[SystemSafety] Fwd: Re: New book

Chris Dale chris.dale at which.net
Tue Apr 16 12:06:13 CEST 2013


To clarify: the Club gets the same amount of money per book, in spite of the
lower price.

-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Chris
Dale
Sent: 16 April 2013 09:55
To: 'Les Chambers'; 'nfr'; 'SPRIGGS, John J'
Cc: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Fwd: Re: New book

To enlarge on Felix's email, and respond to something in Les's:

The proceedings of the 2013 Safety-critical Systems Symposium retail on
Amazon for about one-third of the price charged by Springer for the 2012
volume, and the Safety-Critical Systems Club gets the same royalty per
volume sold. Using Amazon's CreateSpace service to self-publish was an
altogether better experience, in terms of cost, timescale, service and
general lack of hassle, than dealing with Springer. We were also able to
respond to delegate feedback from previous years by enabling individual
papers to be purchased from our website at a nominal price.

Should you be interested, links to buy the 2013 book or individual papers
can be found at www.scsc.org.uk/p119.

Regards

Chris Dale
Safety-Critical Systems Club Meetings Co-ordinator

chris.dale at scsc.org.uk
www.scsc.org.uk


-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of Les
Chambers
Sent: 15 April 2013 20:53
To: 'nfr'; 'SPRIGGS, John J'
Cc: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Fwd: Re: New book

Hi All
Couldn't agree more Felix. Over the past year I've had a marvellous time
direct publishing. The book, How Lucky I Was,  will probably sell around 500
copies in the author's lifetime (he is now 90 years old). This is not bad
given Rex Kimlin's manuscript would never have seen the light of day if
submitted to publishers. He has received four five-star reviews on Amazon,
reconnected with old airmen who flew the same bomber command missions and
even recovered a letter written to him by his sister while he was on active
service.
No doubt publishers have a role but even they admit to incompetence in
curating quality. We are currently celebrating the 30 year anniversary of
Australia's most popular children's book - Possum Magic. Mem Fox was
rejected by nine publishers before her 512 words and illustrations found
their way into print. Possum Magic has sold 3 million copies and is the only
Australian book ever to last that long in hardback. If you took a systems
engineering view of publishers this would be a 90% failure rate. Translate
that to a safety critical system and we'd all be dead.
I am so excited about the publishing facilities now available to the average
bear that I am currently writing an essay on the subject. The introductory
paragraph:

As a serious novelist you struggle for 6,000 hours to write something
popular and good. It sells 35,000 copies and you get to keep most of the
money. This is the first-time author's wet dream. More likely, when you wake
up, you'll find your manuscript has missed the cut, the 2%  accepted for
publication. But what if you are published? Reaching for your chips you'll
find less than ten percent of the gross revenue still on the table, the rest
enhaled by the ponderous monster that is traditional publishing. But what if
you could opt out, go around, and publish direct to your audience? Fate
recently handed me the opportunity.  I published Rex Kimlin's WW II Memoir,
How Lucky I Was with Amazon.com's eBook authoring tool. Doing the digital
work I saw the death of traditional publishing and the rise of the creative!
The Web sets authors free; publishers no longer hold them hostage to their
need to be read. To publish with a web service is to hand your book directly
to the reader, unobstructed by curators. The web publishing process is free,
there are no costly print runs, your book is forever on the shelf, and
lastly -an outcome most sublime- your royalty on each sale is three to seven
times that paid by old world publishers. We have arrived at the age of the
creative, where the wealth is vested more in the originator of the idea and
less in the machinery that reduces it to practice.  

So what of publishers? Are they become an app?

... and on publishers:

The term "curator" has a 2000 year history. The ancient Romans applied it to
the civil servants responsible for aqueducts, bathhouses and sewers. It
later denoted ecclesiastics entrusted with the cure of souls; later still it
referred to a guardian of a minor lunatic or other incompetent; today
curators are paid selectors of stuff for sale. You find them in rock concert
promotions, women's clothing, art galleries, dog breeders, literary agencies
and publishing houses.
The curator in publishing has a single goal: to select the two percent of
the 5000 manuscripts submitted to her company each year that may make a
profit. Fillial love has little to do with it. Many publishers solve the
problem of manuscript overload by only dealing with established authors. All
unsolicited tomes without return envelopes (and stamps) hit the shredder by
default. In other contexts a professionally presented manuscript may have
its first page, or first chapter, scanned by a sentient being before
rejection. From the publisher's point of view it's a negative side to the
business that you accept and move on, much like a breeder of cattle dogs who
can't afford to feed the animals that won't take direction. But from the
author's perspective, if you want that puppy you infused with all the heart
and soul you could give for the past 5 years, drowned, submit it to a
publisher.

Cheers
Les



-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
[mailto:systemsafety-bounces at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de] On Behalf Of nfr
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 11:59 PM
To: SPRIGGS, John J
Cc: systemsafety at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] Fwd: Re: New book

Self-publish. It seems the only way - in the UK - to achieve a reasonable
price. The Club has had a good experience in publishing its Symposium '13
Proceedings.
Felix.


On 15 Apr 2013, at 14:22, SPRIGGS, John J wrote:

> My publisher offers softback print-on-demand textbooks at a lower 
> price to
students (under certain conditions); unfortunately my intended main audience
is engineers, who are not eligible for the offer and who cannot afford the
hardback...
> 
> Self-publish next time?
> 
> 
> John
> 


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