There are only some 300 full time authors out there, these are people who do nothing but write novels for a living with no side jobs, teaching jobs etc.
Of course that's nonsense, but feel free to keep believing it. There are far more than 300 people making a full-time living from writing fiction, and probably more than 300 making a very good living from writing fiction.
And the current publishing climate makes the much easier now that writers can sell an ebook for $2,99 and make twice as much as they did from selling a paperback for $6.99.
What else would you expect a publisher to put on the cover?
One of the things I liked about my copy of 'The Wasp Factory' was that about half the reviews said it was the best first novel in years while the other half said it was the most appalling novel they'd ever seen. I've often wondered how many of them were actually real.
I'm going to guess, based solely on my knowledge of royalties from the record industry, that at 99c a book, the author is getting maybe 5c, if that.
$0.35, so even those who are selling a million books aren't making a lot of money (I wouldn't turn down $350,000 but it's not enough to live like Castle or Higgins). In any case, the $0.99 price point seems to be collapsing right now as more people see it as a swamp of crap than a good place to find new writers; plenty of writers have said recently that their sales went up when they increased the price to $2.99-4.99 and at $4.99 you're making ten times as much on a sale as at $0.99.
So far as I have seen, most of the *appearance* of lightweight is achieved through preload. Conversely, most of the criticism of Java as bloated stems from a decade old impression and crappy app coders.
Or from running Eclipse. Or, indeed, from writing Java apps and having to spend weeks adding object caches and fine-tuning the garbage collector to make it not require gigabytes of RAM or introduce long collection pauses or suck up most of one core just running the parallel garbage collector.
Java would be a pretty good language if had real memory management.
i wouldn't get so scared, most likely the technology is garbage and barely works at all. just another waste of tax payer money.
That's actually worse, because you're walking down the street and suddenly find a pack of cops with guns drawn shouting at you because they've been told you're an armed robber who doesn't even look remotely like you.
Does a bank get to live in your house just because you took out a mortgage??
When you take out a mortgage and then start borrowing on your credit cards to make the mortgage payments, pretty soon the bank will be taking your house away.
What are you talking about? What communist infiltration?
Hint: when the Soviet Union collapsed and much of their documentation became available we got a much better idea of exactly who was and wasn't working for them.
In the future this will be looked back on as being as stupid as McCarthyism.
But McCarthy underestimated the communist infiltration of the US government. He may have been paranoid, but history has shown he wasn't paranoid enough.
He just accused the educational establishment (and the supposed 'liberal' forces behind it) for stifling human innovation.
No-one who's actually been through the 'education system' and survived should find that claim at all extraordinary. If you think you create innovative adults by having them sit silently in a boring classroom for twenty years while a teacher tells them what to do, then I have a bridge you might want to buy.
No he didn't, what you call 'big government welfare' started in the 1930s to avoid people starving to death in the wake of deregulation last blunder in the 1920s, and only WWII got the US back on its feet.
LOL. The only way that WWII 'got the US back on its feet' was because the war required the removal of many of the regulations which caused the last Depression and the post-WWII government managed to avoid reimposing those regulations afterwards.
Britain went the other way, building a massive welfare state immediately after WWII. You can see how well that worked.
But at the same time, I don't like the idea that if I spend a year of my time developing something, someone else can spend 2 weeks making a slight improvement and start selling it.
If your idea is so simple that someone else can copy it and improve it in two weeks, why should you have the armed might of the state preventing them from doing so?
If I also spend a year of my time developing the same idea, but complete my work a week after yours, why shouldn't I have the same rights you do? I spent all that time and now you're saying I can't use my own invention just because you finished a few days earlier?
Patents aren't evil. Only in a perfect utopian world could somebody develop an idea and not have to fear it being ripped off for the profit of others.
I've worked in a patent-heavy industry. There was no 'innovation' being protected, because every company had to cross-license their patents with every other company in order to remain in business. The only things the patents did were keep more efficient competitors out of the market and keep patent lawyers well paid.
Really? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were proponents of "big government welfare statism" were they?
Yes. Reagan called it 'military spending', while Thatcher increased welfare spending during her time as Prime Minister; and, even if they hadn't been welfare statists, they were only in power for a few years of the last forty.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, Tolkien, that quintessential commercial writer.
Selling 50,000,000 copies of a book isn't bad for a commercial writer.
There are only some 300 full time authors out there, these are people who do nothing but write novels for a living with no side jobs, teaching jobs etc.
Of course that's nonsense, but feel free to keep believing it. There are far more than 300 people making a full-time living from writing fiction, and probably more than 300 making a very good living from writing fiction.
And the current publishing climate makes the much easier now that writers can sell an ebook for $2,99 and make twice as much as they did from selling a paperback for $6.99.
What else would you expect a publisher to put on the cover?
One of the things I liked about my copy of 'The Wasp Factory' was that about half the reviews said it was the best first novel in years while the other half said it was the most appalling novel they'd ever seen. I've often wondered how many of them were actually real.
