5 ms·

Dive Into 2010: HTML5 Book Reflection

93 points by rafaelc 16y ago

pamelafox 16y ago
It's a fantastic book, and probably the one I've recommended most this year. I used it (the online version) to both learn about the new technologies and also to prepare curriculum to teach other folks about them. I love how his writing style combines narration and humor alongside the technical topics. Read it! :)
adriand 16y ago
> 6% of visitors used some version of Internet Explorer. [...] Microsoft has completely lost the web development community. This is something we all know but it's interesting to read another tidbit supporting that conclusion nonetheless. Not only do web developers avoid using Internet Explorer, we've been traumatized enough by IE that we actively evangelize against it.
- tomeast 16y ago
  That was one of the more interesting stats to me as well. Given my IE trauma I actually read it as 6% as IE6 users but 6% of all IE versions, wow - Microsoft has really lost credibility with the web developer crowd.
lukestevens 16y ago
Interesting stats! 14k sales in 6 weeks is great for a tech book (~5k lifetime being the norm), but on the back of 2 million visitors to the web site, and Mark Pilgrim's reputation, it illustrates why publishing is a tough biz. O'Reilly pays authors 10% of net income, which is usually 50% of retail. Given Mark's book is going for $30 retail and $17.72 at Amazon, that's about ~$0.88 - $1.50 per book for print (for the sake of the argument, let's assume digital is in the same ballpark). Mark's royalty check for $9225, + whatever advance Mark got (say $5k?) equals roughly $1/book sale for the author (assuming that payment was for 14k sales to date). Given it takes 100s of hours to write a book (and hundreds more to write a good one), making $1 per sale, on average sales of 5k lifetime, or 14k sales in 6 weeks for a top tier author like Mark... let's just say technical writing is not exactly something you do for profit :) Also of note is the 75%/25% print/digital sales ratio. This would suggest that the free online version is cannibalizing digital sales, given O'Reilly usually sells ebooks 2:1 (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize-print-not-likely.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize-pr...), but I guess you could make a case that the loss in digital sales is made up in extra print sales from the book's exposure online.
- jonknee 16y ago
  I'm sure a company as large as O'Reilly doesn't pay all their authors the same. 10% sounds like a base rate, but everything is negotiable.
- MarkPilgrim 16y ago
  Interesting deductions! I just wanted to pipe in here to confirm that your math and your stated assumptions are correct. My take is the standard 10%. My "top tier" status, as you flatteringly put it, bought me the freedom to simultaneously publish the book online under a Creative Commons Attribution license. I negotiated for licensing, not money. I have no regrets.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Your story provides some interesting confirmations of the points I raised in my own story of 2009: http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ Despite being approached to do the 2nd edition of what was a popular book (in its field), my negotiations on the licensing failed and, as anticipated, the 2nd edition has done extremely poorly compared to the 1st due to new competition and a lack of anyone serious recommending the book because it's not available in an open format to "scope out." (And as someone who recommends books, this is key for me. I can't buy every beginners' book that I don't need merely to judge them for others.) Your post will serve as interesting ammunition in future discussions between many authors and their publishers, I suspect, and I applaud you for putting it out!
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  What does "net income" mean here? Is that supposed to mean profit? If so, that's a pretty small piece. Why should O' Reilly get 90% of the money merely for their distribution channel and printing press? I realize many companies do this "because they can" or they think they can, but hopefully our industry is not interested in supporting such groups; we should only buy from publishers that operate business under fair terms. Perhaps a fair shake would be 75/25, or even something as low as 50/50, but 90/10 to a group that didn't even produce the content is pretty hard to swallow from an ethical standpoint. I would really like to know more about what goes into O' Reilly's "net income" figure.
andybak 16y ago
I'm wondering if any conclusions should be drawn from the disinterest in microdata. On one level it's to be expected - most interest in HTML5 is coming from front-end people whilst microdata is of most interest to 'back-end' types (and SEO bods). However one shouldn't forget Cory Doctorow's metacrap thesis: http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm

