Every time a new book of mine comes out, I get myself worked up about piracy. I've been tweeting about it this time, but there are nuances that require a longer form. The title of this post is a reference to Google's suggestions to people searching for my book:
Maybe if enough people link to this post, then those search suggestions will bring would-be pirates to this page instead of to the ebook piracy sites :-) [Update: Hooray, as of tonight, for each of the search suggestions pictured above, this blog post is ranked higher than any ebook download site! Sweet symbolic victory!]
So, in no particular order, but in more than 140 characters, here are some of my thoughts about book piracy.
I'm well-aware of Tim O'Reilly's public statements about piracy. And I agree with some of them. Obscurity is a worse problem than piracy, for example. And I know that some authors have been successful at selling books even while making them free (and legal) for download. I know that some genre fiction authors have been successful by self-publishing ebooks for 99¢. (I don't know that world well enough to link to any of those authors, though.) For most of these authors, however, "success" means "I'm making more money selling books for 99¢ than I did when I sold them for $3.99". There are only a few lucky authors who can actually make a living and support a family by selling 99¢ ebooks. I don't think self-published 99¢ ebooks is the way forward for technical books.
For 15 years I've been one of those lucky authors who has been able to support himself and his family almost entirely on book royalties. But the publishing industry has been in decline and my royalties checks have decreased more-or-less steadily since the dot-com bust, and I've now decided that I need to look for a salaried job. This is kind of the end of an era for me. (So if I sound whiny, keep in mind what is at stake for me. And if I can't whine on my own blog, where can I whine? :-)
I do not know whether or to what extent piracy is responsible for my declining income. I suspect that the internet and the transition from print books to ebooks has more to do with it than piracy does. But I also suspect that piracy has a non-trivial impact, too.
But beyond the non-quantifiable financial impacts, I can report that, to me, the piracy of my books is profoundly discouraging. When my Ruby book came out in 2008 I was sad to discover that pirated copies were available within a week or so of the book's release. When my jQuery pocket reference came out earlier this year, I was shocked to discover that Google was giving the ebook download sites higher placement than reviews of the book. And now JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is out. I don't have a copy of it yet, but illegal copies are free for anyone who wants one. And Google will suggest those illegal downloads to anyone who tries to research the book (see the screenshot). I've worked really hard on this book, and I've got to say that this just feels like a kick in the gut.
I was trying to be provocative when I tweeted the question "Does Google enable piracy?" But I do think it is a valid question. If Google indexes sites like ebookee that link directly to download sites and makes it easy to find the pirated content you want and even offers suggestions on what to search for, I think there is a case to be made that they're encouraging piracy. And an important part of this is that the ease of finding illegal ebooks has removed any stigma involved. Malware sites get flagged "may harm your computer". Porn images get filtered by default in Google image search. But illegal copies of ebooks? They're just out in the open--it must be okay to download them.
I know that electronic piracy cannot be defeated. And I don't think we should (or can) lock everything down with draconian DRM. But I also think that a laissez-faire attitude toward piracy ("well, it is better than obscurity" or "its going to be pirated anyway, so you might as well just make it free") is the wrong answer. Even if publishers cannot win against pirates, they should at least fight for a stalemate rather than accept defeat.
Here are some small steps that might help:
- Google could filter its search suggestions so that they do not actively suggest piracy. I suspect that Google already filters the suggestions offered when someone enters the name of a porn star, for example. Google already has a database of copyrighted books (Google Books) so they could easily filter the suggestions offered when someone searches for a book title.
- Google could flag (without filtering) search results that are likely links to pirated content. Google already flags some results with "this site may harm your computer". Why not flag pirate sites: "Downloading content from this site may result in legal action by the copyright holder" or "Downloads from this site may be illegal". Or nice and simple: "this site may harm your karma".
I'll close by quoting the sidebar I titled "A Note about Piracy" in the preface of my new book:
If you are reading a digital version of this book that you (or your employer) did not pay for (or borrow from someone who did) then you probably have an illegally pirated copy. Writing the 6th edition of this book was a full-time job, and it took more than a year. The only way I get paid for that time is when readers actually buy the book. And the only way I can afford to work on a 7th edition is if I get paid for the 6th.
I do not condone piracy, but if you have a pirated copy, go ahead and read a couple of chapters. I think that you'll find that this is a valuable source of information about JavaScript, better organized and of higher quality than what you can find freely (and legally) available on the Web. If you agree that this is a valuable source of information, then please pay for that value by purchasing a legal copy (either digital or print) of the book. On the other hand, if you find that this book is no more valuable than the free information on the web, then please discard your pirated copy and use those free information sources.
Update: Thanks everyone for the kind words and the thoughtful comments! I've replied to most of your comments tonight, but I really have to get serious about writing my jsconf presentation, so I may not be able to reply to any more for a couple of days.
Update: More great comments! I'm really wishing I had a threaded comment system on this blog. Its never been an issue before
@__DavidFlanagan
David, I love your perspective on piracy, but I also embrace and understand where Tim O'Reilly is coming from. I think I have the solution. Why not create an entirely new genre of content that offers a greater level of utility than static digital eBooks?
Knowledge is getting created faster than it can be certified, and we need early-adopting gurus like you to light the path forward to new technologies. I'm particularly happy to pay for content on its own, particularly if I perceive that the original content creator is taking a lion's share of the profit.
I know that may not even cross many author's minds, but if there were messages like "95% of the profits from this eBook will be contributed to the author, so that they will continue producing high value content", I believe more people would be inclined to purchase.
I won't mention the name of my company here and get flamed for self-promoting, but I will say that I think there's a huge opportunity for publishers, authors, and content creators to disrupt a much larger, adjacent industry, education and its steady diet of certifications.
-ash // yakshaving.net
Such a timely blog post as I bought your 6th Edition via Amazon this morning. Looking forward to the update from the 5th edition, which I also bought :)
I'm afraid I'm part of the problem, though not because of piracy. I used to buy many technical books from oreilly, manning etc and keep buying them as new versions were released. Now I buy technical books only on slowly changing topics like AI, or algorithms, or as a tip/encouragement to foster things I like. For example, I bought all the Clojure books to support the creation of good intro material, not because I needed any of them.
Now, the online documentation, blog posts, q&a sites, and peer conversations have pretty much eliminated my need to buy books like JS: the definitive guide in edition after edition. I have had several, I think 1st and 2nd, but it's no longer as valuable to me. It's absolutely less timely to have to wait for the author/publisher cycle. Who could wait a year to learn the state of node.js today?
I'm sorry that this has caused you financial harm.
Google suggest already censors autocomplete results, notice that you don't find suggestions for torrents or rapidshare, et al. However "PDF" and "download" are probably too ambiguous for censorship unless they resort to the more complicated google books integration that you suggested.
There was a recent dustup about google "censoring" certain piracy related terms in instant search and search suggestions:
http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-bittorrent-rapidshare-and-more-110126/
Google would simply refuse to provide autocomplete or instant search results when certain terms were active, similar to their pornographic filters for suggest. I'm not sure if that policy was reversed or if the policy is still active. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to open a dialog with google as far as suggesting terms.
I am quite sympathetic to your piracy concerns, though it is quite a difficult problem. An ebook publisher and active anti-piracy blogger was recently revealed by her son to have substantial pirated music on her ipod. Indie musicians I know who at times have complained bitterly about music piracy think nothing of downloading a tv show from a network they don't get.
I would worry about the second order impacts of google flagging sites for inappropriate content beyond their anti-malware initiatives. If such a practice were to become widespread, the pressure to flag a variety of content might become substantial. I wonder, for example, what kind of warning google might be convinced to add to wikileaks.ch links. Surely there are many such examples that various governments or corporations might request.
If you published content in such a way like this video: http://vimeo.com/15142335
I would buy some kind of subscription.
I do agree with the above, stack overflow and quora are more cost effective than buying a book for each new release of a language or framework.
Two questions: 1) How much do you get paid for each copy of the book, and 2) do you have a way for people to send you money directly?
Just my 2p, but I'd say that 99% of the people who obtain a pirated copy of your book are people who would never have paid for it anyway, either because they can't afford to (bet they have iPhones) or because they just don't pay for stuff. It's the same argument as software piracy - let's face it, how many people pay for photoshop?
So I don't think you could attribute your declining royalties to piracy in any meaningful way - I think it's a coincidence of the increasing availability of electronic info. People don't value a talented author's time and energy as much now that so many millions of people are publishing (mostly shit) content, non-stop.
Easy for me to say as I'm not a published author, but I think I'd be happy that so many people want to read what I have to say, and just trust that the message is more important - great ideas spread, and in a very weird way I think piracy helps spread them, way beyond the people who pirate them.
Case in point - a friend sent me the audiobook of Crush It by gary vaynerchuk - I listened to it, loved it, and he gets an extra fan out of it who'll buy his next book as soon as possible. I have a pirate copy of several audiobooks, but I'll buy the paperbacks if I ever want to pass them on to people (I don't know many people who enjoy audio like I do)
Where can I download your book for free? I just saw blah blah blah.. where is the download link?
Your JavaScript book is one of the finest technical references I've ever owned - and the only book for which I've ever bought 3 different editions.