They all have glowing reviews* on the back cover. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is now impossible.
(*) Machine-generated?
Not quite, but I've heard from several writers that the other writers quoted on the cover never read their book.
The Lord Of The Rings is three books...
It was written as one book and split into three parts by the publisher because a single book would have cost too much to print.
I'm going to guess, based solely on my knowledge of royalties from the record industry, that at 99c a book, the author is getting maybe 5c, if that.
$0.35, so even those who are selling a million books aren't making a lot of money (I wouldn't turn down $350,000 but it's not enough to live like Castle or Higgins). In any case, the $0.99 price point seems to be collapsing right now as more people see it as a swamp of crap than a good place to find new writers; plenty of writers have said recently that their sales went up when they increased the price to $2.99-4.99 and at $4.99 you're making ten times as much on a sale as at $0.99.
If it takes someone 5 years to write a book they should find another profession.
Tolkien's fscked then.
So far as I have seen, most of the *appearance* of lightweight is achieved through preload. Conversely, most of the criticism of Java as bloated stems from a decade old impression and crappy app coders.
Or from running Eclipse. Or, indeed, from writing Java apps and having to spend weeks adding object caches and fine-tuning the garbage collector to make it not require gigabytes of RAM or introduce long collection pauses or suck up most of one core just running the parallel garbage collector.
Java would be a pretty good language if had real memory management.
i wouldn't get so scared, most likely the technology is garbage and barely works at all. just another waste of tax payer money.
That's actually worse, because you're walking down the street and suddenly find a pack of cops with guns drawn shouting at you because they've been told you're an armed robber who doesn't even look remotely like you.
In this case the homeowner has bigger guns than the bank.
Only so long as the bank continues to pay for them.
Does a bank get to live in your house just because you took out a mortgage??
When you take out a mortgage and then start borrowing on your credit cards to make the mortgage payments, pretty soon the bank will be taking your house away.
What are you talking about? What communist infiltration?
Hint: when the Soviet Union collapsed and much of their documentation became available we got a much better idea of exactly who was and wasn't working for them.
Ok, I didn't RTFA because I want to whip this off before I go out the door but...
Instead of the "security theater" that passes for inspections at American airports, shouldn't we be emulating the much less intrusive Israeli model?
If you think the Israeli model is 'much less intrusive', I'm guessing you've never flown out of Israel.
maybe the operators should point this technology at themselves... before using it on the public.
It should be installed in Congress, the White House and every major bank, for a start.
In the future this will be looked back on as being as stupid as McCarthyism.
But McCarthy underestimated the communist infiltration of the US government. He may have been paranoid, but history has shown he wasn't paranoid enough.
I doubt history will say the same about the DHS.
THIS IS CORRECT SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE!
Aside from the part where it gets plastered all over the media rather than a quiet discussion with their peers.
It's true. Windows is more secure than Linux so long as you never turn the machine on.
So it's a $35 tablet that costs $60 then?
He just accused the educational establishment (and the supposed 'liberal' forces behind it) for stifling human innovation.
No-one who's actually been through the 'education system' and survived should find that claim at all extraordinary. If you think you create innovative adults by having them sit silently in a boring classroom for twenty years while a teacher tells them what to do, then I have a bridge you might want to buy.
No he didn't, what you call 'big government welfare' started in the 1930s to avoid people starving to death in the wake of deregulation last blunder in the 1920s, and only WWII got the US back on its feet.
LOL. The only way that WWII 'got the US back on its feet' was because the war required the removal of many of the regulations which caused the last Depression and the post-WWII government managed to avoid reimposing those regulations afterwards.
Britain went the other way, building a massive welfare state immediately after WWII. You can see how well that worked.
Why is it the educations systems responsibility to provide incentive to learn for the sake of learning?
Kids go into the 'education system' wanting to learn. The 'education system' is what destroys that natural desire.
I'm still amazed at the level of skill required for my teachers to take subjects that are naturally interesting and make them boring.
But at the same time, I don't like the idea that if I spend a year of my time developing something, someone else can spend 2 weeks making a slight improvement and start selling it.
If your idea is so simple that someone else can copy it and improve it in two weeks, why should you have the armed might of the state preventing them from doing so?
If I also spend a year of my time developing the same idea, but complete my work a week after yours, why shouldn't I have the same rights you do? I spent all that time and now you're saying I can't use my own invention just because you finished a few days earlier?
Patents aren't evil. Only in a perfect utopian world could somebody develop an idea and not have to fear it being ripped off for the profit of others.
I've worked in a patent-heavy industry. There was no 'innovation' being protected, because every company had to cross-license their patents with every other company in order to remain in business. The only things the patents did were keep more efficient competitors out of the market and keep patent lawyers well paid.
Troll-rating: 2/10.
Really? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were proponents of "big government welfare statism" were they?
Yes. Reagan called it 'military spending', while Thatcher increased welfare spending during her time as Prime Minister; and, even if they hadn't been welfare statists, they were only in power for a few years of the last forty.
But don't let reality spoil a good rant.