OT: Quantum Books closing...

Ted Roche tedroche at tedroche.com
Sun Oct 14 21:04:06 EDT 2007


Bill McGonigle wrote:
> 
> There's that, and that Tim O'Reilly is competing with her directly.   
> If I were her I wouldn't be excited too push his books.
> 

Actually, Tim wrote a rather nice essay about supporting your local
bookstore, which used to be posted in the SoftPro stores. It is true
that he both competes and sells them content. I buy O'Reilly books from
stores (both SoftPro and Quantum and yes, Borders and B&N and Amazon)
and use their Safari library.

Information doesn't want to be free, but reference books want to be
online and searchable.

> I have to profess a respect for books' content yet. 

I still think there needs to be an economic model for writers of
technical books to go to the bother of writing them. The end of paper
media shouldn't mean the end of the model, although a refactoring is in
order. (Kinda like the grammophone industry needs a rethink.) When
printing presses are few, print times precious, paper an ever-escalating
cost, there's models of economy of scale and roles for printers,
editors, acquisitions, production, marketing, advertising, warehousing,
distribution, wholesalers, distributors, jobbers, brokers, buyers and
sales clerks. With redistributable bits and peer-to-peer or really cheap
broadband downloadables, there's need for a new model.

Writing well is a craft and an art, and one that deserves compensation.
Just as I'm glad to pay for an evening of listening to David Surette and
his mandolin, I'm glad to pay for a well-written "book," whether paper
pulp or PDF. I haven't found a satisfactory "Web 2.0" model for authors,
just yet.

> 
> Also, O'Reilly's Safari engages in page cloaking towards the search  
> engines.  I half-expect that the Google people are looking at my  
> complaints saying, "I don't get it, I see the content there, not an  
> advertisement for Safari..."  They're wasting my time, so I'm even  
> less likely to support them.
> 

I'm not sure I understand if this is reprehensible behavior or not
giving away the content for free. Could you explain what you're seeing
and how you think it should be working?

(In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I am the
author, co-author or editor of close to a dozen technical books. All are
available in paper, though most are obsolete. A few are available as
downloadable documents. Several are online at services like
Books7x24.com. None have turned into a website yet, although
I've tried, and will keep trying. Oh, and a member of the National
Writer's Union, UAW Local 1981, AFL-CIO. I'm union and I vote.)

-- 
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com



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