I've put together a page showing results as they come in, grouped by domain, sorted by money "earned". You can find it here: http://penny.1889.ca/results
There have been a few quirks along the way. First, most people who hit the site seem to have clicked the links on the penny site while moving them to their bookmarks bar, so I'm just filtering anything at penny.1889.ca entirely. Probable noise, I think.
I'm not merging domains into bundles, because there are some cases (code.google.com/mail.google.com or anything blogspot) where the subdomains are vital information. So in some cases, a site owner would actually be collecting from multiple entries at once.
The default behaviour of the bookmarklets appears to have confused some people... after the site is tagged in the system, I do an immediate redirect back, which may be too quick to see, so the buttons get hit multiple times in quick succession until the user notices a flicker. I've left all those "duplicate" tags in, only because I can't absolutely be sure that the user wasn't doing it on purpose, to show heavy support for the page they were tagging.
Other general stats: - 1600 entries recorded in 24 hours - 356 users participating so far - The heaviest user recorded 105 donations, 177 users recorded just 1 - 594 users paid $0.01, 256 paid $0.02, 751 paid $0.01 - If the first 24 hours could be extrapolated over a full month, Slashdot would earn $260. At this stage, that doesn't seem to be a viable alternative to paywalls and/or ads. But it's early yet.
I also just realized I was calculating these stats off the live dataset over the course of an hour, so numbers may not actually add up. Oops!
Ideally, you'd pretend it was real money, if only for calibration purposes, and act accordingly. This experiment is gathering information broadly, but also for you, specifically. So you can see what you'd spend, if you were spending.
Wow, that pretty much articulated everything I'd have wanted. The only thing I might change is the notion that you can still "like" a page on a non-participating website, so latecomers aren't punished. The tip distributor could hold the funds until they're claimed, meaning you're supporting the content you like, just maybe not as immediately as you might have liked.
My thinking on the subject has evolved since my comment a bit further up, but I'm still not sure that's something we necessarily want to track. I mean, I definitely see your point, but in the end it would be like "5,000 people hate digg.com." I guess it shows that 5,000 people were there, COULD have paid but didn't, but it's a bit like throwing a piece of chewed-up gum into a street performer's hat. It says "you suck", but it's not entirely productive.
On the other hand, if we were tracking individual pages instead of domains, that's something... but then this system becomes a focus testing tool, which is a bit sideways of where I wanted to be. It might be more useful to the site owners, but then you'd have obvious pandering all the time.
I'm approaching it more like: slashdot.org got $3.44. 60% of those were 1 cent, 30% were 2 cents, 10% were 3 cents. The people who didn't pay didn't find anything worth seeing, or they forgot they had the bookmarklets, or they hated it, or... lots of things. I suppose it could be interesting to track explicit 0-cent transactions, but that just feels a bit negative for what I'm trying to do, rather than constructive. Though I definitely take your point.
I sat in on a meeting last year where a company was trying to convince a potential advertiser (hand-picked, too) to put ads on their site. The cost was probably about 10x the norm, for the audience. The advertiser said: "Why would I pay that much when I can blast the world for less?" To which the site owner said: "But this is a PREMIUM ad. Premium!" Said the advertiser: "How is it premium, aside from costing me a lot of money?" And that was pretty much that.
Still, companies will gladly spend ten times their online budget, putting an ad in a newspaper for a single day, where you have no idea of impressions, no way to measure follow-through, and really so much friction it's a fair bet less than 5% of people who saw it, acted on it... I still can't quite grasp why print advertising hasn't crashed and burned in the last decade. Leprechauns or something.
Damn, I think I even read that, way back when. I built a lot of my brainspace around his notions of the double standard, valuable and value-less content. I shall drop 3 cents on that now!:)
Still, I take your point. At the same time, I had this really distressing moment a few weeks ago with some junior developers who were working on this-and-that, and I said to them with my wise, old experienced voice: "Oh you kids, that'll never work. We tried that back in '99 and it fell flat." And then they showed me that no, really, it does work these days... they just needed reality to catch up with our dreams.
So yeah. I guess that may have stirred up some of my old "let's fix the world!" idealism again. Probably a bad idea. It can only end in tears.
