Ruby Books -- A Question

ruby-talk
1

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement? Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

Regards,

···

–
-mark.

Mark Probert probertm@NOSPAM_nortelnetworks.com
Nortel Networks ph. (613) 768-1082

All opinions expressed are my own and do not
reflect in any way those of Nortel Networks.

2

the pragmatic programmers should have a paypal type link where one could
contribute some $$ when downloading/browsing their most excellent book. this
type of thing is becoming more common with, for example, artists who post
their music for free download - i see nothing wrong with giving something away
and allowing people to make donations. now, how that helps publisher i do not
know, but imagine if the pickaxe might have been posted on their (the
publisher’s) site, where they could track hits/downloads and split donations
made by users. my feeling is that this might have added up to a significant
sum. personally, i used to book online for about a month, felt guilty, bought
it, but have never opened it - i still use only to copy i downloaded. several
people in my office have done the same, so i think it’s quite possible that a
donation type model could work in the open source doccumnetation world.

-a

···

On 29 Jan 2003, Mark Probert wrote:

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement? Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

–

====================================

Ara Howard
NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
Information and Technology Services
Data Systems Group
R/FST 325 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80305-3328
Email: ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov
Phone: 303-497-7238
Fax: 303-497-7259
====================================

3

More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

Yes. :slight_smile:

4

In article Xns9312680B280CprobertmNOSPAMacmorg@47.129.29.57,

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

I am having similar discussions with a publisher who is raising similar
questions…

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement?

I think the statement is generally true: in the US, anyway, Ruby books
are not flying off the shelves…

Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

One datapoint: I’ve been told by someone in the industry that last year
sales of technical books were down by ~35% from the year before and the
year before (2001) they were down ~15% from the year before that.

I think the recession has to by playing a part- though that’s not the
whole reason.

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

I really doubt that the fact that the Pickaxe is available for free is
impacting sales of other Ruby titles all that much (or sales of the paper
Pickaxe either for that matter). In some ways you could look at the
Pickaxe as potentially helping sales of other more specific Ruby books
because it brings people into the Ruby ‘fold’.

Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

Well, it’s a classic chicken-or-egg problem. We do need more Rubyists to
support more Ruby books. More people will try Ruby if they see a shelf
full of Ruby books down at their local bookstore.

But as far as sales of Ruby books go, I think there are two major factors:

  1. the recession has hit all technical book sales and since the market for
    Ruby books was already relatively small it’s had a proportionately greater
    impact.
  2. We need more Rubyists in the US (Sales of Ruby books in Japan seem to
    be fine…)

Phil

···

Mark Probert <probertm@NOSPAM_acm.org> wrote:

“Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?”
Amy Weiss (accusing theregister.co.uk of engaging in ‘tabloid journalism’)
Senior VP, Communications
Recording Industry Association of America

5

Well I’m resorting to printer while ordered Pickaxe just “got
lost” with our post “service”…

···

On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 12:26:18AM +0900, Mark Probert wrote:

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

–
---- WBR, Michael Shigorin mike@altlinux.ru
------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/

6

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement? Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

My Ruby book was canceled by Wrox because of expected poor sales, based on sales figures for other Ruby books in English. The
decline in the US economy is a big factor. Overall, tech book sales were down quite a bit last year.

James Britt

7

we need to figure out how to write a REAL WORLD version of:

Rubyists += 1

(then more books would be forth coming)

···

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 08:26 am, Mark Probert wrote:

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement? Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

Regards,

–
tom sawyer, aka transami
transami@transami.net

8

Chad Fowler wrote:

More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

Yes. :slight_smile:

For me it was the article in Dobbs that made me pick up the Pickaxe
book. From there I just wanted more books (with the exception of Making
Use of Ruby which I felt was too coffee table).

A Ruby cookbook would be nice.

9

In article Pine.LNX.4.33.0301291559390.2139-100000@eli.fsl.noaa.gov,

···

ahoward ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov wrote:

On 29 Jan 2003, Mark Probert wrote:

Rubyists,

I have recently had a very interesting discussion with
a book publisher about Ruby and Ruby books. One of the
things that he mentioned is that Ruby books are not
really selling many copies.

Do any of the authors on this list have any comments on
the truth of this statement? Anyone care to speculate
as to what may be the cause and what we could do?

One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truely excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.

Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?

the pragmatic programmers should have a paypal type link where one could
contribute some $$ when downloading/browsing their most excellent book. this
type of thing is becoming more common with, for example, artists who post
their music for free download - i see nothing wrong with giving something away
and allowing people to make donations. now, how that helps publisher i do not
know, but imagine if the pickaxe might have been posted on their (the
publisher’s) site, where they could track hits/downloads and split donations
made by users. my feeling is that this might have added up to a significant
sum. personally, i used to book online for about a month, felt guilty, bought
it, but have never opened it - i still use only to copy i downloaded. several
people in my office have done the same, so i think it’s quite possible that a
donation type model could work in the open source doccumnetation world.