I don't have any brilliant solutions to the piracy problem, but I tend to agree with @finack that getting Google involved is a slippery slope (one which we're already slipping down).
In fact, imagine that you put your book online for free, and made a go at trying to scale pageviews and profit from advertising. The content on your book, in many cases, would probably be seen by Google as duplicated. Though your presentation of the DOM reference and JS reference are better-organized than any resource I'm aware of, that content is not unique - it can be picked together by searching lots of other sites. Google has been under such pressure to attack "thin" sites, that I suspect your book, as fantastic as it is, would be penalized.
This is in no small part because the internet is demanding Google needs to judge a content's merit, and the importance of the basic PageRank algorithm seems to be diminishing. And, we keep asking for it.
I saw that article about the crime fiction author selling on Amazon who lowered his books from 2.99 to 99 cents, and made 500, 000. Too bad that aren't as many Javascript programmers as people who like trashy genre novels.
I just wanted to say that I own dead-tree copies of both Javascript: The Definitive Guide and The Ruby Programming Language and they a both superb. I buy more technical programming books than I have room for as I really hate reading for extended periods on my mac.
As far a piracy, it is somewhat shocking to me that nobody does anything about the Rapidshare's of the world who are so obviously violating copyright laws. Anyway, I am sorry that you even have to worry about such unpleasantries.
Anyway, thanks for your contributions to programming and continued success.
In the paragraph before the unordered list, you said:
"But I also think that a laissez-faire attitude toward piracy ("well, it is better than obscurity" or "its going to be pirated anyway, so you might as well just make it free") is the answer either."
Typo, no?
Yes, that was a typo. I've fixed it. Thanks.
I don't really understand why nothing can be done about the sites that actually host the infringing content, either. My vague understanding is that the "reputable" sites like Rapidshare that aren't hosted in lawless areas of the world are actually reasonably prompt about responding to takedown requests, and I suppose that probably insulates them from serious legal action.
If I report an illegal download to O'Reilly, there is someone there who will issue the request and make it go away. But it doesn't seem to be anyone's job to be proactive about looking for and taking down pirated copies. Maybe publishers (or O'Reilly at least?) have just given up—its like battling the Hydra. It seems to me, though, that with work and clever automation, the pirates could be beaten back and driven away from the "reputable" download sites back into the dark lawless corners of the internet (like the cockroaches they are :-).
:-) I win!
Tom,
I don't think I follow you. I will say that my book was written as a book, and it probably wouldn't work well online (regardless of whether it could work financially that way). And maybe that is a big piece of my revenue problem: I'm producing content in an old-fashioned medium.
Joss,
There's truth to that argument, but I think that 99% is high. Here are some completely made up numbers that seem more plausible to me:
70% of the pirated copies go to people who never would have bought the book.
10% go to people who like my work and become fans and later, as their financial fortunes improve buy a future edition or another book of mine.
20% go to people who download the pirated copy because it is quick and easy. They have good intentions of also buying a legal copy, but only 5% ever actually do. (Is this your category for the pirated audiobooks?)
It does make me happy that so many people have read and continue to read what I write. I'm thrilled, for example, to have a blurb on the back cover of the 6th edition that reads "I made a career of what I learned from JavaScript: The Definitive Guide". And having so many supporters say kind things in this comment thread and on Twitter is really wonderful. But unfortunately, that doesn't pay the bills!
Anonymous,
1) Surprisingly little. I'm not going to give my particular numbers. But in general authors get 10 to 15% of their publishers sales. And the publishers sell books to retailers at 50% or less of the cover price. So 5-7% of the cover price of the book goes to the author. Ebooks and subscription services (like O'Reilly's Safari service) complicate this picture but do not improve it for authors.
2) I've wondered the same thing: if I could set up a piracy forgiveness donation box, I wonder how well it would do? One data point is that the "Tip the Author" paypal button at http://davidflanagan.com/javascript5 has been used once in 5 years. It was intended for those using my examples without buying the book. But was not anonymous. I suspect that the only way to accept really anonymous donations would be to go over to the dark side of the internet where the pirates and money launderers live. Suggestions are welcome!
finack,
I wonder about that too: would Google find itself having to flag more and more categories of search results to satisfy different constituencies.
On the other hand, those flags could be a very valuable service to Google's users. The "this site may harm your computer" can prevent malware infections. If Google had a "NSFW" flag, it might prevent some users from losing their jobs. If I lived in a country where having certain sites (such as wikileaks.ch) in my browser cache might get me thrown in jail I would appreciate having Google flag that result "viewing this site may harm your freedom". I think a similar flag about copyright issues would also be useful. It is certainly something I would want my kids to see when they searched the web, for example.
Nothing's too complicated for Google, is it? :-)
Steve,
Your points are good ones, and there is no need to apologize for not buying more books. I agree that the internet has replaced many former uses of books and, as I said in the post, I think that has more to do with my declining revenue than piracy does. But piracy hurts more in a spit in your face kind of way.
The value a good technical book offers is the opportunity to learn a subject more deeply and more broadly than you are likely to from online resources. I believe that even experienced JS programmers will learn a lot from my book. But it takes commitment to sit down and tackle a book like this.
Ash,
Displaying static ebooks on devices like the iPad does seem quite backward, doesn't it? Personally, I still like the static old genre, but maybe I'm just a dinosaur.
95% for the content creator would be fantastic, but I don't think it will ever happen. If publishers don't take their cut, then app stores (including Amazon's kindle store) will take theirs. Only content creators who are also good at self promotion and business mangement are likely to get more than 50%.
In the same way that musicians have to tour frequently and sell CDs at concerts, maybe technical book authors have to go on the road offering training services, and use those as opportunities to sell books...
Thanks! I think you'll find the 6th edition quite different from the 5th.
To those who say the online resources make the book obsolete, I'd have to argue that this is an exception to that rule. I've always found it really hard to find good documentation on JavaScript online, and this book is awesome. Also, I bought it under the rough cuts program, which I think is a great way to help mitigate the problem of the book becoming obsolete before it even makes it to press. In any case, I hope you're able to continue revising it, and thanks for the great book!
I live in a country where there are few bookstores and ordering from the U.S. or the U.K. is simply not an option.
While you don't think that .99 technology books are the future, in the long run you would probably make more money by cutting out the publisher and selling the book for .99 yourself.
One of the reasons iTunes is so successful is that they successfully compete with the file sharers--I don't think that sharing files is similar to what the Somalians do--why should I waste time looking for an mp3 that may or may not be of any decent quality when I can download immediately at low cost from iTunes?
The crime fiction author who made $500,000 is a good lesson here.
How perculair that a free market economy has aligned the interests of authors and publishers with the interests of government censors and corporations, and has both calling for more censoring!
There was a time when book publishers and newspapers were fighting for freedom of information. In The Netherlands the Publishers Association has called for an internet censorship filter to block piracy.
"Studies show" (-as weasely as this statement is) that piracy == market failure. Your customers are not getting served right with the book in it's current form and are getting it faster, easier and more flexible in pirated form. You'll be surprised how many of your pirated copies are going abroad where it takes weeks to import a book from the USA and there are *no* legal alternatives.
Wait, the sixth edition was released!?! Awesome! I've been waiting for the chance to replace my 5th edition (this poor thing has seen better days!) *ORDERED!* Thank you for an amazing reference. I'm looking forward to my order from Amazon!
I know it's a little off topic, but have you considered other editors ?
Since O'reilly went out off business here in France it's impossible to get a (non-english) hardcopy of the rhino.
I guess this hurts you less than piracy, but still, I know a lot off developpers who would like to get a hand on this book. It's even impossible to find used copy on amazon or ebay.
And I'm not even talking of a hypothetical 6th edition translation. :(
Dear David,
I have been an OReilly Safari subscriber for several years. I can recommend this to every developer out there. Some of your books are in my favorites lists. I'm not sure how Safari writer compensation works, but I hope you get some contribution from that.
Yet, must admit it still pains me that for ~$500/year we as honest subscribers can not get the same convenience (offline access, unencumbered PDF's) as people who just download a pirated PDF library for free.
Do street corners enable prostitution?
I understand that you feel harmed by piracy and want to fight it, but in digital domain that is a very hard battle.
I think music industry's case has proven that no amount of threaths, lawsuits and takedowns can stop it, and that DRM is a piracy motivator, not inhibitor.
My suggestion: offer better alternative. Offer easy way to buy PDF/ePub version with no silly DRM or country restrictions. If you'll have a download, you'll rank for "download" searches.
So I'm 30+ been in software development for all of my career, I have quite a few O'Reilly books all of them were invaluable at the time, nowadays I barely open them. Why is that? Well the information is most likely available somewhere on the net, if not on Stack Overflow somewhere else, usually within 10-20 seconds away.
I have "pirated" copies of ebooks in the past, mostly when I was trying to get to grips with Android development and wasn't sure which books were useful, I spent maybe 10 mins with each book and found none of them addressed the questions I had hence they ended up getting deleted. And so far I've answered most of those questions myself, via web searching.
"Pirated" technical books are the first port of call for the novice who doesn't know enough to know what they need. Even then they rarely assist much.
