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"Security Engineering" Is Now Online
An anonymous reader writes "Ross Anderson, author of 'Security Engineering', notifies in a message to comp.risks that he just got permission from Wiley to let anyone download the full content of his book for free. This is one of the best books on computer security and it is used as textbook in many University courses (I teach two of them)."
I've got a friend who used to work for a small boutique publisher, and I can tell you that publishers are an author's best friend. Without them the author's works would go nowhere. Fine, change the business model to distribute freely online, but as far as increasing sales of books, those books have to fome from somewhere.
I just don't get the 'cut the middleman' mentality. What exactly do you think the publishers aren't contributing that the authors could do themselves? Are you expecting authors to employ and manage editors, designers, printers, pr and marketing people, advertisers, a nation-wide system of sales reps, sales managers, shipping companies, and so on? Or are you suggesting that these roles aren't necessary? That's the same thing as saying that books should only be digital from here on out. The attitide that the authors should 'just get a loan' to fund these activities is hogwash since the only people who could get a loan of that magnitude for an unpublished manuscript are already established authors, and even then it would be iffy. Then people suggest that authors should just publish online and screw printed materials, but for most applications like textbooks that doesn't really work for the consumer--wouldn't you rather just have a book than having to print it out yourself, which could easily cost as much in ink and paper as a bound book would, while being more irritating? Also, e-book technology still sucks. Besides, the author would still need to employ the editing, pr, marketing & advertising people anyway, because if you don't know about a book, why would you buy it? The fact is, people happily pay for advertising because the return on investment is huge.
Wouldn't it be great if there was a company that had the capital to invest like a bank, but also the expertise to cull the few good manuscripts from the staggering pile of crappy ones, then print and market and distribute these works? Wait, that would be a publisher.
I acknowledge that in some specific cases self-publishing directly to the internet might be a good business plan. But to suggest that we abandon dead trees in most cases misunderstands the market. You said it yourself, "...if they don't get it into print, it can't be used in a classroom setting." Sure, good chunks of fat could be trimmed from the publishing world, but name one industry where this isn't true? I just think that the 'middle man' is necessary to the process.
Sorry, OP. I realize that most of my rant doesn't even apply to your main points. I just don't think the middle man is all that useless in most cases.
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Your sentiment makes sense, but I have to agree with the GP. I think people miss some key points here:
1) The ethical (not legal - the contracts settle that) question up until this point has been whether the publishing company has a right to restrict distribution through other channels. It's not a hard case to make on the publishers' side: Until recently, there was little reason to expect that free distribution would make print sales go up, and the data on that remain unclear. So, as a publisher, why wouldn't you want to resist other distribution models?
2) If I read TFA properly, it appears that the text being distributed is the text that was edited, copy edited, etc. by Wiley. As far as I'm concerned, that gives Wiley just as much moral claim to the work as the author. People underestimate the amount of time and effort that goes into the editing process. Writers, by and large, are not good writers. So why should they always retain copyrights?
Disclaimer: I've edited for a newspaper in the past, and I'm currently an editor for an undergraduate journal, so I'm pretty obviously biased against authors-above-all types. Mod appropriately.
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