Re: A book was [Re: [mv] Windows Status]

[John Carroll <jjc@groveton.com>]

******    message to minivend-users from John Carroll <jjc@groveton.com>     ******



On Sun, 16 Apr 2000, Mike Heins wrote:

> 
> ******    message to minivend-users from Mike Heins <mikeh@minivend.com>     ******
> 
> Quoting Birgitt Funk (birgitt@minivend.com):
> >
> > If you say "yes, a MV/MML book is not out of the question for you to 
> > write, I am out of here with a smile and never post again. 8-)
> > 
> 
> A Minivend book is completely out of the question for *me* to write. I
> have written part of a book, and I don't like the process. I am also
> not very good at it.
> 
> I would support any suitable person who got a contract and wanted to
> do it.  I am not sure it is suitable for a project, though. I have 
> never received any serious inquiries.

Been following this thread with interest because, among other things, I
make a fair portion of my income writing "howto" books.  Since I'm also 
working with Minivend, I'd love to see a really good book on the market,
but from where I sit it's hard to be optimistic about that.

The market is probably too small.  Based on the books I've done, I'd
expect it to take at least a year to write the thing, plus another
month to put together a solid proposal.  Royalties on other books I've
done have ranged from 5% to 10% of the cover price -- the first ten or
fifteen thousand copies paying royalties from the bottom of the sliding
scale. If the book sells only 2,000 copies at $25.00 each, the gross is
only $50,000, of which the writer could expect to get maybe $2500, or a
bit more with a good contract. Double the cover price and with luck he/she
makes $5,000 or a little more.  Even if the royalties are 10% from the getgo 
and the cover price is $50, we're not talking about a living wage.  Maybe
my estimate is way too low.  I've no real idea how many people use, or are
likely to start using Minivend in the next few years, but I doubt it's in 
the tens of thousands.

There's also the question of how long the book would remain useful as
Minivend goes through successive revisions.  If someone started writing a
proposal today and everything went perfectly (which it never does) the
book would hit the market no sooner than 18 months from now and perhaps
already be obsolete.  Would the perfect book for Minivend 4.x be more help
than hindrance to someone running (say) Minivend 6.x three years from now?
That would depend on the course of e-commerce and Mike's interests over
that time, but I don't know how to predict either.  

For the forseeable future, I think we're all fated to use "grep" a lot,
try to work out our own solutions where "grep" fails us, and as a last
resort, post questions to this list.  We might also console ourselves that
Mike produced this great program and didn't charge anything for it and
that a few knowledgeable people answer our most desperate questions. Be
nice, though, if someone could prove me wrong and make a fortune on a
Minivend book.  I'd surely buy it.


John Carroll





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