[FM Discuss] scribn the bazaar

[Andy Oram]

Regarding sales and fame: our marketing people certainly think "buzz" is important, and authors can generate buzz nowadays better than publishers can. O'Reilly does pretty well--I have to stand up for my company--and we use every channel and medium you can imagine to promote what we do; just check http://tweetgrid.com/search?q=oreillymedia once in a while. But managers keep telling us that authors need to develop followers on their own. Maybe (I'm not sure) the distinction is that we have a broad reach as a company, but some books depend on sales within a very narrow community (such as Arduino hackers) and the author's personal reputation in that community is more important than whatever O'Reilly says.

I don't know whether this topic has anything to do with FLOSS Manuals. It probably helps books such as the censorship one when you can boast about the people who contributed.

Andy