Most technical book are actually really painful to navigate, but at the time they were the only option, now I can find context relevant information in seconds hence books are _less_ convenient _and_ they cost money. The default is now deeply linked, highly specific data.
IMHO you are not losing money to piracy, you are failing to make money due to the inadequacy of the book as a medium for technical data.
Ok here's my take on your situation. First of all I don't see why getting a salaried job would be so bad for you. You're an MIT Grad, that alone will get you a high paying job anywhere in the field. Second you know your stuff and you seem like a pretty smart guy.
Sorry about your royalties being cut short and I really do understand the "I have to provide for my family" situation. But here's where I stand, I'm actually glad people pirate ebooks. Let me tell you why. Consider my situation, I'm a CS Student with a part time job and my source of income sure enough is not even half of what you make in royalties. I simply don't have the money to pay for most of the books that are required for my classes. So anytime I find a pirated book on the internet that otherwise would cost $60/$100 I jump up with joy. After all I'm saving my cash. This last statement sounds a little selfish to most, but I believe is not. You have a degree David (From MIT) I've might add and I don't. If resources are available online, that are going to make me a better programmer and give me a chance to better my future from learning these skills I'm sure as heck going to download the book. Plain and Simple. I believe information should be free for those that are striving to achieve something. Lastly If anything that I said offends or ticks you off, I would simply advise you to look at things like this. Maybe your royalties are decreasing but your book is helping this individual secure a better a life for himself. So I would like to Thank you none the less for a wonderfully written book.
Why is it still so hard to find legal, DRM free ebooks to buy?
Google should make it easier to find sites that sell ebooks legally. Not the other way around, censor the search so that finding ebooks becomes even harder.
It doesn't make sense that when you search +"title" +ebook you get almost only pirate sites. This is the same problem that used to exist with music.
I've been wanting to refresh my JS knowlege, so FWIW, when this becomes available on Amazon for Kindle App, I'll BUY it. :)
How in the world does this make sense?
"After all I'm saving my cash. This last statement sounds a little selfish to most, but I believe is not."
I'm only 27, but the entitlement you feel due seems completely bizarre.
I don't need another Ruby book, but after seeing David's post I bought a copy.
Dave,
Bought Javascript: The Definitive Guide 5th edition and it has been an invaluable reference for me. It's a terrible thing that your livelihood, a livelihood that provides so much benefit to so many others, is being threatened by essentially search engines. I think your incendiary jab at Google is spot on but you may want to expand your stroke and include Bing, Yahoo and the rest who don't actively filter obviously pirated content. Sure some people unscrupulously will pirate material but there's no good reason to essentially actively promote it when a little filtration would bring Tim O'Reilly style obscurity to the very sites that supersede appropriate links to the material in search results. I sincerely hope you can continue to make a living excelling at writing technical material. I'll be purchasing the 6th edition in support of your efforts.
Kind Regards
For all the "I want the ebook without DRM crap in it" here you go: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596805531/. Oreilly sells most of their books in plain old PDF and no-DRM ePub (and other formats too).
I'm sure Mr. Flanagan did not spend countless hours researching, writing, reviewing, and editing in the hope that the product he produced would be distributed for free and put his family out on the street. Your position is so narrow minded and myopic that I find myself hoping you're some kind of troll and not an indicative example of "entitled youth". Take your lazy ass back to your part time job, pick up an extra shift, and pay for the book. Register for an Ethics class on your way home too.
David,
I just bought an iPad a few weeks ago and have been stocking up my elibrary using Kindle.
I see this post, go straight to Amazon and see your book costs MORE for the ebook than it does for the PAPERBACK. WHY?
Paperback: $28.71
ebook/Kindle edition: $31.99
The price of ebooks makes me sick really. If I order the paperback version, I have to wait six weeks to get it from Amazon. If I order the ebook version, I feel like I'm getting that shaft as it costs more.
Sorry to be honest, that's just how I feel.
I would love to buy more ebooks but right now they are too expensive, so I wait. No, I don't pirate books. I will wait until the price comes down or skip the purchase completely. Not everyone is like this, so I guess that is why pirate markets exist.
Have you taken this up with Google direct? We have, over PDF downloads of magazines, and they have removed a bunch of keywords from autosuggest. They are also open to blocking AdSense accounts of those who promote the downloads.
Bought both your JS book and your Ruby book. Both are great. But here is the thing, for me personally, I need to flip to a page I think I'll learn something ("hmm... function pointers in ruby?") and if I do, I buy the book. That's why I find free pdfs first. All the best and good luck moving forward!
I have to agree with Nate... I just don't understand why an eBook should be more expensive than a print book. Printing, paper, & distribution costs alone must add up to a huge amount of the price.
That said, I did buy the ebook version. Not only does my JS code pay the rent, but good work should be supported.
Ron
"people who would never have paid for it anyway, either because they can't afford to (bet they have iPhones)"
...wait, what? no idea what that is trying to suggest, especially since its known by devs that iOS users pay for more software than their android counterparts...
Looking at the screenshot above, I see nothing that screams out piracy. At best, you've got three suggestions that involve "PDF" (which some people might want for legit reasons), "download" (again, which some people might want) and "ebook" (which is totally legit).
Hitting the top actual results for "download" (aside from your own, which is there because it's a fresh post -- it might not stay there in a few weeks when it gets older, but fingers-crossed for you), I can see some of the sites that are pretty sucky, telling people how to download pirated copies out there.
No easy answer to that, other than O'Reilly might want to offer a free download of the first chapter. Seems like that's already offered to read online with a trial. Offer more formats, and that -- at least -- should take over the top spot.
To your sugggestions....
" Google could filter its search suggestions so that they do not actively suggest piracy."
They've done this for months. It's one of the relatively few areas where they filter suggestions. They do it more for movies and TV shows, however. I guess the Hollywood lobby speaks more loudly than the book one. More:
http://searchengineland.com/how-google-instant-autocomplete-suggestions-work-62592
The challenge with books is that in the suggestions above, "download" is the key term they'd have to omit -- and there could be some people who are thinking they want a legit way to download (of which, digital copies might be a version)
"Google could flag (without filtering) search results that are likely links to pirated content."
No, it can't. If it tries to figure out what's pirated, and then leaves it up, it'll lose the safe harbor protections it has under the DMCA. However, if a content owner spots something that's pirated and files a DMCA request -- done. It's gone.
Filing DMCA requests isn't hard, but it's a time suck when you're doing wack-a-mole with all sites that pop up.
It may be encouraging to you that Congress has done hearings recently for Google in particular to do more to fight piracy. But personally, I'm kind of dubious it'll work. After all, real-life piracy in New York City hasn't been stopped. This has more about that:
http://searchengineland.com/if-google-was-new-york-city-online-piracy-was-knock-off-handbags-71948
"If resources are available online, that are going to make me a better programmer and give me a chance to better my future from learning these skills I'm sure as heck going to download the book. Plain and Simple. I believe information should be free for those that are striving to achieve something."
From this, it sounds like your financial argument is a sympathy-seeking red herring. You think your use of the material -- not your ability to pay -- is what justifies downloading the book without paying for it. Am I wrong?
I have a hunch that the 6th edition isn't actually pirated yet. The internet is full of sites that generate a page offering "downlaod" for EVERY book, whether or not a pirated copy exists or not. After reading this article I went to see if I could find an actual PDF on any of these sites (i've already ordered my copy from amazon). I can't. They're all auto-generated links that lead to the same usenet client advertisements.
I don't doubt that Dave's income has suffered due to piracy. But I think that he might be jumping the gun by....4 or 5 days (sad but true).
Peter,
You raise a very good point. When piracy becomes easy and loses any stigma it had—when it starts to occur in the clean, well-lighted parts of the internet, and even Google is suggesting it—the honest ebook buyers start to feel like chumps for playing by the rules.
David wrote: "20% go to people who download the pirated copy because it is quick and easy. They have good intentions of also buying a legal copy, but only 5% ever actually do. (Is this your category for the pirated audiobooks?)"
Some percentage are, almost certainly given the book's audience, people who *have* bought a print copy, but have recently acquired an iPad, or a Kindle, or otherwise decide they want a copy they can use on their computer, and don't want to pay full price for an ebook copy.
kl,
If I were complaining about the internet enabling piracy then your street corner/ prostitution analogy would be valid. How about this: if a member of the city council goes around the city posting signs directing the public to the street corners where prostitution is available, and installing street lights to make those corners look nicer, then that city councilor is enabling prostitution.
O'Reilly does, in fact, offer DRM-free ebook downloads, in something like 5 different formats, and they've done so for years.
Curt,
I agree with much of what you say. And, as I implied in the post, I think the rise of internet resources has more to do with my declining revenue than piracy. Printed reference books really can't compete with online resources.
Books can still offer a big-picture, comprehensive understanding of a topic, though.
" but your book is helping this individual secure a better a life for himself. "
Eh, doubtful. I don't mean the book, I mean with your attitude you probably won't amount to much.
O'Reilly in particular sells pbook+ebook combos, too priced in the ebook part in some cases imho, but they set the prices, you take it or leave it.
