Publishing and PostgreSQL

Josh Drake pointed me to a recent thread titled "Thoughts after
discussions at OSCON". (I'm his editor on PostgreSQL: The Definitive
Guide) The main thrust of the thread didn't seem to be book
publishing, but a few comments caught my eye, so I'd like to jump in
and respond.

Robert Bernier said:
>I would imagine companies like
>Oracle etc. have a subsidy system that makes it possible for authors
>to earch income while they write (does anybody know for sure?).

Publishers often give writers an advance. It would be highly unusual
though, for a company like Oracle to to subsidize authors directly.
Were that occurring, I would almost certainly have heard about it.
What Oracle *does* do is give authors entry into beta programs and
access to product managers who can answer questions.

McGraw Hill / Osborne has the Oracle Press deal. I don't know the
details of that deal for certain, but I do know a little of "X press"
type deals in general. McGraw Hill likely pays Oracle a certain
percentage of sales for the right to stamp "Oracle Press" on the
covers of their books. Oracle might have some leverage to ensure that
books get published that would otherwise not make economic sense. And
I have known Oracle to subsidize certain books by paying the publisher
(as opposed to the author doing all the work<grin>).

Oracle has significantly changed the way they work with authors over
the past few years. From the standpoint of getting access into Oracle,
there is no real advantage to writing for Oracle Press. They've really
reached out on an equal basis to everyone who wants to write about
their products, which is a smart move, IMHO.

But I'm digressing too much. The short answer is that I'd be very
surprised to find Oracle subsidizing an author directly.

Rick Morris said:
> Speaking of education, I think the coolest thing we can do is put
> together a library of examples that show how to save time and effort
> with the relational model, while increasing the value of your data. "Why
> the Relational Model Saves you Time", or something like that.

You might have the germ of a good book idea there, actually.

Greg Sabino Mullane said:
> We certainly are not gaining "geek mindshare" as fast as we should.
> It doesn't help that O'Reilly seems to be in bed with MySQL AB
> (exhibit one: the joint MySQL conference).

We're "in bed" with MySQL only to the extent that any company would be
"in bed" with an important client. O'Reilly's Conferences division is
its own profit-center, and they have done well at growing their
business. MySQL is a company that wanted to put on a conference. Our
conferences division bid on that deal and won it. Please don't hold
that against us.

We lost in the bidding for the "MySQL Press" deal, much to our
chagrin. So we're not as tight with MySQL as we'd like to be.

Christopher Browne said:
> It seems to me that APress is a plausible publisher to "bias towards;"
> the last couple of books that I have found *very* interesting were
> published by them.

> They have published some things O'Reilly wouldn't (on zsh, Common
> Lisp), in areas that actually have gotten them sales (as in "having to
> do second printings").

It is true. I have seen APress publish on topics that I can't touch.
Their cost structure is obviously different enough to let them publish
titles that O'Reilly would lose money on.

> Lisp people got in something of a snit because O'Reilly had a
> published policy that they wouldn't take such books. The *wise* move
> was and is to take would-be book offerings elsewhere.

O'Reilly has no "policy" against Lisp books. That said, for some
reason we've had several people approach us recently about publishing
on Lisp, and we've consistently had to pass. The entire Lisp book
market this year, so far, amounts to only some $74,000. That's
according to Neilsen Bookscan (see http://www.bookscan.com/about.html
), which tracks through-the-register sales as reported by some 4500
bookstores across the country. That $74,000 is divided amongst two
titles. Were we to enter the Lisp market, we'd fracture it; we'd be
lucky to reap 1/3 of $74k. We have a limited number of editors and
editorial bandwidth, and we need to focus on books with greater
revenue potential than what I currently see in the Lisp market. Jobs
depend on our doing that.

Oh, by the way, don't read too much into a second printing. Some
publishers do very small print runs. We do. APress probably does as
well. We prefer small runs over large inventory. Knowing that a
publisher had to reprint a book says nothing about sales unless you
have intimate knowledge of the publisher's printing practices.

Tom Copeland said:
> Just a thought on this. Self-publishing is another route to take; if
> you print 5000 softcover books for about $10K and then sell them for
> $29.99 each, well, do the math :-)

Self-publishing is not an easy road to take. But, were I not working
for a publisher I'd be sorely tempted to try it on my next book. But
I say that having been published a few times, and having learned a bit
about the industry.

BTW, I've a friend who actually makes a decent, part-time income from
self-publishing books and CDs. Here's a link:

http://www.greatlakeslegends.com/cd.htm

My friend puts a lot of work into making his money though. He's got a
product that appeals to tourists in a given geographical area. During
spring and early summers he spends weeks on the road going from one
small gift-shop to the next, working to get his books and albums
stocked in as many places as he can. He makes money, but he works
*really* hard for it. And during the off-season (late summer through
the end of winter), he works as a painter to make money, because
tourisim here is seasonal.

I don't have a geographical niche, but I'm fairly well-known in the
Oracle space, and it'll be interesting someday to see how much I could
leverage that noteriety (not that I have all that much to leverage) to
market a self-published book. But that day hasn't come yet.

Somebody pointed out that O'Reilly has only one PostgreSQL book.
That's true. It's something I hope to change in the long-term, but
first we (as in O'Reilly) need to get one PostgreSQL book on the shelf
that sells in good numbers. If we can do that, more investment will
follow. (BTW, according to Bookscan PostgreSQL accounts for only $47k
of revenue so far this year, less actually than Lisp) Sometimes too,
an extraordinarily good outline will often move a publisher to publish
on a topic that they might otherwise pass by.

I guess that's all I have to add to the discussion. I hope no one
minds too much my jumping in. Feel free to ask questions about
anything I've said.

Best regards,

Jonathan Gennick
Editor, O'Reilly Media
906.387.1698 mailto:jgennick(at)oreilly(dot)com