Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept Office 98 + Publisher?

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Kevin Kinsey
> Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 9:57 AM
> To: Ted Mittelstaedt
> Cc: freebsd-questions
> Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD simple enough for Novices, Will FreeBSD accept
> Office 98 + Publisher?
>
>
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> >
> > When I wrote my book Addison Wesley used Quark internally, but required
> > me to submit my manuscript -on paper-.  They then retyped it, sent me
> > the proofs (which had enormous numbers of typos in them) I corrected and
> > sent back.
> >
> > I asked them if I gave them the manuscript in Quark source files if they
> > would take that, (because I had access to a pirated copy of Quark and
> > figured I would import what I had written my book in) and they would
> > not.  They required a paper manuscript.
> >
> > Thus, use whatever you want to write your book - if your going to get it
> > published most likely your publisher will not be using what your using.
>
> :-D
>
> --- a good insight.  "Team written" books with some of today's publishers
> are even worse --- some friends of mine had a tome published with plenty
> of errors, including Microsoft Word "auto-corrections" inside their code
> blocks (I will grant that the publisher wasn't quite Addison-Wesley in
> stature).
>
> It's pretty easy to understand why many people choose to publish their
> work privately these days.
>

:-)

Actually, that's not it.  Excuse my ranting but there's several bad things
driving private publishing these days.

The publishers got the scent of blood with the Harry Potter books, in
some ways those books ruined the book publishing industry.  Before, nobody
thought a mere book could garner that kind of money.  Today, they all think
this and so are all looking for the next Harry Potter series.  As a result
the publishing companies are buying manuscripts that they think are going to
be big sellers based on what their marketing people think is selling, and
not caring if the work is crap or not.  Good work that would likely have a
niche market is being turned down, crappy work that they think is widely
appealing is being published.

And for example my book - well, it did make money.  But, not a lot of
it.  20 years ago, all the publishing houses wanted was for a book to
make money, they didn't care if it was a lot of money as long as it made
some.  They made their living off of a huge stable of books, all not
making a lot of money, but making some.  But, today, it's not good enough
for a book to make some money, it has to make a phenominal amount of
money.

That's not to say that AW treated me badly, quite the contrary.  But,
once my book had it's run, and they had a reading on what they could
make off of the FreeBSD market, they had no further interest in any
more FreeBSD books.  At least, for then.  (that was 7 years ago, of
course)  No doubt if I were to decide to write a Linux book
they would probably be very interested.  Of course, such a book would
have to be aimed at desktop users, and that's not my interest area.

I suspect that eventually when another decade has gone by and we don't
see another Harry Potter series rearing it's head out of the unknown
muck, the publishing houses will get back to the work of just looking
for good works for large and small markets, developing up and coming
authors, and all the stuff they used to do B.H.P.  I might put my foot
back into the water at that time, as well.

Ted