[FM Discuss] books and fm - need your thoughts!

[adam hyde]

On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 17:16 -0500, Joshua Facemyer wrote:
> Adam,
> 
> A question I have is how possible book sales can help FM to not only 
> stay in existence but also continue to develop to better support users' 
> (writers') needs?  I personally would want some profit to go directly to 
> FM from anything I was involved with if it will help FM to be the best 
> it can be.

I think there are two issues here  (1) FM needs to consider its
financially subsistence - so we can grow and get better at what we do.
(2) enabling doc teams the opportunity to make their own books and sell
them is a good reason to use FM which in turn helps FM grow...

So to me, a mix of the two is interesting.

> 
> The second question I have is whether we couldn't do something of a 
> combination, such as 1&3.
> 

We can mix it up anyway we want. What do you like about those options?

adam



> More after the answers.
> 
> JF
> 
> adam hyde wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> > I just wanted to pitch-in with a few questions about how people would
> > like to manage books in FM. This is a pretty important moment for FM as
> > we are really about to enter into a very interesting new phase - book
> > publishing. Its especially interesting as I don't see anyone on the map
> > able to go direct from 'wiki' (FM is at its heart a wiki) to polished
> > books as easily as we can. So...discussion on this is really important
> > for the shaping of what we are doing as we are cutting new ground and
> > there are no established models that we can follow. 
> >
> > So please chime in with your thoughts, small, big or otherwise!
> >
> > A short update first...It seems like the automated PDF generator
> > (Objavi) is working nicely. Brianna made a Wikimedia Commons manual in
> > FM and then uploaded this to lulu.com and its looking lovely. Its the
> > first book made using Objavi and I got the thumbs up from FMs designer
> > (Lotte) so it passed the FM good-design certification process :)
> >
> > There is just one undocumented feature (ah, yes, Joshua we might even
> > call this one a bug ;) to sort out with the generator and how it manages
> > embedded fonts, but when this is done then I think we have a pretty
> > astonishing mechanism in place for producing books straight out of FM.
> >
> > The question that needs to be addressed now is how are books to be
> > managed. 
> >
> > The first thing to remember is that all the sources in FM are GPL so
> > anyone can make a book out of FM and do what they like with it. The
> > first question to answer then is what exactly is a FM book? Is it
> > something made in FM and sold in FM, or is it something broader? I can,
> > for example, imagine several scenarios, none of which are exclusive (nor
> > is it an exhaustive list of possibilities) but we may wish to prefer
> > some approaches more than others.
> >
> > So... here are three of the main possibilities I have thought of, please
> > critique and throw in other possibilities...
> >
> > *FM Book Shop*
> > This is the most traditional model. FM produces a series of books and
> > sells them online or possibly strikes up distribution deals with book
> > shops. This would be managed 'by FM' (in this case me really unless
> > someone puts their hand-up as we don't have anyone else working fulltime
> > for FM). Profits (if any) are managed by FM (me again unless someone
> > else wishes to take charge of book sales).
> >
> > *Maintainer Seller*
> > What books are made and sold are determined by the Maintainer(s) of each
> > manual. How they are sold is also determined by the same person(s).
> > Profits (if any) are managed by the Maintainers.
> >
> > *Independent Seller*
> > Possibly the least traditional - we endorse _anyone_ to make and sell
> > the books. In this case we provide the sources for the book and if
> > someone wants to sell the books using any method and at any price then
> > we say go for it. Profits (if any) go directly to the seller.
> >
> >
> >
> > There are questions associated with each model. I have some thoughts on
> > these already but I would rather not shape the discussion with questions
> > about each here. 
> >
> > ok... _your_thoughts please!
> >
> > :)
> >
> > adam
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >   
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> > http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
> >   
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
-- 
Adam Hyde
FLOSS Manuals

http://www.flossmanuals.net
+ 31 6 2808 7108
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://lists.flossmanuals.net/pipermail/discuss-flossmanuals.net/attachments/20080729/52c2afb9/attachment.pgp>