[FM Discuss] {FM Discuss] Article for discussion: Publications are not for peers

[Michael Mandiberg]

Hi Andy,

Interesting article.  You touch on a lot of the points that xtine  
burrough and I thought through when doing our Digital Foundations  
book, and when we were negotiating the CC license. Our goal was to  
change new media art + design curriculum nationally, and  
internationally. So we sought out Peachpit/New Riders' AIGA Design  
Press, as they were the biggest authority we could find.

Similarly, I am thinking of putting out a series of artist monographs  
of emerging cross-disciplinary artists whose work is not being noticed  
because it doesn't fit into existing categories (painting, video,  
sculpture, etc).  I am struggling with whether to self distribute (set  
up a distribution entity) which is tons of work, but paves the way for  
future books and supposedly actually produces revenue that can fund  
future books, going the lulu route which gets it "out there" but  
doesn't build relationships, raises costs and lowers revenue, and  
trying to get picked up by one of the major distributors like DAP or  
University of Chicago Press, which would mean almost no revenue, but  
massive distribution.

Stepping back and looking at the overall goal of the project, I want  
to create a book series that gains authority for itself, so that it  
can gain authority for these artists who are being dismissed by the  
other art authorities BUT it needs to be a series and sustainable to  
accomplish that. The two are at odds.

Luckily I am too busy working on the next Digital Foundations books  
with xtine (http://wiki.digital-foundations.net/index.php?title=Main_Page#IN-PROGRESS_BOOKS 
) and won't actually have to make a decision for a while.  BTW these  
are already CC-BY-SA licensed on the wiki, so no more NC for the first  
published version -- we'll see how Pearson legal feels about that when  
we send them our batch of proposals later this month.

BTW x 2, we plan on FLOSSifying these two books, and theoretically  
could do that as we lock chapters of the digital manuscript.  We are  
not at that point yet, but will be in a month or two.  If anyone wants  
to help in that process, ping myself or xtine (xtine burrough <xtine at missconceptions.net 
 >). Barring the slow and steady route, we will sprint it out when the  
two are finished.  Thankfully, a lot of the web design book will be  
focused less and less on the application, so it should be easier to  
port.

LASTLY...  I sent an intro to the list a few days ago, but I think it  
bounced.  If so, I've included it below

best,

Michael



----

hello FLOSSmanuals list

An introduction: I am Michael Mandiberg.  I co-authored Digital  
Foundations, and helped coordinate the FLOSSification and translation  
into Spanish.

I have an aversion to mailing lists, as my inbox is profoundly  
cluttered as is, it took me several months after Adam invited me to  
join the list, but I am committed enough to the FLOSSmanuals project  
that I am willing to make this literally *the only* discussion list I  
am on.  No Rhizome, No Nettime, No iDC.  Just FLOSSmanuals.

FYI, xtine and I are putting together some more proposals for books  
for the Digital Foundations series with Peachpit.  This time we are  
going to try to negotiate a full CC-BY-SA license.  and regardless, we  
have already started writing them,and are going to port that to the  
wiki shortly, so the content will already be licensed.  so there will  
be a Digital imaging, 3D modeling, web design, Audio, Illustration,  
and maybe some other books that might be coming down the pipe.

I understand there is an active Finnish and Farsi translation project  
for DF.  Are there any others I am unaware of?  We machine translated  
into French and German, but those didn't seem to progress beyond that.  
Any updates on that from anyone who is involved, or wants to be  
involved in those translations.

Onboard and now onlist,

Michael

----

Michael Mandiberg
Senior Fellow // Eyebeam
Assistant Professor // CSI/CUNY
http://mandiberg.com
michael at mandiberg.com
http://twitter.com/mandiberg



> Once again, folks, I have a blog idea that a lot of people on this  
> list would find interesting. I'm looking for comments over the next  
> few days or perhaps a week, before I put it up. In fact, as you'll  
> see if you read the article, I must somehow get comments!
>
> http://praxagora.com/andyo/draft/publishing_peer.html
>
> Andy
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