Charles,
It looks like other commenters have slammed you pretty hard, so I'll try to go easy on you.
You're right that I probably won't have too hard a time finding work. And actually, I'm looking forward to doing more programming and less writing. So it won't be so bad for me. But it does mean that I will no longer be writing books full time. If you think my books are valuable, then that is what the problem is: I won't be writing as many or updating them as often, if at all.
The textbook market is a racket. I don't know what to do about it, but I can say that every professor I've ever talked to is concerned about how expensive it is for their students. I'm glad to see that the used textbook market is thriving.
I think it would be instructive for you to do some thought experiments to see just how far your pro-piracy philosophy extends. Is it just a robin hood thing: that it is okay for the poor to take from the rich? Is it a full-on communism thing: to each according to their need, from each according to their ability? Do your beliefs only extend to information or also to tangible goods? Should you be allowed to sit in on lectures even if you don't pay tuition? If I've worked all year to grow a beautiful garden, is it okay for you to walk by and pick one of my tomatoes because it looks so juicy and you don't have any?
Wladimir,
That's a very good point. Maybe O'Reilly should be doing some SEO for the term ebook.
Rafa wrote: "O'Reilly in particular sells pbook+ebook combos, too priced in the ebook part in some cases imho, but they set the prices, you take it or leave it."
That's true. And I've bought similar combos from the Pragmatic people. The people I'm talking about are more likely to be those who bought the printed book at a bookstore, or at Amazon, and later decide they want the e-book too, so aren't eligible for bundle deals.
GQB,
I think it is available now for the Kindle
Ron,
I agree that Amazon's current pricing (ebook higher than the print edition) is bizarre. But Amazon's ebook price is still cheaper than O'Reilly's. (Though O'Reilly's comes in multiple formats).
I know that O'Reilly is still trying to figure out the optimum price for ebooks. If those who say that piracy is a market problem are right, then ebook prices will eventually be dropping.
Hi David,
looking up to my bookshelf, I see a German 5th edition of your Definitive Guide, and 2 weeks ago I bought the jQuery Pocket Reference (not as happy with it as with the older JavaScript Pocket Reference, but I guess it's jQuery I'm not comfortable with). But this jQuery Pocket Ref. was one of the few "real" (technical) books I bought for a long time. Nowadays I mostly go with eBooks (and I avoid publishers that make it overly complicated to get them), and mostly ePub to use with iBooks on my iPad – this is much more fun than having to buy bookshelf after bookshelf or to throw away books.
The interesting part is, that I never (!) bought (or pirated) an eBook from O'Reilly (though I have lots of dead-tree books from them), and that all my recently bought technical (e)books are from other publishers. I have no idea why, but sometimes I get the feeling that O'Reilly is not "trendy" enough or too slow in sensing where things are heading. More and more often I don't even buy dead-tree books from O'Reilly, because I have a feeling that they won't help me any longer. Something changes, and I can't explain it (especially not in a foreign language). Perhaps it's only me. Or perhaps more and more people no longer need books like the Definitive Guide.
(Oh, and the most technical books I bought the last years were the Pocket Guides – for me the best way to get a fast overview of a programming language, framework etc., and they are small enough to reside on my desk; I'm missing some languages, i.e. Clojure, and some are clearly out-dated ... but that's another topic, and more in the direction of O'Reilly.)
Kind Regards
Personally, I'm not going to buy another huge book. I haven't had the need to buy another. It was easily the largest book I owned until I bought the Python book which was easily twice its size. Back when I was first learning JavaScript I bought your book, and after I got what I wanted from it it sat there and collected dust until I gave it away to my local library. I learned a lot from the book and have been able to keep up with developments since. The only way I'd foresee myself buying another programming tome is if I want to go beat the hell out of someone without leaving bruises as a phone book is quite hard to come by these days.
I think your problem is not your doing. It's your publisher's and the entire publishing industry. O'Reilly sold eBooks until sometime mid-2010 with DRM and saw over a 100% increase in sales because of it. It's highly commendable. However, it's not as effortless to buy from there as it is off of Amazon's Kindle store or Apple's iBooks store. I don't have a Kindle nor do I buy books off of iBooks because I don't want DRM-encumbered crap — period. Your publisher sells DRM-free eBooks off its website, and I've purchased a few. However, on Apple's iBooks any O'Reilly books you purchase off of there contains DRM when O'Reilly can easily tell Apple it doesn't want its books on their store with DRM. It's unavoidable with the Kindle, but at least one of the top two digital book stores will have your books that can be legally purchased without DRM. Why is not having DRM important? Because a pirated book can be viewed on anything while the DRM in these bookstores restrict where and how the book can be viewed. It's even more important because these comprehensive heavy tomes can digitally fit on a device that weighs less than a pound. Sure, it's not as easy to read on these devices to most people (including myself), but if it's on my phone and other devices I don't have to carry around an anvil to read it.
Nick,
That's good to hear. I followed the links as far as the login screens, but was shy about actually creating an account for myself to check it out. But you're right: it is only a matter of days...
Speaking of someone who loves piracy and often downloads books that way, I've got another take on this.
I agree with you that it's sick that Google gets away with this while sites like The Pirate Bay get sued.
Google should be held to the same standards, or vice versa.
(Aside: O'Reilly books like this happen to be among the few I don't need to pirate; it's easy enough to find and buy a non-DRM copy legally.)
Jon H,
Good point. I forgot that category, and I'm sympathetic to the argument that purchase of the hardcopy should allow electronic use as well... Since I was just making up the numbers, this other category doesn't change my basic analysis though :-)
Sandra wrote: "I agree with you that it's sick that Google gets away with this while sites like The Pirate Bay get sued.
Google should be held to the same standards, or vice versa."
And what about you? Shouldn't you be held to the same standards, and be sued?
Christian,
That's interesting to hear that you feel that the trendiness of O'Reilly books is declining.
With the overall decline in publishing, they've been moving into conferences, training, videos, etc. I wonder if they're spreading themselves too thin and neglecting their books?
Dustin,
Are you just saying that O'Reilly needs to make it as easy to buy from them as it is to buy from Amazon or iBooks?
Jon H: It would be my preference that neither of us should be sued, which is why I threw in that "or vice versa" at the end.
I'm not running a search engine that finds copyright infringing materials, like Google or The Pirate Bay does, nor am I directly hosting and distributing it like YouTube does.
But if I were, it would bug me that Google is held to laxer standards even though they're wielding much more power over many parts of our lives.
Hi, David. I don't have much original content to add to the discussion, but thought I'd add a voice anyway.
I have GBs of pirated math, and a few programming, books on my harddrive right now. Mostly that's a hoarding problem; I'm convinced that someday I'll *need* to thumb through "Theory of Linear Operators in Hilbert Space[s]," so am hesitant to delete it. However, that's surely a book I would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere, and am unlikely to have ever been in a position to purchase it. I'm sure it came as part of a 100-book download on my way to getting some other math book, and I can say that the great majority of the time if I *needed* a book (Artin's _Algebra_ for instance), try as I might I couldn't bear to work with anything but a full printed copy, which I bought legally. This even includes the thousands of pages I've printed at work. There is no substitute for a nicely bound, professionally printed, corporeal instance of a book from which one aims to get specific and deep exposure to a topic. I've tried reading these things on computer and on my iPhone, and it's uncomfortable at best.
Specific to your industry, I recently started learning Python, and had shuffled through several illegally downloaded reference texts. After some searching, on Amazon and elsewhere (in some cases reviewing illegal copies that didn't provide a way to preview content), I settled on Wesley Chun's _Core Python Programming_. I downloaded it, printed some of it, and began working from it, and it wasn't too great an experience. Partially, this is due to sifting through a clumsy 3-ring binder of pages, having to punch the holes, etc.; and partially this is due to the fact that the print-out is not as physically concise as the book itself. Moreover, I *know* I'm not doing anything to make sure Mr. Chun can continue writing something I find valuable. Like many free online services, for which many would or should pay if they want to see them flourish, technical books (at least) as a product category are better--for me--purchased in their meticulously printed form.
But there's a larger context here, too. I checked local libraries--public and university--and found getting _Core Python Programming_ very tough. Then there are used copies, which aren't as convenient to track down and ensure are complete and usable as buying them new. Each is legitimate, but neither contributes to your royalties, either. To you, the one copy my library carries is the only unit used to generate a royalty line-item; if it's checked out one or 100 times, you'll never know. Similarly, if I can find a book at Half Price Books or some other used outlet, you'll never know.
I don't have an answer, and I'm not convinced that the entirety of the current publishing system will/needs to fall and is bringing/will bring you down. I hope there will remain a way to support folks like you who invest deeply in a subject at the exclusion of a "day job," and more, a market demand for that support. Even as we move incrementally away from knowledge gatekeepers (institutionalized educators [see Illich, Gato, etc.]), we can't delude ourselves that we aren't well-served by having and supporting field experts.
Cheers and good luck,
Daniel
Happy paying customer of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide here. It pays for itself for me.
