Slashdot Mirror
Sell Someone Else's Book On Lulu!
Albert Schueller writes "Lulu is a place where authors can self-publish their books. It's a nice response to exorbitant college textbook prices. In an interesting twist, looks like you might be able to get away with selling other people's books on Lulu and reap a tidy profit. The Lulu offering Calculus Twirly Exponentials by Dave Stuart appears to be simply a high quality scan of the much more well-known, and expensive, Calculus: Early Transcendentals 6th ed. by James Stewart. Compare the preview images available for each at Lulu and Amazon respectively."
First, please allow me to complain that the first two links go to the same place. Second, from what I have access to here, there isn't a single identical page in either of the previews featured for either book. The fonts are different, the images are off-color, etc. Finally...
This book is designed to be the perfect replacement for the popular calculus textbook "Calculus: Early Transcendentals" by James Stewart. Despite the humorous name, it is actually a serious attempt at creating a cheap substitute to that book. The contents match up chapter by chapter so that you can use this book as an alternative if your calc course has that book as a requirement. We also aim to provide exercises, including some solved exercises, which are just as good as in the original. This book is much cheaper than Stewart's Calculus, so if you are studying calc on a budget, why not give us a try and see if we can live up to your expectations? We promise you won't be disappointed. This is the first volume, corresponding to chapters 1-9 of the 6th edition of Stewart.
Any similarity here is entirely intentional as the 'stolen' work is intended as a drop-in replacement. Sure they copied the book word-for-word, but it seems they intended to do that. TFS implies tom-foolery, whereas instead we have what amounts to a protest over the cost of the original book...
it was never about profits, and all about thought control.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I guess the common slashdot answer is, "too bad, the cost to produce a copy is nothing so it should be free. Get a patronage or do live readings or live shows or sell t-shirts to make money".
Now, I don't happen to agree with that sentiment, but it does seem to be the group think around here.
Sorry, There are no gods.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Sorry to replay not to the actual content of your post, but, I just found something amazing on your post.
From your post, I understand you live in the USA. And yet, you don't use the awesomely egomaniac expression "American" to refer to yourself while disregarding the fact that America is a much bigger continent than just your country. I keep complaining about it, but it's so hard to get people from the US to open their mind and understand that they are not the center of the world that I just let it go many times.
So, USAian. It does sound weird, but it's better than American. I personally use US citizen, spanish (Estadounidense), or just Yankee, for lack of a better term. The United States is the only country in the world that doesn't have a proper demonym in its own official language, but it does in others (i.e: Spanish, French).
Anyway, congratulations for not being an asshole.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?