wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) (08/22/90)
Browsing through a bookstore yesterday, I found something very odd: a
hardbound book, about half an inch think, called {\em\TeX:
applications, uses, methods}, ed. Clark, published by Ellis Horwood,
ISBN 0-13-912296-6. The book is a short collection of essays on uses
of TeX.
This book was selling for $76. Huh? Does anyone know anything about
this? Does the publisher expect anyone to buy this book? Is the
publisher right? The folks at the store were as confused as I was.
--
============================================================================
David Wald wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu
============================================================================dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (08/22/90)
In article <1990Aug21.212007.6748@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) writes... >Browsing through a bookstore yesterday, I found something very odd: a >hardbound book, about half an inch think, called {\em\TeX: >applications, uses, methods}, ed. Clark, published by Ellis Horwood, >ISBN 0-13-912296-6. The book is a short collection of essays on uses >of TeX. >This book was selling for $76. Huh? Does anyone know anything about >this? Does the publisher expect anyone to buy this book? Is the >publisher right? The folks at the store were as confused as I was. Hey wow, it's in book stores! The book you've come across is essentially the conference proceedings from TeX88. Malcolm Clark, the editor is just as annoyed as the rest of us at the outrageous price (incidentally, I think it's *supposed* to be $70, but the higher price might be due to the drop in the value of the dollar). Will anyone buy the book? Maybe. After all, books of a similar nature have gone for similarly outrageously high prices (the 2nd European conference on TeX and Scientific Documentation had a proceedings volume around $50-some-odd bucks). I do know at least one person bought a copy. -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info
murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) (08/22/90)
dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) writes: >In article <1990Aug21.212007.6748@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>, wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) writes... >>Browsing through a bookstore yesterday, I found something very odd: a >>hardbound book, about half an inch think, called {\em\TeX: >>applications, uses, methods}, ed. Clark, published by Ellis Horwood, >>ISBN 0-13-912296-6. The book is a short collection of essays on uses >>of TeX. >>This book was selling for $76. Huh? Does anyone know anything about >>this? Does the publisher expect anyone to buy this book? Is the >>publisher right? The folks at the store were as confused as I was. >The book you've come across is essentially the conference >proceedings from TeX88. Malcolm Clark, the editor is just as >annoyed as the rest of us at the outrageous price (incidentally, >I think it's *supposed* to be $70, but the higher price might be >due to the drop in the value of the dollar). I wonder if the right thing to do here isn't to just publish it electronically. After all, TeX is such a wonderful free program, and there's so much free software for it, why not make other things that users contribute to, like proceedings of conferences, free. I understand that books that people WRITE personally are different. But the contributors don't get much out of this volume. And the task of editing isn't much less, since TeX does most of it for you anyway, eh? Just a thought, --chet--
nraoaoc@nmt.edu (Daniel Briggs) (08/23/90)
In article <8164@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu writes: > >The book you've come across is essentially the conference >proceedings from TeX88. Malcolm Clark, the editor is just as >annoyed as the rest of us at the outrageous price (incidentally, >I think it's *supposed* to be $70, but the higher price might be >due to the drop in the value of the dollar). > >Will anyone buy the book? Maybe. After all, books of a similar >nature have gone for similarly outrageously high prices (the 2nd >European conference on TeX and Scientific Documentation had a >proceedings volume around $50-some-odd bucks). It is a sorry state of affairs all around guys, but these horror stories aren't even that particularly horrible! It gets considerable worse as the conferences get more specialized. For instance, any given astronomy conference proceedings is typically $50 or $60. That's for the reasonable ones. I went to a conference about a year ago where the editor did *not* stipulate a price on the proceedings. It was "Very Long Baseline Interferometry, Techniques & Applications." If it wasn't clear from the title, it was intended to be the defining text book on VLBI for the 1990's, (or at least the next five years or so). The final price for the damned thing turned out to be $110. This just about puts it completely out of the range of most students. There were a lot of unhappy people about that one! On a related note, someone said that "TeX does most of the editing for you." It depends on the level of editing done, but if the editor is doing a thorough job, NOT TRUE! It can take several months of solid editing to do a first rate job on a conference proceedings. -- This is a shared guest account, please send replies to dbriggs@nrao.edu (Internet) Dan Briggs / NRAO / P.O. Box O / Socorro, NM / 87801 (U.S. Snail)
dhosek@cbrown.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (08/23/90)