I'm bothered when illicit versions of my work show up in Google Search, but I'm really bothered when the download site is supported by Google ads. What you have then is an ad-supported version where the creator of the work is out of the loop. What needs to happen is a class action suit against Google. Again, not for Search necessarily, where you might make the argument they enable it, but for ads, where they profit from it.
> Why not create an entirely new genre of content that offers
> a greater level of utility than static digital eBooks?
That is the approach I've been taking. We are working on iPad apps and there are so many ways to make the content richer and more interactive and worth paying for that they are becoming the canonical version of the work. We are starting to look at a 99 cent eBook version and an ad-supported Web version as alternative or abridged versions, sort of like audiobooks versus print, or like paperback versus hard cover.
The problem with W3C platform works is it is hard to give the user something that wows them and makes them reach for their wallet. In the majority of cases, their eBook readers are broken, their browsers are broken, their operating systems are broken. But users don't see it that way, they think the content is broken. Things like lack of ISO media support, or the low software quality of the Windows and Android browsers drag the whole platform down to where it's not worth paying for. Too many in the Web development community have head-up-ass about this. They see the Web in a totalitarian way, like what else are you going to use? iOS, it turns out.
An iOS version of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide could run code examples in place, or share them via Bonjour networking or email, provide simple animations to illustrate complex topics, use audio and video, and errata could be fixed easily in automatic updates. And the app is much easier to pay for than bootleg.
Absolutely -- Great idea, but not everyone can come out to your events, so maybe the answer is coming out TO them. Did you check out railshotline.com from Hackernews this morning?
They're doing it for free, but if it were the right mix of individuals and right structure, there's **definitely** a market for that.
I can't tell you how many people ask me for advice randomly on startups and design (not that I'm some guru like you are). I wish I could help more people, but it's just not a great use of my time. I don't have lots of capital lying around to be an angel investor, but if I could offer consulting help at little times and mix it with content creation that people would pay for, I'd happily do it.
I have to imagine that many authors would too :)
- Ash
"The value a good technical book offers is the opportunity to learn a subject more deeply and more broadly than you are likely to from online resources."
Agreed, but... For what it is worth, the reason I stopped buying technical books is that the number that were good and actually gave me a deep and broad view of a topic were so very few and far between. The vast majority told me no more than I already knew and stopped just shy of the depth that I actually needed when I decided to buy them.
(Just to be clear, I'm not trying to justify piracy here. Those books are just as worthless to me free, so I'm not going to bother pirating them.)
The few gems I have found, I do treasure, though. (I can't speak to your work because I haven't looked at any of it...yet. ^_^)
There are a number of comments that are similar to my beliefs, but I thought I would give my +1 and expand a bit. I do not see books as an affordable solution to learning. I do not pirate books either.
I think your mention of the amount of money that actually goes to the publisher pretty much nails it on the head David. The majority of the cost of the book is going to costs and expenses which have nothing to do with the actual content of the book. There is not a material value for the end user in that ~90% cost that never makes it to you as an author.
Put a digital version of your book on your website for $2 or $3 and set up a paypal checkout and you would be much more likely to catch my eye when I am looking for a solution to a specific problem. Based off the number of people who post questions about javascript on stackoverflow alone I bet there would be a lot of people totally willing to pay $2.
I have never been able to solve a problem faster by flipping through pages of a book/manual compared to looking on google for information on a specific question I might have. Sure there are people who might want to read a book to learn, but I think the majority of people out there want reference information. Google is a lot better at parsing through huge amounts of information than my mind is capable of, so why should I flip through a book looking for an answer?
This is really sad. At my previous startup, we handed out a copy of your JavaScript book as standard equipment to all new hires, along with their PC and phone.
The problem with Google isn't limited to their search results; the Android Marketplace is full of apps that provide a front-end to sites that pirate books. (I'm looking at you, Laputa.) They receive plenty of complaints, but they are not interested in dealing with the problem. I suppose they don't even really see it as a problem.
These are perfectly valid searches for a person that wants to buy your book, so I don't really see the problem.
Some of the problem is the crazy pricing models. At the moment, your book (paper edition) is available for $28.71 from Amazon. But if I want to buy the Kindle edition, for which the publisher incurs NO printing, shipping, warehousing or return costs/risks. the price is $31.99!! Oh, and to gild the lily, the estimated shipping time for the paper edition is 6-12 days!
To say this makes little sense seriously understates the issue. And, by making the (potential) customer feel that he/she is getting screwed, it encourages piracy. Your publisher—all publishers—need to come to their senses. I'm a writer, and understand that the value is the content. But like everyone else, I also understand that if you don't have to print a physical book, costs are lower. I do NOT expect to pay MORE for the electronic edition.
Apologies for not being clear... my point was simply that making Google the arbiter of what content is "worthy" versus not, has unintended consequences.
Sounds like you could use some SEO help, bro.
I think the best way to sell books is to do so as Amazon Kindle Books or Apple iBooks or Barnes & Noble Nook books or some other automatically DRM'd Ebook Format.
The primary reason is that it is difficult to pirate books in this form.
Secondarily, there is very little overhead - just get the copyright and ISBN, format it, then upload it for sale.
Another reason is that the author - not the publisher - gets 70% of the gross income. That is a great deal, better than any publisher can get for you.
My inspiration is that Minnesota 26-year-old female author who has written 9 novels, selling them for $1-3 each on the Kindle. She makes between $250,000 to $450,000 a month for her books. She's never been published on paper. I want to be like her - not the pauper technical writer.
I'd also like to see your books on iBooks and Kindle at prices that reflect the cheaper costs of electronic distribution. If you can get it down to $10 or so I'd buy them on there, even with DRM (as both of these platforms use it).
I had the original 1st and 2nd editions in dead tree along with many other O'Reilly books and other tech books that I gave away to friends or charity shops when I moved house years ago. These days I simply look up something I want online or download eBooks whenever possible, unless they're expensive (compared to print) which sadly your book appears to be at the moment.
I'd suggest that if you write a few short but highly targeted titles, basically the equivalent of a chapter but with deeper coverage, and sold them as individual books for a few bucks each that they'd do well as a taster for the cheap but high volume model.
Good luck with all your future projects, sounds like you deserve nothing but success in my book.
I'd love to have Your books online, free to access, fully search-engine indexed, with RSS feed for info on updates, with a downloadable .chm / HTML version and a Paypal Donate button.
Donations :
If I stop by repeatedly picking up some info I sooner or later donate. My internal clock is set into yearly renewal mode for this type of use, $10.
If I download the .chm and I actually use it / really take profit, I'll pay from $20 on up, it really depends on what it is.
If I really appreciate the project I tend to give more / pay more often.
I astonishingly pay also when I have few resources.
see also
Engagement :
Wherever possible and easy to do I give feedback and or contribute
Books:
I do not read books anymore (code related), in fact I haven't touched a book in years. I have a 100% mobile setup, can't carry books around, I own very few material objects.
PDF's:
are not a solution, I have already bought some eBooks, I don't use them, poor Copy and Paste, poor search, poor Hypertext, pagination on a computer !?!, sometimes poor typography (when using print optimized typo), some use even images for text.
Some examples of solutions:
http://de.selfhtml.org/
+ Used to be my HTML / CSS leaning path since the late '90ies, I still use it to look up HTML and CSS stuff
+ have it locally installed
- these stupids (because I really wanted to help out) do neither offer an easy possibility to donate, nor an easy way to contribute, the lately introduced Flattr button is not a solution, too complicated (as in complex), I would have payed them at least $200 by now.
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.5/index.html
+ Helped me out a couple of times, I used SVN for about two years for all of my projects, now replacing it with Mercurial
- missing Donate Button, I do NOT want to buy the book
- Safari Books Online too complicated, can't remember, was it too PDF or too iFrame ?
- The home page is difficult to read, I loose time
http://diveintohtml5.org/
+ superbe site
- no donate button, I do NOT want to by the book
O'Reilly, publishers (newspapers !) in general:
These guys just don't get it. As a publisher they are supposed to facilitate access to the product, broaden the market penetration and not the inverse. If they cannot provide this, where is their adding value ?
Yeah, in 1980 or so I would go and buy a copy of their prints, I'd have 2 or three dailies, one or two weeklies, but that's over.
Today I have over 320 feed subscriptions in my Reader which I consume on a daily basis.
I am learning everything I am concerned with all the time, on a project oriented base, everything which disturbs my work /reading flow is immediately eliminated and I return to Google until I find a new, more convenient solution. I highly value good sources / tools.
http://www.techdirt.com/ is a good place to find further information for alternate distribution models.
Ah, yes, I remember, I was at least two times on Amazon to buy one of Your books, I hesitated, but for the reasons above I finally did not conclude.
I buy my technical books from technical book publishers: O'Reilly, Pakt, Pragmatic, etc. I avoid Amazon due to their weird pricing, fetish for DRM, and their Kindle-only books.
Thank you for your high quality productions!
As for people complaining about the obscurity of technical books - if you make O'Reilly and Pragmatic Publishers your first port of call, you will not need to use Google or any other Internet-wide search engine. This is why "niche" publishers are important.
Hey David, maybe I was not very clear with my beliefs. I simply think it's wrong for those who have the ability to pay for the book and just don't!
