Re: Speaking of Jason Rudolph and Groovy...

On Jan 18, 2007, at 11:53 AM, Ed Burnette wrote:

>> From Digg:
>> It's a free eBook (pdf), including code samples. Of course
>> you may also support his work, by buying the printed copy.
>
> As a reader, that's great. I love free ($0) stuff. I can download  
> it without even thinking about it and use it at my leisure.
>
> As an author, how does that work? Many people asked for a free copy  
> of my GWT book (http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/ebgwt), or  
> complained that it wasn't free (it's $8.50). What's my incentive  
> for spending months working on something, putting it out there for  
> free, and everybody says "thanks", takes it, and walks off? I could  
> be wrong but I can't see many of the free downloads converting to  
> sales.
>
> Unlike open source code, the book has no value to me once it's  
> written since I already know the subject. So I'm not "scratching an  
> itch". I could spend that time blogging, writing code, hanging out  
> on the newsgroups, giving presentations, or something else, and  
> that might be more productive for me personally or for the community.
>
> Thoughts?


I met Floyd Marinescu (the guy behind InfoQ) at a conference just  
before InfoQ launched and heard about the idea from him... we were  
both stuck in the same airport waiting on planes, so I got more of  
his time than either of us expected. :)

His model (if memory serves) is to help give exposure to authors  
while also bring traffic to Infoq.com.  Floyd was also pretty sure  
that the free PDF would drive enough book sales to make it worth  
everyone's time. I know two people who've published books with Floyd.  
Both are first time authors and loved the experience. It's great  
exposure for a new author, or for an author with little visibility in  
the InfoQ audience space.

Also, to be frank, Floyd isn't slimy. Many other publishers run fast  
and hard in the grey areas.

I wrote an article for InfoQ last year (http://www.infoq.com/articles/ 
Dealing-with-legacy-code) and did it for free... it was exposure into  
a new market for me. For a new consultant like me, it was great  
publicity. International publicity... Right now Jason's book (and  
name) are on the front page. :)  Lot's of books go out the door of  
many, many publishing houses and never get that level of exposure.

On the other hand, I've made a decent amount of money from Ship It  
(http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/prj/index.html) PDFs... ;)   
Personally, with Andy Hunt in our backyard, I'd try to go with the  
PragProg line if I could... but if I weren't, I'd seriously consider  
InfoQ as a publisher.

Jared
http://JaredRichardson.net

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