No, it's entirely a tip jar approach, so if you read it and like it, you can opt to spend 3 cents to show your gratitude. Tip jars exist, of course, but because of fees etc, their definition of "microtransaction" is usually at least $1, which almost defeats the purpose. So what this is doing is saying: "Did you like what you just read/saw/heard? If so, how much?" And that's it. Down the line, someone else can figure out how to turn that into countless riches, but right now, I'm just interested to see how the impression of the ideal shakes out.
Indeed, Flattr is a really great idea. I kinda wish there was a way to, as you say, support A more than B, but the predictability of the billing would make me sleep better at night:)
Actually, maybe I just didn't explain it properly. There is a zero-cent option, which is to just not click anything at all. This isn't something mandated or integrated into the sites, it's client side, so it's 100% voluntary, and only worthy content stands a chance of getting rewarded. "Worthy" being a very subjective concept in this case.
Yeah, I admittedly only put minimal effort into building a bare-bones tool. Not entirely sure how to make it work in the Android browser, actually. Interesting predicament, especially since I'm guessing lots of people do a lot of their reading on mobile devices...
For the readers. Ads obviously work in general, but if you are going to run a site where 50% of the readership blocks ads, ads are pretty much a non-starter.
Yeah, that worries me too. On the other hand, if it's all voluntary (meaning you don't need to pay unless you actually like it), the only real danger are sites catering to easily-duped people who don't do math so good. Or at least that's how I imagine it.
EXACTLY this, actually. I mean, it'd be great if everyone clicked those buttons 15 times a day, but already today I've closed a tab and gone "doh! that was good! I forgot to click!"... and I set the bloody thing up. So yeah, there is friction in the model that is potentially unescapable and/or fatal.
Also, I don't know that this is necessarily a business model anyone wants to depend on. It really requires you to be creating content that is not only good, but has enough reach that lots of people can see it, and like it enough to support it. It scales absolutely horribly, actually, for smaller acts. But then again, if you suddenly become popular, you could actually capitalize on your popularity, rather than just watching the views come and go.
Oh definitely, and I was one of the first onboard for Slashdot subscriptions, back in the day. But still, after those stats from Destructoid, I wondered if this quasi holy war that goes on between publishers and readers might have a more amicable solution. Instead of "stop spamming us!" / "you owe us!", there could be some "you did good" / "thank you!".
OK, really, I'm just interested to see how much money I personally would spend in any given month, and I thought some Slashdotters might as well.
I hadn't, but now I have. I love that things like that exist, and I'm a bit sad I don't know about it already. Mindshare is a tricky thing.
It's kinda the same concept, except I think they let you set a budget and it gets divvied up, whereas I'm talking more about pure pennies in use, so if you don't see anything of value in March, you don't actually spend anything. It's cheaper, sure, but I think most people would probably take issue with spending the same $10 every month, even if they didn't get much enjoyment out of it, no?
I agree, but another aspect of it is: if you are playing along with absolutely no regard for what these buttons really represent, how will you feel at the end of a month, looking at what you've potentially spent? It could be "holy crap, I can't afford this," or it could be "that wasn't as bad as I thought." That's extremely interesting to me, all by itself. Then add in the "how much would this pay my favourite sites", and you've got a really interesting conundrum and/or solution.
It's almost like "try before you buy", in a way. But purely for personal curiosity.
I had a great discussion today about what "next steps" would be for this, pretty much encompassing your point above. The somewhat-decided gist is that there's some single place or service that handles the actual money. So for instance, you create an account there and drop $10 into it, and then just go browsing the web as usual, clicking the 1, 2 or 3-penny buttons built into your browser. At the end of each month (or thereabouts), the central organization pays each of the sites you supported, thereby dodging the "micro" aspect of the microtransaction. Sites themselves wouldn't have to sign up or support it, they'd just have to claim the money using some kind of verification process (that would be a nightmare in and of itself).
Entirely voluntary on all fronts... which means it's basically impossible to implement, because there isn't a good profit margin in it:)
True, but that in itself could be part of the experiment, for each individual person. For instance, today I'd already have spent $0.25. At the moment, I can't tell if I'm happy with that result or not, but I bet by the end of a month, I'll know if my "whee!" approach to dropping pennies is a Very Bad Idea.
