4 ms·

Thanks for sharing, Peter - one always hears numbers being tossed around, but it's interesting to hear the whole story. It sounds as if you've burned your brid

by rufo 17y ago

Thanks for sharing, Peter - one always hears numbers being tossed around, but it's interesting to hear the whole story. It sounds as if you've burned your bridges with Apress to some degree - do you have any interest in continuing to write books with a better deal (e.g., with Pragmatic Programmers) or are you burnt out of the whole thing entirely?

petercooper 17y ago
I don't think I've burned my bridges - though they might disagree! I've mostly appreciated the experience with them; it's just some of the institutional policies I take umbrage with. I bet many writers feel the same way about publishers they work with time and time again :) I don't think that being OK with people pirating my book is detrimental to Apress either. They already let other authors "open" their books (e.g. Scott Chacon, Mark Pilgrim) and I want to boost print sales which benefits them far more than me. On the second question, I definitely want to write more books. I didn't think this after completing the first edition of Beginning Ruby but the reviews I got just blew me away. I suspect I've sorta prematurely burned any bridge I had to the Pragmatics (as cool as they are) with a slightly hasty negative reference to one of their books a while back (I've been nice since, honest - sorry!) but if I were sticking to the Ruby theme, I have a big enough audience with my own Ruby sites to self publish (and maybe avoid print entirely).
- mattmaroon 17y ago
  "I bet many writers feel the same way about publishers they work with time and time again." Almost every time in my experience. It sounds like the deal they give you is good though, better than I would have expected really. Self-pub is definitely the way to go if you can pull it off. It's not hard to get 5x profit per volume if you have any volume at all, and programmers are extremely easy to make aware of your product, especially once you've established your name.
- silkodyssey 17y ago
  You mention that apress lets other authors release open version of their books. Did these authors release their books for free initially or have they been with apress since the beginning?
matthewcford 17y ago
I was burned out (from writing) after almost completing the beginning Merb book, which Apress cancelled after the Rails/Merb merger. I must admit if I were to write a book again, it wouldn't be with Apress. I'd be knocking on PragProg or PeepCode's door.
- tptacek 17y ago
  In fairness to Apress, why would they move forward marketing a title for an obsoleted technology?
  - matthewcford 17y ago
    There was talk of rewriting it for Rails 3, but as it was pretty much vaporware at the time and I had enough of the extremely tight deadlines by that point, the decision to stop was mutual. My comment wasn't against Apress for canceling the book, well within their right to do so. However their processes are a bit backwards and I'm sure not all authors get the same treatment, echoing peter's comment about the git/python books being available online. Before the apress book I started an open source Merb book, after I saw how awesome the online Django book was and I would have liked beginning merb to have going the same way with peer review.

by rufo 17y ago

petercooper 17y ago

I don't think I've burned my bridges - though they might disagree! I've mostly appreciated the experience with them; it's just some of the institutional policies I take umbrage with. I bet many writers feel the same way about publishers they work with time and time again :) I don't think that being OK with people pirating my book is detrimental to Apress either. They already let other authors "open" their books (e.g. Scott Chacon, Mark Pilgrim) and I want to boost print sales which benefits them far more than me. On the second question, I definitely want to write more books. I didn't think this after completing the first edition of Beginning Ruby but the reviews I got just blew me away. I suspect I've sorta prematurely burned any bridge I had to the Pragmatics (as cool as they are) with a slightly hasty negative reference to one of their books a while back (I've been nice since, honest - sorry!) but if I were sticking to the Ruby theme, I have a big enough audience with my own Ruby sites to self publish (and maybe avoid print entirely).

mattmaroon 17y ago
"I bet many writers feel the same way about publishers they work with time and time again." Almost every time in my experience. It sounds like the deal they give you is good though, better than I would have expected really. Self-pub is definitely the way to go if you can pull it off. It's not hard to get 5x profit per volume if you have any volume at all, and programmers are extremely easy to make aware of your product, especially once you've established your name.
silkodyssey 17y ago
You mention that apress lets other authors release open version of their books. Did these authors release their books for free initially or have they been with apress since the beginning?

matthewcford 17y ago

I was burned out (from writing) after almost completing the beginning Merb book, which Apress cancelled after the Rails/Merb merger. I must admit if I were to write a book again, it wouldn't be with Apress. I'd be knocking on PragProg or PeepCode's door.

tptacek 17y ago
In fairness to Apress, why would they move forward marketing a title for an obsoleted technology?
- matthewcford 17y ago
  There was talk of rewriting it for Rails 3, but as it was pretty much vaporware at the time and I had enough of the extremely tight deadlines by that point, the decision to stop was mutual. My comment wasn't against Apress for canceling the book, well within their right to do so. However their processes are a bit backwards and I'm sure not all authors get the same treatment, echoing peter's comment about the git/python books being available online. Before the apress book I started an open source Merb book, after I saw how awesome the online Django book was and I would have liked beginning merb to have going the same way with peer review.