93 points by rafaelc 16y ago

It's a fantastic book, and probably the one I've recommended most this year. I used it (the online version) to both learn about the new technologies and also to prepare curriculum to teach other folks about them. I love how his writing style combines narration and humor alongside the technical topics. Read it! :)

adriand 16y ago

> 6% of visitors used some version of Internet Explorer. [...] Microsoft has completely lost the web development community. This is something we all know but it's interesting to read another tidbit supporting that conclusion nonetheless. Not only do web developers avoid using Internet Explorer, we've been traumatized enough by IE that we actively evangelize against it.

tomeast 16y ago
That was one of the more interesting stats to me as well. Given my IE trauma I actually read it as 6% as IE6 users but 6% of all IE versions, wow - Microsoft has really lost credibility with the web developer crowd.

lukestevens 16y ago

Interesting stats! 14k sales in 6 weeks is great for a tech book (~5k lifetime being the norm), but on the back of 2 million visitors to the web site, and Mark Pilgrim's reputation, it illustrates why publishing is a tough biz. O'Reilly pays authors 10% of net income, which is usually 50% of retail. Given Mark's book is going for $30 retail and $17.72 at Amazon, that's about ~$0.88 - $1.50 per book for print (for the sake of the argument, let's assume digital is in the same ballpark). Mark's royalty check for $9225, + whatever advance Mark got (say $5k?) equals roughly $1/book sale for the author (assuming that payment was for 14k sales to date). Given it takes 100s of hours to write a book (and hundreds more to write a good one), making $1 per sale, on average sales of 5k lifetime, or 14k sales in 6 weeks for a top tier author like Mark... let's just say technical writing is not exactly something you do for profit :) Also of note is the 75%/25% print/digital sales ratio. This would suggest that the free online version is cannibalizing digital sales, given O'Reilly usually sells ebooks 2:1 (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize-print-not-likely.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize-pr...), but I guess you could make a case that the loss in digital sales is made up in extra print sales from the book's exposure online.

jonknee 16y ago
I'm sure a company as large as O'Reilly doesn't pay all their authors the same. 10% sounds like a base rate, but everything is negotiable.
MarkPilgrim 16y ago
Interesting deductions! I just wanted to pipe in here to confirm that your math and your stated assumptions are correct. My take is the standard 10%. My "top tier" status, as you flatteringly put it, bought me the freedom to simultaneously publish the book online under a Creative Commons Attribution license. I negotiated for licensing, not money. I have no regrets.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Your story provides some interesting confirmations of the points I raised in my own story of 2009: http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/ Despite being approached to do the 2nd edition of what was a popular book (in its field), my negotiations on the licensing failed and, as anticipated, the 2nd edition has done extremely poorly compared to the 1st due to new competition and a lack of anyone serious recommending the book because it's not available in an open format to "scope out." (And as someone who recommends books, this is key for me. I can't buy every beginners' book that I don't need merely to judge them for others.) Your post will serve as interesting ammunition in future discussions between many authors and their publishers, I suspect, and I applaud you for putting it out!
cookiecaper 16y ago
What does "net income" mean here? Is that supposed to mean profit? If so, that's a pretty small piece. Why should O' Reilly get 90% of the money merely for their distribution channel and printing press? I realize many companies do this "because they can" or they think they can, but hopefully our industry is not interested in supporting such groups; we should only buy from publishers that operate business under fair terms. Perhaps a fair shake would be 75/25, or even something as low as 50/50, but 90/10 to a group that didn't even produce the content is pretty hard to swallow from an ethical standpoint. I would really like to know more about what goes into O' Reilly's "net income" figure.

andybak 16y ago

I'm wondering if any conclusions should be drawn from the disinterest in microdata. On one level it's to be expected - most interest in HTML5 is coming from front-end people whilst microdata is of most interest to 'back-end' types (and SEO bods). However one shouldn't forget Cory Doctorow's metacrap thesis: http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm