

Publishing Effective Modern C++, Part 2 - ingve
http://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2015/06/publishing-effective-modern-c-part-2.html

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tumba
Link to discussion of Part 1
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9540955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9540955)

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ivan_ah
> ... technical publishing into four tasks (1. manuscript creation, 2.
> production, 3. distribution, and 4. marketing)

I wonder how much value publishers provide on points 3. and 4, relative to a
self-distribution and self-marketing approach. Also, the only part of 2. that
is not replaceable by scripts (think github.com/softcover) is the
developmental editing and the copy editing. These are incredibly valuable.

Authors who choose to self-publish can expect royalties around 30--40% of list
price. I bet royalties from mainstream publishers are closer to 1/5th or
1/10th of that (4% to 8% of list price). So the breakeven is clear: if your
book will sell 10x more copies due to the distribution and marketing of a
mainstream publisher, then go with them, else do your own thing.

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webaholic
So why does the author stop short of telling us what he thinks are the fair
terms here?

Also, I wonder how his earlier books have fared monetarily over their life
times, considering that their life time is now effectively over with the new
EC++ books.

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jasode
_> So why does the author stop short of telling us what he thinks are the fair
terms here?_

Even if a publishing contract does not have a provision for non-disclosure and
confidentiality, it's standard business etiquette not to publicly discuss the
actual financial terms. It's the same type of professional etiquette when a
programmer says, " _I jumped from Microsoft to Google for more money._ " The "
_more_ " is left to the readers' imagination and it would be rude of us to ask
for specifics.

Unfortunately, since his essay dances around any concrete numbers, the point
about "fairness" might seem like a build up to punchline that never comes.

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hey1969
Decreasing royalties make a lot of sense for authors, as the publisher may be
motivated to keep promoting books to gain increasing royalties. Any decrease
should obviously be sensible without encouraging a gross underpayment
situation analogous to music composers.

