Business Plan for PostgreSQL book?

Bruce,

Were you going to do this as a "group" project or
is it a "solo" venture?

If its a group project, I assume you are the "owner"
of the "uber-contract" until it sells to a book
publisher. To do this right, you would divide
this contract into small peices, or sub-contracts.
Then, as people contribute, their time is tracked
against these components. Right now, for instance,
you have a book-outline project which people are
working on; it could be decided that the book-outline
sub contract is worth ".5%" of the book ownership.
Then, as people track their time against these
sub-contracts, a summary (once a week) is presented
to you (the owner of the contract) for approval
of their hours. If approved, then the contributer
owns a portion of the sub-contract, and thus a
portion of the overall book. How compensation is
done is up to you if you specify it before hand,
or it is up to the owners if you wait until the book
sells. The compensation schedule may be something
like this:

Up to | Compensation
------+-------------------
0.1% | Listed as "helper"
0.5% | Listed as "contributor", including a
| very small biography; perhaps including
| company name for free advertising.
2.0% | Listed as "major contributor", including
| a full biography and a picture.
10.0% | Listed as "co-author", entitiled to
| the same percentage of royalty stream.
30.0% | Listed as "editor", entitied to a
| percentage of any book signing bonus plus
| the same percentage of royalty stream

Thus, the total royalty stream allocated will
be less than 100%, and will be divided among,
at most 9 people, which is managable. The remainder
of the royalty stream can be donated to the
site maintenance or can be used to fund a bonus
pool for future projects / documentation maintance.

...

However, if it is a "solo" deal, then you you should
make it pretty clear -- otherwise I see heart-ache and
bad feelings.

...

Why do it this way? Beacuse PostgreSQL is a community
effort, and a solo book sucks. Also, you want the
book done, so direct rewards for contribution work
does wonders! To use parts of the documentation,
Thomas Lockheart would have to be given a percentage
in the book, etc. Anyway, if the system is clear
you will get far more help than otherwise...

I'll be glad to maintain the "contract hierarchy"
(per your direction) and to accept timesheets
from people, preparing a weelky summary for you
to approve. Then, I will maintain a page with
progress on each sub-contract (or sub-sub-contract)
so that we can go about this in a very organized way.

I'm in it to see a kick ass book and to see
a collaborative effort win.

What do you think? Thomas?

Clark