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Are you the same Jim Hefferon who wrote the free (as in freedom and beer) linear algebra text [0]? If so, I'd first like to thank you (your book is great) and t

Are you the same Jim Hefferon who wrote the free (as in freedom and beer) linear algebra text [0]? If so, I'd first like to thank you (your book is great) and then agree that it is possible to publish a .pdf online. That said, patio11 is talking about writing books in highly specialised academic areas. Linear algebra is standard fare for an undergraduate curriculum - taught at thousands of universities - using innumerable textbooks. So it is not something highly specialised. It is conceivable that your book was largely inspired by other linear algebra books, if indirectly. For instance, you might have had strong opinions about why a particular approach does not work [1], and chose not to follow it. The search space has been reduced by authors who have come before. An academic writing a book in a more specialised area would probably not have the luxury of a writing precedent and would have to figure out a lot themselves. This translates to more time spent on a book for which they would otherwise receive no reward. Of course, it is possible that this premise is false and that it is easier for a researcher to write a book on their own research specialty. I would imagine that your research appeals to 'a very, very niche audience'. Would you consider spending a lot of time and effort on a book (.pdf) in your research area - for no material reward? To be read by a very small audience? Orders of magnitude smaller than undergraduates looking for a good linear algebra text? [0] http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/ http://joshua.smcvt.edu/linearalgebra/ [1] I certainly do - I dislike Anton and Rorres

RogerL 11y ago
"Would you consider spending a lot of time and effort on a book (.pdf) in your research area - for no material reward" Well, would you consider putting your blood, sweat, tears into a project for a couple of years, for maybe $4,000? Because that is the 'payoff' for this sort of thing. In other words, no writer is doing it for the money. I did it because I want people to know things, and I remember when I didn't have a SV salary (my father worked road maintenance, my mother cleaned toilets at hotels) and was utterly unable to access information I desperately wanted. Today I get emails from grad students and people from countries with economies that make it impossible for them to drop $150 US on a book. Why, oh why would I work this hard and then pretty much guarantee that no one but a SV engineer or tenured professor could access it? To me, that is a crazy proposition. Even if the book sales were $50K it wouldn't pay back the time invested. Print (this kind) is dying. We can use IPython Notebook (now Jupyter notebook), or LaTeX to make perfect copy. We can be open in all ways - share the source that made the charts, share the data, and of course, share the text. You can make corrections, or run different experiments. You can fix bugs in the code. You can change the language (text or computer). Others have mentioned academic prestige. I guess that exists, still, for now. But plenty of academics are starting to use open source, and I both hope and think that this will gain momentum. It's perverse for an academic institution to punish making information widely available. I'll admit I have no insight as to how to change that. I hope things like open access being mandated by receiving public funds will help get us there. Anyway, so far as I know, no one writes a 300 copy book for material reward. Or, they do that once, and then the economics of the situation comes home to them.
jimhefferon 11y ago
> the same Jim Hefferon Yes. Linear Algebra with answers to exercises and lab manual, and an Introduction to Proofs that a person can find referenced on that page. > Would you consider spending a lot of time and effort on a book (.pdf) in your research area - for no material reward? To be read by a very small audience? Orders of magnitude smaller than undergraduates looking for a good linear algebra text? I am saying that people can put the books discussed in the article online. The fact that they are niche, or not, does not seem especially relevant, to me. I spent thousands of hours on the text; it is a professional activity that I think has helped people. The last I checked LA gets about 30K downloads per week, but even a book for specialists that gets 10 downloads per week could live online. In academia, the great majority of authors do not get money from a book that in any way comes close to the effort involved, in my experience. It is a professional activity for most. The publisher in this article may make a good living but the authors do not, again in my experience. I have nothing against traditional publishing but I think online is an alternative. I do think, though, that there needs to be a way to curate and review the works. They need to be gathered online in some kind of CTAN-like thing because, among other things, busses happen. They need to be reviewed because, among other things, tenure and promotion happens (or doesn't). But, if those two things are done, I think that an alternative or supplement to paper versions makes sense.

RogerL 11y ago

"Would you consider spending a lot of time and effort on a book (.pdf) in your research area - for no material reward" Well, would you consider putting your blood, sweat, tears into a project for a couple of years, for maybe $4,000? Because that is the 'payoff' for this sort of thing. In other words, no writer is doing it for the money. I did it because I want people to know things, and I remember when I didn't have a SV salary (my father worked road maintenance, my mother cleaned toilets at hotels) and was utterly unable to access information I desperately wanted. Today I get emails from grad students and people from countries with economies that make it impossible for them to drop $150 US on a book. Why, oh why would I work this hard and then pretty much guarantee that no one but a SV engineer or tenured professor could access it? To me, that is a crazy proposition. Even if the book sales were $50K it wouldn't pay back the time invested. Print (this kind) is dying. We can use IPython Notebook (now Jupyter notebook), or LaTeX to make perfect copy. We can be open in all ways - share the source that made the charts, share the data, and of course, share the text. You can make corrections, or run different experiments. You can fix bugs in the code. You can change the language (text or computer). Others have mentioned academic prestige. I guess that exists, still, for now. But plenty of academics are starting to use open source, and I both hope and think that this will gain momentum. It's perverse for an academic institution to punish making information widely available. I'll admit I have no insight as to how to change that. I hope things like open access being mandated by receiving public funds will help get us there. Anyway, so far as I know, no one writes a 300 copy book for material reward. Or, they do that once, and then the economics of the situation comes home to them.

jimhefferon 11y ago

> the same Jim Hefferon Yes. Linear Algebra with answers to exercises and lab manual, and an Introduction to Proofs that a person can find referenced on that page. > Would you consider spending a lot of time and effort on a book (.pdf) in your research area - for no material reward? To be read by a very small audience? Orders of magnitude smaller than undergraduates looking for a good linear algebra text? I am saying that people can put the books discussed in the article online. The fact that they are niche, or not, does not seem especially relevant, to me. I spent thousands of hours on the text; it is a professional activity that I think has helped people. The last I checked LA gets about 30K downloads per week, but even a book for specialists that gets 10 downloads per week could live online. In academia, the great majority of authors do not get money from a book that in any way comes close to the effort involved, in my experience. It is a professional activity for most. The publisher in this article may make a good living but the authors do not, again in my experience. I have nothing against traditional publishing but I think online is an alternative. I do think, though, that there needs to be a way to curate and review the works. They need to be gathered online in some kind of CTAN-like thing because, among other things, busses happen. They need to be reviewed because, among other things, tenure and promotion happens (or doesn't). But, if those two things are done, I think that an alternative or supplement to paper versions makes sense.