A lot of the talk has been about the value of marketing vs selling etc, but you asked about how to quantify performance and not get screwed over, so I'm going to try a coherent answer. Short version is: it's hard to quantify, for a variety of reasons. I've consulted on a few projects lately where marketing was brought in to push the product to the masses, with varying results. This is what I've learned:
First, you want someone with experience in the same market niche your product is aimed at. I was in a meeting with a marketer who said he was a perfect fit because he did mobile, though it was games for preschoolers, and we were doing enterprise software. Bad fit. That much is obvious, maybe, but then you'll find the marketer who hits very close to your niche, and with tangible success, and you'll hear about the tens of thousands of sales he got in his first month at his last gig, and you'll start seeing dollar signs floating everywhere... and that is a bad thing.
Before you talk to a marketer, do some work and figure out what your "happy" outlook is like. Never mind units, focus on profit, because when the money starts coming in, the units become irrelevant and all you'll care about is how close you are to breaking even. If you've got an expiry date on your endeavour (the point at which you have to get another job to pay the rent), figure out how long it'll take you to get there, and then merge it with your "happy" outlook and make that your benchmark. "In six months, we need to earn $10,000." Simple, bloody-minded, realistic. Do this before you talk to any marketers, because it will be hard to be honest with yourself after.
A marketer will ask you what your sales goals are, and no matter what you answer, you'll end up with a number based on their market analysis and track record. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to keep it separate from your own analysis of reality. Once you've heard from all your candidates, pick the one who actually listened to you when you spoke. A lot of them don't, and no matter how brilliant they may be, if they're not listening to you, you will end up hating them very quickly. You can't hate your team. At least not right away.
At this point, you've got a best-guess marketer, with a half-decent chance of success. Set parameters: they have X months to deliver Y results. If you're cautious, set it at some fraction of your expiry date. Another good approach is to just say: "Look, you have six months to earn us $10,000, or we're toast." Some people react well to knowing where the cliff lies, some people freak out and leave. But setting a concrete goal gives them focus, and something to beat. In their contract, make that key: you fail at this, you're out.
That said, you are going to spend 90% of that time period thinking you made a terrible mistake. The more time you spend talking to marketers, the more you can see the smoke and mirrors and fishing wire they use to do their thing, and the more it scares the crap out of you. Wait, we're trying to sell this thing based on anticipation and close-up photos of flowers? Seriously? Do I really have to post that to Facebook? I won't have any friends left by the time the product comes out...
Unless the marketer is actively drinking scotch in meetings, you've got to let them do their thing. Because — and this is the sucky part — you're going over that cliff one way or another. If you chose wisely, your marketer will have built a set of wings to glide over the canyon, and you'll be fine. And if not... well, at least you get to go splat with pizzaz.
A picture plus the title in a large font doesn't seem so difficult.
By the same token, if I decide to make a guestbook for my website in PHP, all I need to do is let the server write the post data to a text file, I'm ready to go. I don't really know much about form validation or security, but that's okay, because I'm not trying to be a programmer, just set up a little web form for learning's sake.
The big red warning lights you see in your head right now are what graphic designers see when someone says they can make their own cover.
You CAN make a book cover using random artwork with a large font, but you'd be surprised how many people can screw that up, too. And if you screw it up, it'll make people think the contents of your book are amateurish, too, and nobody will read it. And if that's where you're headed, you'd just as well set up a regular blog and bypass publishing altogether.
The fact that you don't know the difference between editing and copy-editing speaks volumes about what you don't know about publishing. Editing is a valuable contribution to the publishing process and can make the difference between a mid-shelf and blockbuster book.
The trick of publishing right now is that editing (and to a lesser extent, copy editing) is much less common than it used to be. Editors pick up titles, give them minimal once-overs and turn them over to production because the money isn't in fixing, it's in producing, and they want to keep their jobs. There may be a few editors who have the power to really involve themselves, but they're the exception and not the rule anymore.
Marketing is anything but free and can even fail disastrously for a well-written, well-edited book.
Very true, but again, the reality is that except for a small percentage of books published today, the publisher does very little in terms of marketing. Before he was an e-publishing powerhouse, Joe Konrath used to boast that the only way he made it where he was was by traveling around the country doing his own marketing. He's been self-made the whole time, because publishers largely don't care to do that kind of legwork anymore.
