"I would like to preserve some measure of the knowledge and technologies we have today so that the rebuilding is not so terribly slow."
Having completed over a decade in writing 16 books containing significant yet rarely-if-ever published concepts in instrument and power electronics, I am in a quandary as to how to disseminate it. Perhaps you have given me a hint of an answer. I published in 1990 with Academic Press my book on Analog Circuit Design, and have now reworked and enlarged it into 3 (or 5, depending on what is counted) books as a third edition. I have talked with at least one publisher but traditional publishing seems to me to be going the way of the blacksmith in a world of word processing, print-on-demand, and self-publishing. Perhaps I should simply keep making PDF copies available to a select few for now.
What do you, Jim, or others of this select readership recommend? What I need most is a safe repository for the books themselves, for a better posterity.
There is still a need for traditional publishers, for people who are not accustomed to writing but have something to say. Publishers provide, in addition to book printing, distribution and marketing, author support for book design: editing, layout, ISBNs, and other details of the publishing world. Putting a book together into printable PDF is a value-added service of publishers, though DIY authors like myself are in somewhat of a quandary over who should benefit from technical concepts not widely known.
The function of a publisher should be to make books available to readers who want to buy them. Obviously there are some things about producing books that were somewhat arcane and involved complex equipment back in the decades following Gutenberg. But printing books is not especially complicated. Nor is finding an artist who can produce effective graphics - though they seem to have a strong tendency to spelling errors. Quality control is a thing. ISBN or "international serial book number" is a thing for distributors.
And in recent days there has been disturbing news about Amazon cooperating with the feral gooferment to suppress certain titles, which is one reason I don't rely exclusively on Amazon but work with another vendor that provides access to 40,000 book sellers worldwide.
Print is also not the only format that you need to consider. Audiobooks, which is an area in which Amazon has a dominant position, are extremely popular. You can more than triple sales if you have an audio version of your book. I think that may be somewhat less true of equation rich texts, but people are a bit nuts in a great many cases so I think further research is needed. Anyway, people like to listen to books, so finding someone to read into a mic is important. And the sound files are non trivial to generate in a way acceptable to the dominant player, as I learned two years ago working on Courtney Smith's last book. So you have to have either sound production systems and experts or you have to have someone who can edit sound files to meet prescribed file and audio requirements, or both.
But the real money is in knowing who wants to buy which kinds of books. And in that realm I have exceptional skills. I've been involved in publishing since 1985 and owned and operated After Dark Publications since 1994. I tend to do a lot of reading and visits to trade shows in every industry that I want to know about.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. ("Can't. Writing a reply to the gold goats and guns guy.")
"I would like to preserve some measure of the knowledge and technologies we have today so that the rebuilding is not so terribly slow."
Having completed over a decade in writing 16 books containing significant yet rarely-if-ever published concepts in instrument and power electronics, I am in a quandary as to how to disseminate it. Perhaps you have given me a hint of an answer. I published in 1990 with Academic Press my book on Analog Circuit Design, and have now reworked and enlarged it into 3 (or 5, depending on what is counted) books as a third edition. I have talked with at least one publisher but traditional publishing seems to me to be going the way of the blacksmith in a world of word processing, print-on-demand, and self-publishing. Perhaps I should simply keep making PDF copies available to a select few for now.
What do you, Jim, or others of this select readership recommend? What I need most is a safe repository for the books themselves, for a better posterity.
Well, I do run a publishing company.
https://spaceprivenews.substack.com/p/what-we-do
There is still a need for traditional publishers, for people who are not accustomed to writing but have something to say. Publishers provide, in addition to book printing, distribution and marketing, author support for book design: editing, layout, ISBNs, and other details of the publishing world. Putting a book together into printable PDF is a value-added service of publishers, though DIY authors like myself are in somewhat of a quandary over who should benefit from technical concepts not widely known.
The function of a publisher should be to make books available to readers who want to buy them. Obviously there are some things about producing books that were somewhat arcane and involved complex equipment back in the decades following Gutenberg. But printing books is not especially complicated. Nor is finding an artist who can produce effective graphics - though they seem to have a strong tendency to spelling errors. Quality control is a thing. ISBN or "international serial book number" is a thing for distributors.
And in recent days there has been disturbing news about Amazon cooperating with the feral gooferment to suppress certain titles, which is one reason I don't rely exclusively on Amazon but work with another vendor that provides access to 40,000 book sellers worldwide.
Print is also not the only format that you need to consider. Audiobooks, which is an area in which Amazon has a dominant position, are extremely popular. You can more than triple sales if you have an audio version of your book. I think that may be somewhat less true of equation rich texts, but people are a bit nuts in a great many cases so I think further research is needed. Anyway, people like to listen to books, so finding someone to read into a mic is important. And the sound files are non trivial to generate in a way acceptable to the dominant player, as I learned two years ago working on Courtney Smith's last book. So you have to have either sound production systems and experts or you have to have someone who can edit sound files to meet prescribed file and audio requirements, or both.
But the real money is in knowing who wants to buy which kinds of books. And in that realm I have exceptional skills. I've been involved in publishing since 1985 and owned and operated After Dark Publications since 1994. I tend to do a lot of reading and visits to trade shows in every industry that I want to know about.
Anyway, that's all I've got for now. ("Can't. Writing a reply to the gold goats and guns guy.")
how is that boer book coming?