From: Kern S. <ke...@si...> - 2006-01-14 10:01:19
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On Saturday 14 January 2006 00:10, Adam Thornton wrote: > On Jan 13, 2006, at 4:36 PM, Kern Sibbald wrote: > > Here are my views on these subjects: > > 1. Writing a Bacula chapter for Curtis Preston's new book. > > > > This is in good hands. Adam Thornton is working on it, and I > > hope he will keep us posted on his progress on the bacula-docs list. > > Dan Langille also is working on it, but he's travelling until Monday; > the question of the actual division of labor is still very much up in > the air, but I hope to have resolution on that once he is back, and I > will update on the bacula-docs list. I'll send this note there as > well, and then we should probably continue discussion over there. > Dan has had some earlier involvement with this project, and as far as > I'm concerned it's still basically his until he lets me know how much > (if at all) he wants me and David Boyes to pitch in. We should know > that (I think) Monday. OK, thanks for the explanation. > > > 2. Writing a "Deploying Bacula" book. > > > > This is a major project, and I was pleased to see how many of you are > > interested in working on this. Your reflections on this subject > > made me > > realize that my own time will be pretty limited for this project. I > > believe what we need is one person who will undertake the project. > > That > > person would work with the publisher and could be helped by anyone > > who wanted > > to participate, but I'm not sure that it would be possible to have > > a coherent > > book if the chapters were written by different people. > > > > There were a number of suggestions to be our own publishers. Yes, > > this is > > clearly possible, but then you need a person who understand writing, > > publishing, and the audience. It seems to me that this is what > > publishers > > like O'Reilly do very well. > > Further, it's hard to get self-published books out into the > marketplace so that people can actually find them. Even if O'Reilly > isn't interested, there are quite a few reputable, Open Source- > friendly publishers who might be. I would regard self-publishing as > a last resort, and would question the wisdom of investing the effort > if we can't find an actual technical publisher to take the book. ORA > is certainly my publisher of first resort: their books are, I feel, > the highest quality on the market, and since they're also the > publisher of the Preston book, they'd be the obvious first choice. > So that's where I intend to shop it first. Obviously, I don't own > this project, so anyone should feel free to make other suggestions, > but I have a difficult time imagining a better publisher. Good points, I agree. > > > Concerning royalites: this is a difficult subject that I know > > little about. My > > main concern is to try to avoid any controversy, misunderstandings, or > > divisions that always seem to arise when money is involved. > > Honestly, it seems unlikely to me that there will *be* any > significant royalties. Most books don't actually "sell through". Yes, this is what I imagined too. > What that means is that your advance is given to you--usually half up > front and half on acceptance of the manuscript. Then for the first N > book sales, the royalties you would have earned on those sales are > applied against the advance, until the advance is paid off. After N > sales, royalties begin accruing. Most books don't actually sell N > copies, and in any event, the first royalty checks are a long way off. > > So really this boils down to the smaller problem of how to split the > advance (and, I guess, a plan for the far-off and relatively unlikely > scenario that the book *is* extremely successful and generates > royalty checks). I doubt that the book will be *extremely* successful for two reasons: 1. Bacula seems to be relatively unknown (e.g. RedHat packages Amanda but not Bacula). 2. Unless we find some way to vastly simplify how Bacula is installed, configured, it is likely to remain something used only by a small number of sys admins, so the potential audience for the book is small. I don't want to sound negative, that is not at all my feeling -- just that at the current time, Bacula is a small project compared to the kinds of books that O'Reilly publishes (Apache, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Python, PHP, DNS, Perl, ...) Perhaps in 5 years, things will be different ... > > > If one person really does take on the task and puts a *huge* effort > > into it > > (as I imagine a book will requre), then it seems to me that person > > deserves a > > percentage of the royalities, unless we find someone willing to do > > it as a > > contribution to the project. > > > > Some time ago when I considered a binary fee, Bacula users pointed > > me to > > several articles indicating (convinced me) that paid developers in > > an Open > > Software project tend to crowd out contributions. I fear the same > > may happen > > here, so I'm hesitant about the idea of having a lot of people > > share in the > > royalities. My desire for Bacula is to keep it open and free and > > to have > > active free contributions to it. I think this subject should be > > clearly > > resolved before we begin something. > > I agree that it certainly should be resolved before starting. I want > to emphasize that this isn't going to make any of us rich, and that > if you're relying on writing this book for any significant part of > your income, you probably want to re-think your business plan. > > Honestly, though, I also think that maybe we should delay starting > until after the Bacula chapter in Preston's book has been accepted. > In part that's because I think I'm going to have significant roles in > both projects and would like to serialize them, but it's also because > once that's been put to bed, we have a good argument to go to > publishers other than O'Reilly (if they don't want the Bacula book), > because we can then say, "there will be a Bacula chapter in this > book, whose projected street date is <whatever>. Wouldn't it be nice > to have a book out on the topic if someone wants more in-depth > information on it?" It *also* will make for a more effective pitch > to O'Reilly, since they'll already *have* a writing sample and some > evidence that we can write to a deadline. Yes, I agree. I don't think we should start doing anything until we have a publisher, and until we designated someone to take the project (I dislike making "people" decisions, so I'm not in any rush to make a decision, rather I am hoping this will become evident ...). On the other hand, I don't have a problem tossing around ideas and perhaps coming up with an outline of the book, and at the same time finding a publisher. By the way, I think John's comments are very pertinent for the content of the book -- his idea would provide a book that is sufficiently different from the manual, which I think is important. -- Best regards, Kern ("> /\ V_V |