I know several author friends who have been duped into spending all of their advance (or more) to hire THEIR OWN marketing experts to get the word out, because publishers will usually say "get a blog and good luck." It's absurd and short-sighted, but it's the way the game works now, except in very rare circumstances.
If your expertise is writing - which it obviously is or you wouldn't be trying to publish a book, right? Right? - what makes you think you're also an expert marketer/artist/graphic design/layout artist?
This is where we agree 100%. Free templates and buddies who are artists are poison to your work. If you don't know EXACTLY what you're doing, don't do it. A less-than-stellar cover will sink your book before it's opened, and less-than-stellar book block design will ruin your chances almost as fast. To date, there is no magic button to design a book without a lot of expertise.
One final note: if you self-publish, good luck ever getting a reputable publishing company to look twice at you.
This is true, and it's a danger you have to deal with. That said, the question is whether you WANT to work with a publisher. Put quite simply: sign a deal for anything less than a blockbuster title, and you will probably come out of the experience in debt, with so few copies sold you'll never get another book contract again. At least with self-e-publishing, you'll know how much of a raw deal you're getting in advance.
Well, admittedly the gap between a synthetic genome and widespread bioterror is pretty immense, but then the subject here is also open source biology, which I think assumes a lot of progress will need to be made in developing the science and tools as well. And once you start trying to develop those tools, it's pretty safe to say you'll discover what you SHOULDN'T do before you stumble upon any magic cures.
Never mind the Bond villain trying to take over the world, and never mind wiping out even a small fraction of the human population; all you need to do is make something that kills a few dozen people and has the APPEARANCE of being contagious, and you'll have a worldwide panic worse than H1N1. Make it easy for virus coders to share their work around the globe, and you've got the makings of something really terrible. It's not as sexy as a best-selling thriller, but it's just as scary.
Slashdot Mirror
I've put together a page showing results as they come in, grouped by domain, sorted by money "earned". You can find it here: http://penny.1889.ca/results
There have been a few quirks along the way. First, most people who hit the site seem to have clicked the links on the penny site while moving them to their bookmarks bar, so I'm just filtering anything at penny.1889.ca entirely. Probable noise, I think.
I'm not merging domains into bundles, because there are some cases (code.google.com/mail.google.com or anything blogspot) where the subdomains are vital information. So in some cases, a site owner would actually be collecting from multiple entries at once.
The default behaviour of the bookmarklets appears to have confused some people... after the site is tagged in the system, I do an immediate redirect back, which may be too quick to see, so the buttons get hit multiple times in quick succession until the user notices a flicker. I've left all those "duplicate" tags in, only because I can't absolutely be sure that the user wasn't doing it on purpose, to show heavy support for the page they were tagging.
Other general stats:
- 1600 entries recorded in 24 hours
- 356 users participating so far
- The heaviest user recorded 105 donations, 177 users recorded just 1
- 594 users paid $0.01, 256 paid $0.02, 751 paid $0.01
- If the first 24 hours could be extrapolated over a full month, Slashdot would earn $260. At this stage, that doesn't seem to be a viable alternative to paywalls and/or ads. But it's early yet.
I also just realized I was calculating these stats off the live dataset over the course of an hour, so numbers may not actually add up. Oops!
Ideally, you'd pretend it was real money, if only for calibration purposes, and act accordingly. This experiment is gathering information broadly, but also for you, specifically. So you can see what you'd spend, if you were spending.
Wow, that pretty much articulated everything I'd have wanted. The only thing I might change is the notion that you can still "like" a page on a non-participating website, so latecomers aren't punished. The tip distributor could hold the funds until they're claimed, meaning you're supporting the content you like, just maybe not as immediately as you might have liked.
My thinking on the subject has evolved since my comment a bit further up, but I'm still not sure that's something we necessarily want to track. I mean, I definitely see your point, but in the end it would be like "5,000 people hate digg.com." I guess it shows that 5,000 people were there, COULD have paid but didn't, but it's a bit like throwing a piece of chewed-up gum into a street performer's hat. It says "you suck", but it's not entirely productive.