That is simply wrong. What I'm inclining to is this, I'm a student who does not have the resources to pay for a book. And when I do find a pirated ebook that is of value to me I'm filled with joy. As for all the other comments. Believe what you want and just know that all of us are not born with a silver spoon in our mouths. "Mommy and Daddy will give me an allowance, while I'm in school" is not a option some of us can rely on.
Like I said sorry for your declining royalties. If you ever provide a cheaper alternative for me to pick your mind and learn from you I would definitely not have a problem with that. =)
I love books and am generally happy to pay for them but even I have found myself increasingly using pirated PDFs for one simple reason: the obsolescence of technical books is too rapid. If it wants to continue getting paid, the technical publishing community needs to switch to a model where I don't feel compelled to throw out $50+ books every two years.
I understand versions change and you have to re-write parts of the book. But I should have to pay $50 all over again for what is essentially a dot release. We need tech pubs maintenance fees essentially.
I realize the rational response to this is "but you don't have to throw it out - 98% of it is still useful..." and I agree, rationally that is true but as a consumer it feels very unpleasant to see the new edition in the bookstore but the old edition on your bookshelf.
Completely irrational, yes, but as a consumer I know that is a major factor in my increasing decision not to buy technology books. So, either move to a pure subscription model or move to a perpetual license + maint fee model.
I would really like to see a large paypal/donation button on your left sidebar. I saw that you replied with a donation link from your 5th edition; I never saw that before/referenced in the material before (probably skipped over it as others might have as well).
I like to know that majority of my money is going to the author and not the publisher (as some of the other commenter agree). I am not saying to give away your book; that is crazy talk. Just put up an easy to access, clearly visible link.
Less obfuscation and more visibility to a donation button means people are more likely to see it (duh) and impulsively donate (SEO mindset). So please, put a donation button on the main page of your site. I am sure you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. I will be one of the first ones to use it =)
Mr. Flanagan - Thanks for all the great books! You're a great writer and I've been in awe at the elegance of some of your java code. You are the reason why there should be protection of copyright.
I think one factor that has undermined the publishing industry in the last decade or so has been the used book market. Many books seem to go very quickly from the usual retail price to $6 to $4 to $.99 and even the royalties there obviously don't go to the author.
But illegal copying is also a problem and I think the publishing industry must find or create technology prevents illegal copying.
I don't mind long for the days of $60 technical books, but made sure last two developer books I bought were new so that it supported the author (which was especially easy at a price of $25).
Pretty sure the drop in sales is due to competition from wikibooks, stack overflow, and the 10 biggillion webdev blogs out there and not piracy.
This is certainly a tricky topic.
First of all I think Google should not in any way be censored. Filtered perhaps but never censored. It is a matter of steps and if you take the step to censor Google how much longer until you only let firefox go to certain sites or so on. And ranking is merely a matter of popularity; as you yourself have proven with this post title, if you have what people want you'll rank highly, if not you won't.
Second, piracy in itself should also be looked at as a business problem. Would someone buy an expensive book unless they had to? The answer is yes but not always. The internet has really reduced the value of such tomes of knowledge and learning and although they may cost you a lot of money to make people feel (correctly I believe - learning should be free in an ideal world) that they should not pay for this.
It's a very tricky thing to discuss because there is no clear line between theft and sharing knowledge in our idiotic copyright rules. I mean sure, I'm a content creator myself and I know that for all my time and effort spent writing I'll probably end up making a total of 10$ on all my books. But that's fine because that's what they're worth to people. The solution is not to cry for antiquated systems where sharing is impossible, it's to invent the next kind of motivation for people to buy.
Your business model is a problem because people trying to learn a programming language usually don't have the money or the motivation to buy a huge reference book. They just borrow it from a friend (which is a very good and legal thing) and read it that way. The only people who should pay for this are those who use it every day and keep it on their desk for reference. Otherwise this should be open and free for all who are curious.
My view of copyright is that it shouldn't exist. Sure there are loopholes that could be exploited there (such as people selling your content and so on) but basically books once bought should be open to sharing, especially highly specialized books like this one. The solution for the author should be to simply price it higher but that's not necessarily going to work (won't sell meaning price will go down).
But all in all the problem is with the business model in itself. It's just not that profitable anymore to write large tomes of knowledge and that's perfectly okay. I'm sorry you won't make enough money but you're not the only one whose job is becoming obsolete.
The solution is simple: don't make anymore java books, instead create a large community of free (or paid if you can figure out a nice price point) java consulting and tutoring and make your money from that.
And I'm sorry but what you're saying is just complaining, the industrial model where you do your job by a plan and that's great is dying and the solution is not to keep it alive. It's like complaining about landlines going away. The king is dead, long live the king!
And piracy is not a crime, content creators do not have to exert themselves every time a copy is made therefore they do not deserve to get paid for each effortless copy.
I guess my CONCLUSION is this:
Want to be a writer? Make free content then have your fans support you up to a sustainable model where you get money for writing the book and then you release it for free. Those who really want it will pay or else the book won't be made and those who want it for free will get it for free anyway and maybe will fund the next print issue.
What a great way to save cash Charles! You know there are plenty more like that. Stealing from supermarkets. Picking the pockets of people in the street. Just general dishonesty at the expense of people who do work for a living and pay their way.
And you like David's book too. I'm sure that makes him feel a whole lot better.
Hi David
Just clicked on the link above to your book on Amazon and found ...
Formats
Amazon Price New from
Kindle Edition $36.78
Paperback $28.71
I know you don't control this but WTF? The electronic (Kindle) version costs $8.07 more than the physical item (including free shipping).
I think this is an example of a "broken business model" says much about your (and similar ones for the Music industry) problems.
I used, more than 20 years ago, be an editor for a UK technical book publisher we faced problems of photocopy piracy back then.
"Plus la change plus le meme chose". Good luck
I have to agree with Nate. I regularly find physical books on Amazon cheaper than what the publisher wants for an e-book. Considering the retailer gets 50% of the physical book's price, I am really offended that the publishers aren't offering some of that extra money in the way of lower prices.
This is especially crazy to me in that I'd prefer to have the physical book for anything but the nutshell books. (Though the Java in a Nutshell epub on my iPad takes way too long to navigate through.) With Amazon Prime, I can get my preferred format in two days (one day for $4 more) at a cheaper price.
To me, the magic price would be $10 or $20. I'd feel no hesitation at buying any O'Reilly book at $10. A little less so at $20, but I think I'd buy most of the relevant animal books at that price.
I'm with those above who get most of my technology related information from Blogs, online documentation, and user Q&A sites like StackOverflow.
It's pretty hard for print books that have to go through the whole editorial process to keep up with technology (I've actually co-authored a popular tech book a few years ago, so I'm familiar with how long it takes from the time the writing is done to the print coming out.)
For example, I have a 5th edition copy of your JavaScript book. However, I don't really have a use for a 6th since I've kept up with the technology after getting introduced to it via your older version. Books are a great way to get introduced to a tech, but once you're onboard with the basics, there's better ways to keep up...
Where do you get those prices? A PAPERBACK for $28.71? My latest pb is $7.99 on Amazon. I can't see Amazon US prices from the UK but I can see Barnes and Noble ones. B&N list my new hardback for $15.35 and the same book for the Nook at $12.99. So the ebook is cheaper, as they are in the UK too.
http://productsearch.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?WRD=david+hewson+the+fallen+angel&page=index&prod=univ&choice=allproducts&query=david+hewson+the+fallen+angel&flag=False&pos=-1&box=david+hewson+the+fallen+angel&box=david%20hewson%20the%20fallen%20angel&pos=-1&ugrp=2
Hi David,
perhaps O'Reilly is stretching themselves to thin to follow "the trends". There is so much going on where others are much faster and get the interesting stuff covered. Not always with the O'Reilly quality, but sometimes really close (and O'Reilly had some really lousy books in the past too).
I can only tell what I missed the last years: More Pocket Guides on current topics (Clojure, Scala) or long-running topics (MooTools, a revised version of the RTF Pocket Guide - yes, RTF is not as dead as one might wish ;). The vi Pocket Guide was outdated (it seems that there is a new one), there should be Pocket Guides on HTML5, CSS3, updated ones on HTTP and CGI, some for optimizing Websites and what not. There now is a book on Clojure, but I already have 3 other books on this topic, so O'Reilly (once again) missed it for me.
Perhaps bare-bones JavaScript is no longer what people are interested in, when you can do lot's of stuff with CSS3 transitions and animations, combined with a little bit of jQuery or MooTools and the like. There seems to be room for quality content in publishing (the PragProgs seem to do rather well, and this is where most of my ebooks are from), but to find the audience is harder than before.
And there's a trend in bookstores too (here in Berlin, Germany, at least): Less and less books on programming on the shelves, more and more crappy "learn ... in 7 days" or 10 different (?) books on Adobe Creative Suite 3/4/5/... So where could people get their hands on a book to decide if it would be worth their money? So to "pirate" a book could be the only way to have a look without buying. Just a my 2 EURcent ...