In article <1990Aug22.222115.936@nmt.edu>, nraoaoc@nmt.edu (Daniel Briggs) writes... >In article <8164@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu writes: >>The book you've come across is essentially the conference >>proceedings from TeX88. Malcolm Clark, the editor is just as >>annoyed as the rest of us at the outrageous price (incidentally, >>I think it's *supposed* to be $70, but the higher price might be >>due to the drop in the value of the dollar). >On a related note, someone said that "TeX does most of the editing for you." >It depends on the level of editing done, but if the editor is doing a >thorough job, NOT TRUE! It can take several months of solid editing to do >a first rate job on a conference proceedings. Or in the case of TeX in Practice, two years. (well somewhat less, but that's roughly the timespan between the conference and the appearance of the book. Knowing Malcolm and seeing bits of the book, it is a good job editing (and speaking from the perspective of someone who has edited TeX-formatted submissions, it makes things almost harder, especially in the case of those who misuse LaTeX). -dh btw, I got a mail message today from the person who bought the book at Texas A&M and he says it was well worth it. --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont support, consulting dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu installation and production work. dhosek@ymir.bitnet Free Estimates. uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147 finger dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu for more info
murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) (08/23/90)
nraoaoc@nmt.edu (Daniel Briggs) writes: >In article <8164@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> dhosek@sif.claremont.edu writes: >>[stuff about an expensive TeX book] >>Will anyone buy the book? Maybe. After all, books of a similar >>nature have gone for similarly outrageously high prices (the 2nd >>European conference on TeX and Scientific Documentation had a >>proceedings volume around $50-some-odd bucks). >It is a sorry state of affairs all around guys, but these horror stories >aren't even that particularly horrible! It gets considerable worse as >the conferences get more specialized. For instance, any given astronomy >conference proceedings is typically $50 or $60. That's for the reasonable >ones. I went to a conference about a year ago where the editor did *not* >stipulate a price on the proceedings. It was "Very Long Baseline >Interferometry, Techniques & Applications." If it wasn't clear from the >title, it was intended to be the defining text book on VLBI for the 1990's, >(or at least the next five years or so). The final price for the damned >thing turned out to be $110. This just about puts it completely out of the >range of most students. There were a lot of unhappy people about that one! >On a related note, someone said that "TeX does most of the editing for you." >It depends on the level of editing done, but if the editor is doing a >thorough job, NOT TRUE! It can take several months of solid editing to do >a first rate job on a conference proceedings. Oh - I didn't mean the job done by the editor of the proceedings. I meant the job done by the publisher. And in any case, let's face it - a lot of us would be willing to deal with a lot of ugliness (in the form of ugly output, NOT in the form of errors) for the privilege of having the book. What I am suggesting is what happened with the BRA Logical Frameworks proceedings, which were assembled (which took a lot of work on the part of the editors) and then were distributed to all who wanted them electronically. It's a 500-page volume. While it won't be as pretty as a publisher would make it, a publisher cannot check for the correctness of the material. And I will sacrifice, as I said, a lot of beauty for a low price. We printed it off here, and sometime I will get it bound (for $10-15 or so) and that will be that. A nicely bound book, electronically available source, and everybody is better off. For small runs, it seems like the only logical choice. --chet--
teexdwu@ioe.lon.ac.uk (DOMINIK WUJASTYK) (08/23/90)
In my field, which is Indology, there are several excellent textbooks produced by Dutch and German publishers that are so outrageously priced that I feel a thrilling and giddy sense of conquest as I patiently photocopy them. I actually feel it is the right thing to do, a way of striking back at greedy, rapacious publishers. Companies like Brill, Reidel and Harrassowitz. Their books are often excellent, important, and well produced. But no normal person can afford them, which is a negation of the very process of scholarship. Isn't that what Gutenberg did for us, after all? Made access to texts cheap and easy? In the case of Brill, especially, I know that they also refuse to publish anything unless they get a very substantial subsidy from the author. I once offered them a manuscript, and they said they would be delighted to publish it, but it would need a subsidy; I asked how much and they said "not much more, but not much less than $10000"! Several of my colleagues have had similar experiences. I'm glad to say that that particular book is being published with another Dutch firm who does not require a subsidy and who is, moreover, paying me a royalty on every copy sold. (But I'm doing the typesetting, with TeX of course.) There is obviously something wrong in the publishing world. I don't know about the USA or Australia, but in England almost all the famous old family publishing companies have been gobbled up by vast conglomerates. There has been quite a bit about it in the papers recently. The only solution to these problems is -- as was mentioned -- for authors to be firm about the terms of the contracts they sign. Again in the UK, the Writers' Guild is happy to assist authors in negotiating their contracts, and can provide standard contracts that contain all the main clauses that one should be worrying about (including copyright etc.) Authors unite! Dominik Wujastyk
spqr@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Sebastian Rahtz) (08/23/90)