On the other hand, if we were tracking individual pages instead of domains, that's something... but then this system becomes a focus testing tool, which is a bit sideways of where I wanted to be. It might be more useful to the site owners, but then you'd have obvious pandering all the time.
Hmm.
I'm approaching it more like: slashdot.org got $3.44. 60% of those were 1 cent, 30% were 2 cents, 10% were 3 cents. The people who didn't pay didn't find anything worth seeing, or they forgot they had the bookmarklets, or they hated it, or... lots of things. I suppose it could be interesting to track explicit 0-cent transactions, but that just feels a bit negative for what I'm trying to do, rather than constructive. Though I definitely take your point.
I sat in on a meeting last year where a company was trying to convince a potential advertiser (hand-picked, too) to put ads on their site. The cost was probably about 10x the norm, for the audience. The advertiser said: "Why would I pay that much when I can blast the world for less?" To which the site owner said: "But this is a PREMIUM ad. Premium!" Said the advertiser: "How is it premium, aside from costing me a lot of money?" And that was pretty much that.
Still, companies will gladly spend ten times their online budget, putting an ad in a newspaper for a single day, where you have no idea of impressions, no way to measure follow-through, and really so much friction it's a fair bet less than 5% of people who saw it, acted on it... I still can't quite grasp why print advertising hasn't crashed and burned in the last decade. Leprechauns or something.
Damn, I think I even read that, way back when. I built a lot of my brainspace around his notions of the double standard, valuable and value-less content. I shall drop 3 cents on that now! :)
Still, I take your point. At the same time, I had this really distressing moment a few weeks ago with some junior developers who were working on this-and-that, and I said to them with my wise, old experienced voice: "Oh you kids, that'll never work. We tried that back in '99 and it fell flat." And then they showed me that no, really, it does work these days... they just needed reality to catch up with our dreams.
So yeah. I guess that may have stirred up some of my old "let's fix the world!" idealism again. Probably a bad idea. It can only end in tears.
No, it's entirely a tip jar approach, so if you read it and like it, you can opt to spend 3 cents to show your gratitude. Tip jars exist, of course, but because of fees etc, their definition of "microtransaction" is usually at least $1, which almost defeats the purpose. So what this is doing is saying: "Did you like what you just read/saw/heard? If so, how much?" And that's it. Down the line, someone else can figure out how to turn that into countless riches, but right now, I'm just interested to see how the impression of the ideal shakes out.
I'm so scientific sometimes.
Indeed, Flattr is a really great idea. I kinda wish there was a way to, as you say, support A more than B, but the predictability of the billing would make me sleep better at night :)
Actually, maybe I just didn't explain it properly. There is a zero-cent option, which is to just not click anything at all. This isn't something mandated or integrated into the sites, it's client side, so it's 100% voluntary, and only worthy content stands a chance of getting rewarded. "Worthy" being a very subjective concept in this case.
Yeah, I admittedly only put minimal effort into building a bare-bones tool. Not entirely sure how to make it work in the Android browser, actually. Interesting predicament, especially since I'm guessing lots of people do a lot of their reading on mobile devices...
Ooo, good call. Thank you for catching that.
For the readers. Ads obviously work in general, but if you are going to run a site where 50% of the readership blocks ads, ads are pretty much a non-starter.
Yeah, that worries me too. On the other hand, if it's all voluntary (meaning you don't need to pay unless you actually like it), the only real danger are sites catering to easily-duped people who don't do math so good. Or at least that's how I imagine it.
EXACTLY this, actually. I mean, it'd be great if everyone clicked those buttons 15 times a day, but already today I've closed a tab and gone "doh! that was good! I forgot to click!"... and I set the bloody thing up. So yeah, there is friction in the model that is potentially unescapable and/or fatal.
Also, I don't know that this is necessarily a business model anyone wants to depend on. It really requires you to be creating content that is not only good, but has enough reach that lots of people can see it, and like it enough to support it. It scales absolutely horribly, actually, for smaller acts. But then again, if you suddenly become popular, you could actually capitalize on your popularity, rather than just watching the views come and go.
I would like to subscribe to my newsletter too, but my site is down :(
No, actually, it seems to be working. Though I bet my hosting bill will be FABULOUS this month!
