out that I'm ...@Eirik: Yes, thanks for pointing out that I'm counting the printing cost twice. I'll revise the post to take that into account.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-48931981362952262102015-05-13T18:15:38.216-07:002015-05-13T18:15:38.216-07:00Aren't your per-book gross-revenue numbers off...Aren't your per-book gross-revenue numbers off? At least for the first 5000 books, you've already added in the cost of printing?<br /><br />You can't both add in the printing cost and round up to 50k, and substract the per-book cost of 2.50 from the revenue numbers?Eiriknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-43387197803539521292015-05-13T14:02:58.688-07:002015-05-13T14:02:58.688-07:00Scott, assuming you still hold the publishing righ...Scott, assuming you still hold the publishing rights and copyright (I know other technical authors such as my uncle that have gotten burned there), you could still publish it online via the various self publishers after you hit 5000 copies.<br /><br />I know that the techdirt folks have been making the argument that lower price means higher returns. But different markets are different markets.Blackmagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15665118790305806454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-61014028857199274262015-05-13T11:25:41.359-07:002015-05-13T11:25:41.359-07:00@Irfan: Did you publish a programming book, and if...@Irfan: Did you publish a programming book, and if so, can you please refer me to it? If so, you're the first person to tell me that getting the formatting right for code examples on multiple devices under multiple configurations (e.g., both portrait and landscape) is not a challenge.Scott Meyershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05280964633768289328noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101933101966798446.post-17215922784688023072015-05-13T11:13:40.096-07:002015-05-13T11:13:40.096-07:00Hello Scott,
Although the production costs that ...Hello Scott, <br /><br />Although the production costs that you’ve listed seem rather steep, however, as an individual who has neither worked in the publishing industry nor ever dealt with a traditional publisher, I can not challenge it with any authority. <br /><br />That aside, as I once published a book with Amazon, I can tell you with utmost confidence that publishing digital versions suitable for all devices certainly does not require much effort. Unless you plan to launch a digital version that focuses more on creation of interfaces meant to amaze or leave readers in awe, then creating digital content suitable for all devices does not demand an unreasonable investment of time or effort. <br /><br />Regards, <br /><br />Irfan. Irfanhttp://www.disinterested.menoreply@blogger.com