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From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too)
Date: 19 Dec 1995 21:08:26 GMT
Organization: Utah Valley State College, Orem, Utah
Lines: 46
Message-ID: <4b79ka$1t5@park.uvsc.edu>
References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <DJnHBn.BE2@endicor.com> <4b337j$bfm@felix.junction.net> <DJsv8t.7po@hamartun.priv.no> <4b5pqd$asb@pell.pell.chi.il.us>
NNTP-Posting-Host: hecate.artisoft.com
orc@pell.chi.il.us (Orc) wrote:
] *Do* enjoy trying to kill off your operating system of choice.
] I can see one reason why the books on installing and running FreeBSD
] aren't popping off the bookshelves -- with k-RAD d00dz like yourself
] proudly proclaiming that they won't read them, why waste the time
] writing the goddamn book?
They aren't "popping of the bookshelves" because the majority
of us have full time work to do and don't have the luxury of
blowing as much time as is required up front to put a decent
book on the shelves in the first place: ~2600 hours.
If you have no real time commitments, feel free to spend the 8
hours a day for a year required to put something together. Or
get together with four of your buddies and do it in three months.
To make up for our inability to document differences from the
standard distribution, most of the people hacking the code
simply do not introduce differences perceptible to the user
in terms of administrative or other interface, which means that
the standard books apply.
I estimate you would need to sell 20,000 copies if you were
willing to do the job in a year or less and were willing to
take a $3 per book royalty (or able to get it) and were willing
to live with the $60k/year before taxes, self pay on medical,
and pre-spend the money up-front in your commitment, since you
won't make the time investment back until the book sells that
many copies -- and that will be *after* it is published.
Consider that after taxes and your pre-pay on the interest at 6%
for the writing period, and assuming you are going to do books
from now on, this works out to about $19k a year for the first
two years of your authoring career. Assuming you are good at it.
So either go for it or don't, but quit insisting that someone
else "go for it" on your behalf.
Terry Lambert
terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.