Oh definitely, and I was one of the first onboard for Slashdot subscriptions, back in the day. But still, after those stats from Destructoid, I wondered if this quasi holy war that goes on between publishers and readers might have a more amicable solution. Instead of "stop spamming us!" / "you owe us!", there could be some "you did good" / "thank you!".
OK, really, I'm just interested to see how much money I personally would spend in any given month, and I thought some Slashdotters might as well.
I hadn't, but now I have. I love that things like that exist, and I'm a bit sad I don't know about it already. Mindshare is a tricky thing.
It's kinda the same concept, except I think they let you set a budget and it gets divvied up, whereas I'm talking more about pure pennies in use, so if you don't see anything of value in March, you don't actually spend anything. It's cheaper, sure, but I think most people would probably take issue with spending the same $10 every month, even if they didn't get much enjoyment out of it, no?
I agree, but another aspect of it is: if you are playing along with absolutely no regard for what these buttons really represent, how will you feel at the end of a month, looking at what you've potentially spent? It could be "holy crap, I can't afford this," or it could be "that wasn't as bad as I thought." That's extremely interesting to me, all by itself. Then add in the "how much would this pay my favourite sites", and you've got a really interesting conundrum and/or solution.
It's almost like "try before you buy", in a way. But purely for personal curiosity.
I had a great discussion today about what "next steps" would be for this, pretty much encompassing your point above. The somewhat-decided gist is that there's some single place or service that handles the actual money. So for instance, you create an account there and drop $10 into it, and then just go browsing the web as usual, clicking the 1, 2 or 3-penny buttons built into your browser. At the end of each month (or thereabouts), the central organization pays each of the sites you supported, thereby dodging the "micro" aspect of the microtransaction. Sites themselves wouldn't have to sign up or support it, they'd just have to claim the money using some kind of verification process (that would be a nightmare in and of itself).
Entirely voluntary on all fronts... which means it's basically impossible to implement, because there isn't a good profit margin in it :)
True, but that in itself could be part of the experiment, for each individual person. For instance, today I'd already have spent $0.25. At the moment, I can't tell if I'm happy with that result or not, but I bet by the end of a month, I'll know if my "whee!" approach to dropping pennies is a Very Bad Idea.
A lot of the talk has been about the value of marketing vs selling etc, but you asked about how to quantify performance and not get screwed over, so I'm going to try a coherent answer. Short version is: it's hard to quantify, for a variety of reasons. I've consulted on a few projects lately where marketing was brought in to push the product to the masses, with varying results. This is what I've learned:
First, you want someone with experience in the same market niche your product is aimed at. I was in a meeting with a marketer who said he was a perfect fit because he did mobile, though it was games for preschoolers, and we were doing enterprise software. Bad fit. That much is obvious, maybe, but then you'll find the marketer who hits very close to your niche, and with tangible success, and you'll hear about the tens of thousands of sales he got in his first month at his last gig, and you'll start seeing dollar signs floating everywhere... and that is a bad thing.
Before you talk to a marketer, do some work and figure out what your "happy" outlook is like. Never mind units, focus on profit, because when the money starts coming in, the units become irrelevant and all you'll care about is how close you are to breaking even. If you've got an expiry date on your endeavour (the point at which you have to get another job to pay the rent), figure out how long it'll take you to get there, and then merge it with your "happy" outlook and make that your benchmark. "In six months, we need to earn $10,000." Simple, bloody-minded, realistic. Do this before you talk to any marketers, because it will be hard to be honest with yourself after.
A marketer will ask you what your sales goals are, and no matter what you answer, you'll end up with a number based on their market analysis and track record. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to keep it separate from your own analysis of reality. Once you've heard from all your candidates, pick the one who actually listened to you when you spoke. A lot of them don't, and no matter how brilliant they may be, if they're not listening to you, you will end up hating them very quickly. You can't hate your team. At least not right away.
At this point, you've got a best-guess marketer, with a half-decent chance of success. Set parameters: they have X months to deliver Y results. If you're cautious, set it at some fraction of your expiry date. Another good approach is to just say: "Look, you have six months to earn us $10,000, or we're toast." Some people react well to knowing where the cliff lies, some people freak out and leave. But setting a concrete goal gives them focus, and something to beat. In their contract, make that key: you fail at this, you're out.