Hi David
Re: "Where did you get those prices?" As I said in my earlier comment (anonymous because of your damn Captcha), I clicked on the book top left on this page (the one with the rhino on the cover) which led me to:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596805527/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=davidflanagancom&link_code=as3&camp=211189&creative=373489&creativeASIN=0596805527
This post is about that book not your, I'm sure quite excellent, book Fallen Angel. No idea why you pointed to that.
David,
Not that it does you any good, but I am saddened (although I suppose not surprised) to learn of your turn of fortune. I own 3 of your books (Definitive JS, Java/Nutshell, Ruby), and return to them again and again. Each are superbly crafted and well worth the asking price.
Your links were the first I have seen from Tim O'Reilly on this general subject. I'm pretty shocked at the poor reasoning and moral insouciance in his go-with-the-flow 'apologia' -- so much so that it's tempting to resolve not to buy any of the books he publishes ever again.
If this is what industry 'thought leaders' are saying, well ...
Blek, Each IS superbly crafted ... :)
Mate, iBooks don't contain drm. They're straight epubs or unprotected pdf's. The only drm on the AppStore is in apps and movies.
My recommendation? Turn your book into a iPhone/iPad app or iBook (get your publisher to export it as a PDF). Sell it for 1.99c. That's a impulse buy, unlike $25. You then get $1.39 per book rather than ~$1.25 per $25 dead tree version. And the numbers sold aren't limited by a publishers print run, say 20k copies. A digital version is also way more portable than 5kg of paper, more keyword searcheable too. Keeping it current is way easier too, just update it in increments. Have a section devoted to Internet links, even embed live info. In publishing promotion is critical to making sales, with a digital copy people can learn about and download your book in one step.
As a customer I'd look at a dead tree version at 25$ and think where am I'm going to put this? Will it be current long enough to be useful and will the index be better than a search engine keyword search? A digital version at $1.99 will be much more attractive because all those previous issues are moot. If I need to lookup something I can just keyword it, it fits on my iPad with the hundred of other books and you updated it last month with the latest info. There's even links to code on the web. And it's less than 2 bucks. Bargain. You can even buy it worldwide now without having to wait for the publisher to negotiate deals in nonUS countries and local shops for the dead tree bits.
Take control of your IP, publishers have little interest in you making a living.
I've been involved in the production and writing of 8 or so books, mostly long or technical books. I have personal experience in the effort and time needed to produce a dead tree book, the months and months of editing and production etc. It's given me a insight into the publishing business, which is designed for the benefit of the publisher, not the author. At least on the AppStore you get 70% of the sales, access to nearly 200 million customers _willing_ to buy content and you have way more control over your IP. In your current situation the publisher has _all_ the control.
Make it an app and you even get protection from piracy. The whole point of this article ;)
"Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: Text entered was wrong. Try again."
^A rather harsh judgement on my comment, I feel.
Recently (in last year or so, since I got my iPad), I also have shied away from buying physical copies of technical books. Instead of reference works, I mostly use the web for technical reference instead.
However, I would still buy technical books. My expectation is that I should be able to buy a (DRM-free ePub or PDF) copy of a technical book at least as soon as the physical edition is released.
If the digital edition costs as much or more than the physical book, my "I'm being ripped off" instinct kicks in and I don't buy it.
I'd be comfortable (that is to say, it would be a psychologically easy purchase for me) spending about GBP5-6/$10 on an O'Reilly animal book, and my gut feeling is that if O'Reilly put their prices down to this level (the App Store pricing level) they would make a killing.
I bought the 2nd edition of your js reference book. Few months ago i bought 5th edition, even if it has never been translated in italian.
I would like to know if there will be available an update edition of your book (i'm interested even in a pdf edition)
many thanks
Regards
Andrea
I've been an engineer for 30+ years and of all the technical books I've read (quite a few), yours are my favorite (with one exception: Friedl's regex book.) Needless to say, I ordered a copy of the new JSTDG the moment I heard it was coming out. A real, tangible, hold-in-my hands physical book. I just received notice that it shipped today. WooHoo! HTML5 here I come!
Thanks so much for your truly great contributions! (and don't worry, much more good karma is coming your way...)
Have been reading the rough cut of JSTDG and believe that you have done an amazing job. It's one of the best technical books I've read (of which I purchase & read many). There is no free JavaScript resource on the Internet (or paid resource anywhere, for that matter) that is anywhere near as clear and comprehensive as this. It's really a work of art.
It saddens me greatly that you must look for a salaried job -- I'm going to need that 7th edition in a few years! Perhaps you could start projects at kickstarter.com for your future books? Get the money ahead of time from people who need what you do!
When you steal something tangible, the owner loses what he had.
When you copy something digital, the owner has lost nothing.
Copyright is meaningless when there are no physical limitations. Reality is knocking at your door and taking your money - it's up to you to get another job or try to screw up other people's liberties trying to enforce an artificial law.
Finally, I find it offensive that you claim ownership for the equivalent of one long number.
This commentary by Mark Pilgrim might be interesting: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2011/04/29/the-book-is-dead .
Mostly, I fully agree with the vast majority of your thoughts.
Just a liitlle note: I believe that google isn't actively encouraging piracy. People (and by people I mean a big portion of Internet users) support/encourage/yearn for piracy. Google just follows the wave.
So, an actual step forward in the fight against piracy is to change (to some extent possible) the mentality of the users.
David, you wrote: "For 15 years I've been one of those lucky authors who has been able to support himself and his family almost entirely on book royalties."
Change 15 to 14, himself to herself, and I could have written that (and possibly did). As for the entire post, all you'd have to substitute is Dreamweaver for Ruby and Peachpit for O'Reilly, and I definitely could have (yes, that means I've mostly made my living off JavaScript and Java books).
Todd wrote, "I'm with those above who get most of my technology related information from Blogs, online documentation, and user Q&A sites like StackOverflow."
That's the conclusion I've come to, as well—which is why, in February, I started working for Stack Overflow as a Tech Evangelist and Community Mgr. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em…
(a tip for you: we're always hiring smart people!)
Dear David, thank you for the awesome job you've done writing. You've written three of my 30 greatest tech books I still keep on my bookshelf. I rarely look at them today. Searching online for an answer is so much faster. And that is your main problem.
I hope you manage to stay in business of explaining and illuminating complex technologies. There's got to be a business there.
I've been coding for almost 30 years (OMG, I am old :), and this feels like a golden age of software. Tying together the right libraries, frameworks, I can code stuff I could not imagine coding just 10 years ago.
The hardest part of my job these days is finding documentation. Dynamic languages are the worst offenders. Most interesting functions take poorly documented options objects, APIs that evolve through monkey-patching, you can't tell what's going on even by reading the source code ( ruby gems, I am looking at you).
StackOverflow can help, but is not a substitute for good docs. If jQuery did not have superb documentation on their site, I'd like it a lot less.
You might be a very good programmer, but you are a superb technology elucidator. Please, either join Mozilla, or Google, and teach them the skills, or even better, create a startup where your skills are fully utilized.
What could you do? Is it possible to take what you know, create a set of tools others could use to do what you did? Create tools to crowdsource great documentation? Who'd pay you, the developers, readers, or ads? How does Ryan Bates of railscasts makes money? There's got to be a way, docs are a big problem, and big problems make money.
I've written a number of O'Reilly books as well and I totally disagree that piracy is a problem.
Of course there are pirates. But that's not why book sales (and thus royalties) are on the slide.
Book sales are on the slide because the Internet has equalized the ability of quality expertise to be published without the need for a publisher to get into the mix.
You want to learn something about JavaScript? There are a bajillion quality sites (and a bajillion squared crap sites) on the Internet that provide you with tutorials for getting started, learning specific best practices, or how to accomplish a specific task. The reason you buy a book is because you have a function that requires you to be an end-to-end expert on JavaScript.
Formerly, that just wasn't possible. You'd go buy books on a topic just to learn how to get started with a technology or deal with a niche area of a technology.
In short, you are selling fewer books simply because the books aren't needed like they used to be.
I hate to spam threads like this, but I'm actually co-founder of a company that's about to launch something to solve this specific problem.
No, not piracy... I wish we could solve that. But we are making a service which provides a complete content delivery service which will provide the content creator with everything from an audience, payment solutions, dialogues surrounding the content and more.
Basically we want content creators to split their content in two, one free part and one "premium" part, and we then analyze our audience to find out who would like the free content, and present it to them.
We're launching in a few days (was supposed to be today, but we're delayed) and invites are requestable on www.chai.it. No need to sign up three people, we're going to invite everyone as soon as we can anyway. :)
(If you percieve this as spam, David, feel free to delete the post.)
Thanks for a very useful book. I have the print version of the fifth edition. I registered it on the O'Reilly site, and they made me an offer I cannot refuse: an ebook version of the 6th edition for $4.99.
I then went through my bookshelf of O'Reilly books, and registered them all. I finally ended up purchasing 4 ebook upgrades for $4.99 each.
This is what I was expecting from digital publishing: an easy way to update books, and above all, books in PDF format that I can use on my desktop Mac and Linux boxes, along with my iPad.
I've been purchasing books from Packt Publishing as well: they know what I'm interested in from my purchase history, and often offer me 50% off on new ebooks in my interests.