In article <44773@cornell.UUCP> murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) writes: >I think it's *supposed* to be $70, but the higher price might be >due to the drop in the value of the dollar). I don't have the English costs on me (it isnt on the book), but you bet its less than the US one. our revenge for all those marked-up prices we pay for American books! Ellis Horwood are fools, in IMHO, charging so much for TeXeter (and why in hardback?). I wonder if the right thing to do here isn't to just publish it electronically. After all, TeX is such a wonderful free program, and there's so much free software for it, why not make other things that users contribute to, like proceedings of conferences, free. I well, I can see three reasons for a `real' book: 1) many authors need the `brownie points' from a publication, and people who collect publication statistics dont understand about anything but books from real publishers 2) publishers distribute things, as well as print them; this way, it gets to people who dont get email etc 3) a good few people will be unable/unwilling to print the book out locally (it has some complicated stuff in it). how can libraries get it? people who dont have TeX and are just interested? I agree these are all soluble. I'm just saying that 1990 is too early to give up traditional books. BUT please note that the macros which various chapters of the book describe *are* available electronically, in the UK TeX Archive at least. so you dont need to type in Hoenig's arcana sebastian (in case anyone cares, my chapter in the book was transmogrified into an extended version for a forthcoming book about TeX) -- Sebastian Rahtz S.Rahtz@uk.ac.soton.ecs (JANET) Computer Science S.Rahtz@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Bitnet) Southampton S09 5NH, UK S.Rahtz@sot-ecs.uucp (uucp)
colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb) (08/25/90)
Does anyone know what makes publishers so expensive and slow? I was thinking about how long it should take for a book to go from complete edited and formatted manuscript to bookstores, and it seemed like it should be doable is 6 weeks. I budgeted 2 weeks for cover art & phototypesetter mastering, 2 weeks for printing and binding, and 2 weeks for shipping. It all seems like plenty, although I could understand being a little slower if you're running close to capacity. Yet an economics professor told me he's been handed absolute minima of 6 months. He and some friends started publishing themselves so they could make annual revisions to their texts during each summer and have it ready for the students that autumn. And what's with the price? I have oceans of photocopies of books that are worth $20 to me or so, but not the $60 that's being charged. I believe I can assume that printing a book is cheaper, per copy, than photocopying it. So where does the extra $40 go? Is editing *that* expensive? I realize the latency is longer, but does a typical textbook where the author does the illustrations in pic or whatever take more than a month of an editor's time? -- -Colin
Leichter-Jerry@CS.YALE.EDU@venus.ycc.yale.edu (08/26/90)
In article <584@array.UUCP>, colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb) writes: [This response is not only to him, but to many messages on this topic.] > Does anyone know what makes publishers so expensive and slow? > I was thinking about how long it should take for a book to go > from complete edited and formatted manuscript to bookstores, > and it seemed like it should be doable is 6 weeks. I budgeted > 2 weeks for cover art & phototypesetter mastering, 2 weeks for > printing and binding, and 2 weeks for shipping. It all seems > like plenty, although I could understand being a little slower > if you're running close to capacity. A printer is faced with a large number of fixed, or very slowly variable, costs, including maintaining equipment and paying employees. Any successful printer will ALWAYS be near capacity at at least some bottleneck point in the process. It's a fundamental thing about queues: As you approach and exceed the capacity of the system, queue lengths go up rapidly. > Yet an economics professor told me he's been handed absolute minima of > 6 months. He and some friends started publishing themselves so they > could make annual revisions to their texts during each summer and have > it ready for the students that autumn. What they've undoubtedly done is get hold of enough resources to meet their needs, as exactly as they can measure them. Partly, I'm sure they are using such excess capacity as printers they deal with have. If you are in a posi- tion to pick and choose printers, you can find one that happens to have capa- city available just when you need it. A publisher who deals with a printer on an on-going basis probably doesn't have this option. Besides, the larger the organization the slower it is likely to respond. There are layers of approval, people who HAVE to get their hands on it, pro- cedures that MUST be followed. It's easy to say "who needs that", and to a certain extent that's true. On the other hand, once an organization gets large, the only way to maintain any control over it is to have all those procedures and committees and sign-offs. > And what's with the price? I have oceans of photocopies of books that > are worth $20 to me or so, but not the $60 that's being charged. I > believe I can assume that printing a book is cheaper, per copy, than > photocopying it. So where does the extra $40 go? Is editing *that* > expensive? It's not cheap. But you've missed an important point: While the marginal cost of a printed book is much lower, you have to first pay large startup costs. On a small run, they dominate the total cost of production. That's one reason there are still many different printing technologies in use: They differ along at least two dimensions, one