That said, you are going to spend 90% of that time period thinking you made a terrible mistake. The more time you spend talking to marketers, the more you can see the smoke and mirrors and fishing wire they use to do their thing, and the more it scares the crap out of you. Wait, we're trying to sell this thing based on anticipation and close-up photos of flowers? Seriously? Do I really have to post that to Facebook? I won't have any friends left by the time the product comes out...
Unless the marketer is actively drinking scotch in meetings, you've got to let them do their thing. Because — and this is the sucky part — you're going over that cliff one way or another. If you chose wisely, your marketer will have built a set of wings to glide over the canyon, and you'll be fine. And if not... well, at least you get to go splat with pizzaz.
A picture plus the title in a large font doesn't seem so difficult.
By the same token, if I decide to make a guestbook for my website in PHP, all I need to do is let the server write the post data to a text file, I'm ready to go. I don't really know much about form validation or security, but that's okay, because I'm not trying to be a programmer, just set up a little web form for learning's sake.
The big red warning lights you see in your head right now are what graphic designers see when someone says they can make their own cover.
You CAN make a book cover using random artwork with a large font, but you'd be surprised how many people can screw that up, too. And if you screw it up, it'll make people think the contents of your book are amateurish, too, and nobody will read it. And if that's where you're headed, you'd just as well set up a regular blog and bypass publishing altogether.
The fact that you don't know the difference between editing and copy-editing speaks volumes about what you don't know about publishing. Editing is a valuable contribution to the publishing process and can make the difference between a mid-shelf and blockbuster book.
The trick of publishing right now is that editing (and to a lesser extent, copy editing) is much less common than it used to be. Editors pick up titles, give them minimal once-overs and turn them over to production because the money isn't in fixing, it's in producing, and they want to keep their jobs. There may be a few editors who have the power to really involve themselves, but they're the exception and not the rule anymore.
Marketing is anything but free and can even fail disastrously for a well-written, well-edited book.
Very true, but again, the reality is that except for a small percentage of books published today, the publisher does very little in terms of marketing. Before he was an e-publishing powerhouse, Joe Konrath used to boast that the only way he made it where he was was by traveling around the country doing his own marketing. He's been self-made the whole time, because publishers largely don't care to do that kind of legwork anymore.
I know several author friends who have been duped into spending all of their advance (or more) to hire THEIR OWN marketing experts to get the word out, because publishers will usually say "get a blog and good luck." It's absurd and short-sighted, but it's the way the game works now, except in very rare circumstances.
If your expertise is writing - which it obviously is or you wouldn't be trying to publish a book, right? Right? - what makes you think you're also an expert marketer/artist/graphic design/layout artist?
This is where we agree 100%. Free templates and buddies who are artists are poison to your work. If you don't know EXACTLY what you're doing, don't do it. A less-than-stellar cover will sink your book before it's opened, and less-than-stellar book block design will ruin your chances almost as fast. To date, there is no magic button to design a book without a lot of expertise.
One final note: if you self-publish, good luck ever getting a reputable publishing company to look twice at you.
This is true, and it's a danger you have to deal with. That said, the question is whether you WANT to work with a publisher. Put quite simply: sign a deal for anything less than a blockbuster title, and you will probably come out of the experience in debt, with so few copies sold you'll never get another book contract again. At least with self-e-publishing, you'll know how much of a raw deal you're getting in advance.
Well, admittedly the gap between a synthetic genome and widespread bioterror is pretty immense, but then the subject here is also open source biology, which I think assumes a lot of progress will need to be made in developing the science and tools as well. And once you start trying to develop those tools, it's pretty safe to say you'll discover what you SHOULDN'T do before you stumble upon any magic cures.
Never mind the Bond villain trying to take over the world, and never mind wiping out even a small fraction of the human population; all you need to do is make something that kills a few dozen people and has the APPEARANCE of being contagious, and you'll have a worldwide panic worse than H1N1. Make it easy for virus coders to share their work around the globe, and you've got the makings of something really terrible. It's not as sexy as a best-selling thriller, but it's just as scary.