About pricing: Obviously the $4.99 price is a great inentive to buy O'Reilly ebooks when available, but the around €30 price I pay for en ebook at Packt Publishing is reasonable for a technical book. I must say that the 50% off offers (time-limited to around a month) from Packt are a pretty big incentive to buy a book that I really don't need right away, but that I know I'll read at some point.
Finally, the open format (PDF) is very important to me, as is being able to purchase from the publisher's site, without the kind of "region-locking" others have mentioned in the comments. I live in Belgium, and find it amazing that I should be blocked from buying a book from Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. I'd say that closed, copy-protected formats severly discourage me from making a purchase. By principle I don't like to waste my time finding a pirate copy, so I'll simply not read an unavailable book.
Packt Publishing uses an interesting anti-piracy technique: they embed my name, address, and date on the footer of each ebook page. This doesn't bother me the least, but it is a good incentive not to put the ebook on a sharing site.
My own rule of thumb for 'should you buy a copy' works like this: If you couldn't get the copy for free, *would* you spend money on a copy? If the answer's yes, you should be buying one. If you can honestly say to yourself that you wouldn't - that you'd live without it, then you aren't depriving someone of income.
Otherwise you should be shelling out some bucks to someone, and don't try the excuse of 'oh they're famous and rich so they don't need my money'. (That was my son's excuse when he asked me to make copies of some music CDs. I told him no.) Even if they ARE famous and rich, what they do with their money should be up to THEM.
John,
I'm glad to hear that O'Reilly is taking care of their registered customers. I don't think O'Reilly can sell print books below their sticker price, or booksellers would demand a better deal from them. But they do seem to try to make the difference up with special offers like this.
I don't know why O'Reilly doesn't watermark their ebooks (or at least their PDFs). Might be a philosophical issue, or maybe just a technical issue that they haven't solved yet.
see this two link :-
many report clear out the thing that in future because thing are digital they are easy to share in this condition you called piracy.
piracy help only user who get them without paying any costs. well you can do nothing about it because their is not only your single books pirate. their are billion of people who get the same problem every day.
sometime piracy is better option for students. because student have no credit-cart or debit card they can't purchase the books from amazon or any other things nor they can pay high cost. i know it's book deserve it but it's not all time story that Every student have enough money then they can purchase books so they can get easily pirate books so they not care about purchase a copy.
i know it's eat you business but i hope Every developer should pay for another developer's work if they have money in their pocket and every developer should care about student who are unable to purchase their works.
http://msl1.mit.edu/ESD10/docs/darknet5.pdf
http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~mdr/teaching/modules03/security/students/SS5/Steganography.pdf
Hi Dave, I'm very interested and already purchased your JavaScript The Definitive Guide of the 5th edition. For convenience reason, I always buy original printed copies for such reference-quality books. Your book helps me (and my team) a lot. So I just say to you, keep writing !
Stop trolling.
Are you saying that your declining revenue has nothing to do with the shape of the economy?
Seriously, your book is second on the best sellers list and you're complaining? Get over it.
Also, you might think about the fact that our economy is in the toilet and people can't afford the kind of prices that you are listing.
Curious - are you opposed to libraries? If not, then this whole post is kind of hypocritical.
I bought your book as an eBook on Amazon. Its great! Thank you for writing it.
I think that good books should be paid.
Regarding javascript by David Flanagan, it is an awesome book (i used an older version that I bought). Not paying a book is same as not paying a public transport: you might get away with that, but at the end, quality of transport, (as quality of books) will get worse :(
Most people who download e-books (illegaly), watch ripped tv shows on youtube or download cracked versions of software (except maybe games) are people who can't afford to buy those products. I know for a fact that in many places of the planet developers earn $ 150 a month, and spending a big part of their salary to buy one single book that will be outdated in a few years is obviously very unfair. What O'Reilly should do is give free books to people who proove they can't afford them and stamp down with more determination on piracy (It would be the fairest solution).
I hope piracy doesn't stop you from writing other great books in the future, though.
Hey david,
You are an a**h**e. You idiot, you stole my code.
I searched for [title] pdf because I wanted to find a sample chapter. I love physical books and simply can't cope with reading any book on a computer screen (including e-readers) so if I liked it I'd have bought it - but I wouldn't have bought it without at least having a sampler first.
But this preachy rant has put me off you as an author.
Some people will consider your book worth buying and have the money to pay for it - they'll pay. Others will either not have the money or not consider it worth paying for - they won't pay. The only workable model for "intellectual property" on a non-B2B scale is one where you accept that people will only pay if they feel you deserve it: not because they have to.
If you have such a problem with "piracy" (the word is so loaded you might as well call it "rape") then you could just stop writing books. There are enough people to take your place.
jQuery Enlightenment is a PDF book that, for every code sample, has a link to jsbin.com that lets you examine the code in a "real" environment, not just on paper. That format was tremendous for picking concepts up more quickly.
http://jqueryenlightenment.com/
Eloquent Javascript is another book I've heard good things about, but have not yet read. It also has a code editor (but I don't like it as much as the jsbin version).
http://eloquentjavascript.net/
With your book, I see O'Reilly lets you download sample code, but isn't that a bit old-fashioned, when you could just have the whole book online, and have all your javascript examples in online editors like jsbin or jsfiddle?
Sorry for being so late to the party but I would like to put a word in.
For a technical subject that interests me I like the approach that Mark Murphy took with his Android books. Check http://commonsware.com/warescription to see it.
Along with the print books he has his own subscription program.
With the yearly subscription I get all the books and updates made to them in that year in the digital format of my choice. And more importantly I get a online chat hour with the author every week so I can clear any doubts I have with the books along with mailing list support. I get the chat transcripts in the mail and a github repository with all the code.
Also what got me into those books was the Four-to-Free program that Mark has going. Any edition of any book that is four years old or has sold more than 4000 is released under a Creative Commons Licence.
I could check the previous versions for free to see if I liked them enough to buy the subscription and sure enough he made me a paying costumer by giving away his work.
That's what creates value for me. The engagement I get with the author and the quality of the work.
I love your jquery book but I would think it would benefit you more to use this approach. I would love to see updates to it every week or so. the book evolving with the API. a rolling release if you will like Arch Linux. That would engage me, reminding me that I have a service that continues to add value to it after the "purchase" and would make me more willing to renew the subscription.
Thanks for all the effort you put in your books.
I'll openly admit I had a pirated copy of the fourth edition. Anti-Piracy laws aren't serious enough where I live. However I skimmed through a couple chapters and I was really impressed at the books quality and realized that it is completely unfair to deprive the author of what he is owed after such a quality piece of work on a language that is a pain to get a complete reference for.
So in the end I'm going to get the hard copy and ebook. This is one pirate that aint sailing no more. :)
I have a problem when I try to run the code.. I checked firebug and returns me the "payments is not defined", can anyone tell me what's wrong?
Then, I just copied the script from tutorial (I have a purchased ebook via amazon) and returned me same error as in first case when I wrote it by myself(reading from the book)..
Maybe you could get together with the different major frameworks and IDE's and issue a "Flanagan JavaScript Helpfile" plug-in for each at say $10 or so. I'd invest in that.
I'm sure most would agree with me that we'd much rather have something we can type a search term into than be saddles with a bunch of bound printed paper (although books do have their place). Instead gve us something built into an IDE or framework. That also would go a long way to advertise your credentials. Another suggestion: those who get the plugin could also get a $10 discount toward buying your book. Hey, most of the JS frameworks are build with JS so it should be a cakewalk for you to implement, yes?
There is another aspect to this: Some of us are ONLY interested in free media intended to free distribution. We're not seeking pirates of your pay content, we are after the free material produced by people like ourselves-only.
I found this site simply looking for any freely distributed javascript tutorials. Under no circumstances would I pay for any product, and I would be perfectly happy to have a search option to hide ALL "non-free" content including both pay product AND pirates of it! If a site for something for sale is shown to me, it wastes my time and I would prefer not to be shown it.
After all, on my computers, I do not use Windows, I use Linux. The main exception to the rule above: I do NOT recognize software patents, which are illegal in most countries and if 100% enforced would block both free and pay distribution of most software in the US, due to unresolvable patent thickets.Still-if it wasn't for the common inablity of Windoze computers with default install to play media files distributed in free codecs, I wouold rip out write support for patented codecs. That is why I removed all programs using mono (.NET) from all of my Ubuntu machines.
As for music and movies, I stopped buying any when the downloading suits began. I would rather see torrents, so to speak, of unsigned bands putting out their product so the record companies go broke trying to sell in competition with freely distributed original product. I had a band in 1991-1993, and if Pirate Bay had existed then, I would have used it to distribute my original material, so as to bypass the gatekeepers, the snakes, and the real pirates of Hollywood!
I don't expect or ask that I get your book for free. I would like it, however, if I didn't have to pay 40% more for the PDF than I would for the paper edition on amazon.com. How is that justified? From amazon I get an 1100 page book and they pay to ship it. From your site I get a static PDF, which costs you zero marginal cost to produce, and virtually nothing to serve up.
I assume that you get to keep more of the money from a purchase on your site than from an amazon purchase. Why don't you price the eBook nearer to amazon's price?