The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Gonzalo Nemmi
> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 2:06 PM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating
> System
> 
> 
> Actually .. I'd be more than willing to buy an updated version of 
> that book 
> too .. I _do_ undertand your point of view but to be honest, I'd 
> rather buy a 
> new copy that prints everything up to _yesterday_ and that has at 
> least some 
> hints into tomorrow ...
> 

If you only knew the work that has to be done behind the scenes
to get one of these out that prints everything up to yesterday...

> 
> Finally; Editor, Publisher, _Dear_Writer_: if you guys are 
> hesitant .. I think 
> there's at least two copies of an updated version of "The Design and 
> Implementation .. " already sold with a lot more on the way :)
> 

Nobody makes a living off writing FreeBSD books.  If the planets
align and everything works you can perhaps make enough to buy
yourself a toy, like a new motorcycle or something.  But if you
divide it out, for the time it takes to put one of these together,
you would make more money flipping burgers.  Seriously.

Now, Linux or Macintosh, that's a horse of a different color...

These are labors of love, or Resume builders, or merely proving
to yourself that you can actually do it and play with the Big Boys.

When I put out Corporate Networker's Guide, I literally burned the
CD for version 4.2 about 4 hours after 4.2-RELEASE was posted and
FedExd the final proof and that burned CD about 2 hours after that.
The book started showing up in the stores about a month later, and
that helped sales because many folks bought the book to get
a current CD, mainly to have a real pressed CD, not a burned one.

When the second printing came out, the deadline for turning in the
final proof and CD was a week before version 4.4 RELEASE came out.  I
pleaded with the publisher to delay it for just a week to get the next
version in, they basically said that any delay would mean no
second printing.  They have these printing presses so far in advance
and your book gets such a narrow slot of time for access to the
printer that if you screw it up, the publisher just says hell with
you and that's that.  That decision probably caused a noticably
larger percent of the second printing run to end up remaindered,
rather than sold at full price.

A few years later about 6 months after the book went out of print
I actually bought a box of 20 of the books for something like a dollar
a book, from a remainder dealer, just to have a future cache of them
that I could give away.

Kind of funny to think about that being almost a decade ago...

Ted Mittelstaedt
Author, FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com