Interesting idea… Personally, I can’t read a book online. I may use the
online Pickaxe for looking up things, but I’m not gonna sit down and read
it for any amount of time greater than a couple of minutes. I think a lot
of people start out using the online version and then go out and buy the
dead-tree version.

Phil

“Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?”
Amy Weiss (accusing theregister.co.uk of engaging in ‘tabloid journalism’)
Senior VP, Communications
Recording Industry Association of America

10

The real question here is if RubyBooks#<< is called before or after the value
of Rubyists is increased… or both-- and hence it is recursive. If so,
let’s hope it’s tail-recursive.

// Bruce

···

On Thursday 30 January 2003 04:34 pm, Tom Sawyer wrote:

we need to figure out how to write a REAL WORLD version of:

Rubyists += 1

–
Bruce R. Williams :: [iusris/#ruby-lang] :: http://www.codedbliss.com

‘It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate,
tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.’
– Samuel Adams

11

Peter Hickman wrote:

A Ruby cookbook would be nice.

Actually as a Perl programmer the Perl and ??? (XML, DBI, LWP etc) style
books are really useful. But I think getting such a single topic
focused book out would be really hard for a less well established language.

However a Ruby and XML book could be put together as an edited work from
several authors, possibly the module authors with an editor for consistency.

Looking to the O’Reilly Perl & XML book as a guide we have

10 chapters

1 - About Perl and XML and why Perl and XML
2 - Overview of XML and XML processing software
3 and 4 XML processing basics
5 SAX
6 Tree processing
7 DOM
8 XPath, XSLT and other stuff
9 RSS, SOAP etc
10 Coding XML

and only a little over a cm thick.

It’s a can do if you can get the various authors involved, an editor and
(of course) a publisher.

12

Same here.

Although the book is online, it cannot be compared with the paper in a hand.

I even put mine in harcover to last longer (in case there won’t be 2nd edition
soon :slight_smile:

Sincerely,
Gour

···

Phil Tomson (ptkwt@shell1.aracnet.com) wrote:

Interesting idea… Personally, I can’t read a book online. I may use the
online Pickaxe for looking up things, but I’m not gonna sit down and read
it for any amount of time greater than a couple of minutes. I think a lot
of people start out using the online version and then go out and buy the
dead-tree version.

–
Gour
gour@mail.inet.hr
Registered Linux User #278493

13

Phil Tomson wrote:

In article Pine.LNX.4.33.0301291559390.2139-100000@eli.fsl.noaa.gov,

Interesting idea… Personally, I can’t read a book online. I may use the
online Pickaxe for looking up things, but I’m not gonna sit down and read
it for any amount of time greater than a couple of minutes. I think a lot
of people start out using the online version and then go out and buy the
dead-tree version.

I think you’re completely right here. Personally I bought several ‘books
on CD’ like Meyers’ ‘Effective C++’, and on or another ‘… CD
Bookshelf’ (by O’Reilly) and find myself buying paper version anyway.
They’re far easier to read - perhaps a high quality flat screen moitor
would help here (but I haven’t found anyone to pay for it :wink: ).
Unless copied to hard disk marking, underlining, and adding remarks -
and corrections isn’t possible on the CD.
And I’d never take my PC with me to read in bed anyway.

Sorry for being kind of OT…

Stephan

···

ahoward ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov wrote:

On 29 Jan 2003, Mark Probert wrote:

14

[…]

However a Ruby and XML book could be put together as an edited work
from several authors, possibly the module authors with an editor for
consistency.

Looking to the O’Reilly Perl & XML book as a guide we have

10 chapters

1 - About Perl and XML and why Perl and XML
2 - Overview of XML and XML processing software
3 and 4 XML processing basics
5 SAX
6 Tree processing
7 DOM
8 XPath, XSLT and other stuff
9 RSS, SOAP etc
10 Coding XML

and only a little over a cm thick.

And it glosses over most of the material. New Riders “XML and Perl” book
looks into things a bit more, but has other problems. (2cm, for those
who measure a book’s quality by the width of its spine.)

cheers,

···

–
Iain.

15

Iain ‘Spoon’ Truskett wrote:

And it glosses over most of the material. New Riders “XML and Perl” book
looks into things a bit more, but has other problems. (2cm, for those
who measure a book’s quality by the width of its spine.)

There is however a need for a ‘get you going’ type of book if the
language is to pick up. Deeply technical books are only of use to deeply
technical programmers, and there are a lot less of those than we would
like to think (about ourselves).

I actually prefer thin books, large often equals verbose. I was brought
up on the likes of the K&R C manual rather than Teach Yourself C in 21 days.