being quality, the other being their trade-offs of fixed versus per-unit costs. Unfortunately, the highest quality remains associated with either high fixed costs (traditional quality printing technologies) or high per-unit costs (small-press hand-run operations). A mainstream publisher also has, as I said, various procedures for dealing with books. They all have to be put in the catalogs, stored in the whare- house, etc. These impose additional fixed costs. As a result of this high fixed cost, book prices have an inverted supply/de- mand curve: If the demand is low (various specialty books), the only way to recover the fixed cost is to price the small number of copies that will be sold very high. The economics of the publishing industry has for many years been built upon the assumption that the vast majority of books will make little or no money. A small fraction become big sellers and carry the costs of the rest. In recent years, with mass merchandising techniques and such, this dichotomy has become more and more pronounced. Traditional publishers have always viewed it as a kind of social obligation to publish all those books that didn't make very much. Of course, it helped them maintain a presence in the bookstores, was good public relations, and every once in a while a "nothing" book turned out to make a fortune - but the old-line publishers really did believe in this. As the publishing business has turned into more and more of a business rather than almost a calling - what with consolidation and the rise of the mega-publishers - the pressures to make books "pay their own freight" have gotten heavier. (Publishing is hardly the only business that has seen this kind of transition - it's a symptom of the modern age.) > I realize the latency is longer, but does a typical textbook > where the author does the illustrations in pic or whatever take more than > a month of an editor's time? Considering the quality of the typical self-typeset, self-illustrated book I see out there, I wish editors would spend MORE time on these books. (Then again, I see all-too-many poorly-editted books that did NOT come through the self-publishing route. And of course there are always the high-quality self- published books.) A month is not a very long time for a good editor - who, after all, has a lot of other things in his queue, too - to turn something around. -- Jerry
aceverj@accucx.cc.ruu.nl (Jaap Verhage) (08/26/90)
In article <44773@cornell.UUCP> murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) writes: [...] >I wonder if the right thing to do here isn't to just publish it >electronically. After all, TeX is such a wonderful free program, >and there's so much free software for it, why not make other things >that users contribute to, like proceedings of conferences, free. I >understand that books that people WRITE personally are different. But >the contributors don't get much out of this volume. Completely agree. Wonderful idea. -- Regards, Jaap. Jaap Verhage, Academic Computer Centre, State University at Utrecht, Holland. aceverj@cc.ruu.nl +<-*|*->+ I claim *every*thing and speak for myself
tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Tim Bradshaw) (08/28/90)
>>>>> On 25 Aug 90 20:48:09 GMT, Leichter-Jerry@CS.YALE.EDU@venus.ycc.yale.edu said: > In article <584@array.UUCP>, colin@array.UUCP (Colin Plumb) writes: > A printer is faced with a large number of fixed, or very slowly variable, > costs, including maintaining equipment and paying employees. Any successful > printer will ALWAYS be near capacity at at least some bottleneck point in the > process. It's a fundamental thing about queues: As you approach and exceed > the capacity of the system, queue lengths go up rapidly. I don't think this is what's on the critical path for most books and most publishers. > Besides, the larger the organization the slower it is likely to respond. > There are layers of approval, people who HAVE to get their hands on it, pro- > cedures that MUST be followed. It's easy to say "who needs that", and to > a certain extent that's true. On the other hand, once an organization gets > large, the only way to maintain any control over it is to have all those > procedures and committees and sign-offs. I think this is the problem. I used to work for a fairly large & well-known academic publisher as a desk-editor (= junior editor). My experience after about 6 months was that the whole thing was dominated by overwhelming bureaucracy. Everything had to be signed twice, faxed across to the US branch, faxed back, corrected &c &c. In all this chaos, books take a long time and get very little attention in terms of design or contents. I never did more than glance at any book that I dealt with. I got so fed up with this I left. >> I realize the latency is longer, but does a typical textbook >> where the author does the illustrations in pic or whatever take more than >> a month of an editor's time? No. Or rather, yes: it takes a month but an editor spends little of this time looking at the book. > Considering the quality of the typical self-typeset, self-illustrated book I > see out there, I wish editors would spend MORE time on these books. Yes!! I think there is a crying need for a publisher that is really oriented towards electronic books. It *can't* be that hard to deal with them -- all you need is some reasonably technical people and some willing. The results obtainable now from typesetting systems available to most authors are as good or better than anything that can be achieved with traditional typesetting: all it takes is competent designers with knowledge of the systems to guide people, and this is what the publisher should provide. --tim Tim Bradshaw. Internet: tim%ed.cstr@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cstr!tim JANET: tim@uk.ac.ed.cstr "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"