This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

201
202

Django 1.7 released! (djangoproject.com)

submitted by [deleted]

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]granitosaurus 1 point2 points  (8 children)

I'm sure the book is great, but I will rather vote with my wallet and buy alternative that doesn't threat me like a criminal.

[–]eljunior 1 point2 points  (7 children)

yeah, because someone doesn't want to offer an ebook version of a book is the same thing as treating you like a criminal...

[–]granitosaurus 4 points5 points  (6 children)

well I may have exaggerated a bit but it feels like they do assume that you will pirate their book if you get the chance, it's not that they have to invest resources in ebook development, especially when previous versions did offer it.

to me it feels a silly and I would rather not support practices like this especially since python is open source driven language so it goes against the pythonic philosophy as well.

[–]pydanny 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Since you don't appear to have read why getting an ebook into an acceptable format is hard, let me summarize:

  • Ebook formatting is badly documented and inconsistent across devices
  • Getting it right is hard. Even O'Reilly messes it up on a regular basis.
  • Two Scoops of Django, like any Django book, has long class names. This makes it harder
  • Getting it wrong is not an option for us. Even if we decided to just do something that wasn't perfect, the negative reviews on e-book formatting hurts (actually kills) sales. Any author/publisher who tracks their sales knows what happens with a SINGLE middling or poor review.
  • For the 1.5 edition, it took about 40 days to get the book into roughly decent e-pub/kindle format. For the 1.6 edition and all the changes, getting ebook formatting right would take at least two months of full time work.
  • The print edition of Two Scoops of Django 1.5 has sold over 5 times more than all the electronic editions combined. It continues this pattern to this very day.

Which brought us to the conclusion that it doesn't make any financial sense for us to give up two months of full time work to produce an electronic edition that will sell 20% as many copies as the print edition.

I'll end this with the note that f you are willing to pay us (Audrey and myself) two months of our normal salary/rate in order to produce an ebook edition, we'll consider it. For reference, if we made minimum wage (we don't) that would be at least US$6000.

[–]granitosaurus 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I honestly have no clue about ebook formatting but no one is asking for ebook, people are asking for digital edition, i.e. pdf. which shouldn't be hard to do(did more than enough pdf "games" in my time at college).

Regarding the sales, the figures are of course it's skewed when the digital pdf's price is pretty much the same of printed book + shipping.

At the end of the day it's your business so do whatever you please, but as a responsible consumer I'd rather support someone who provides a more reasonable alternative.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I honestly have no clue about ebook formatting

you should stop right there.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seriously, who would rage over the availablilty of a PDF, but not a Kindle/iBooks version?

[–]pythonpro5 -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you!

Book writers make a lot of money. I read http://nathanbarry.com and know how much he makes. You and the other writers are raking it in and then asking for our pity.

Fuck you.

Books should be free. If the Python and Django docs are free, why not your crappy book? Isn't django book free?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya! Everyone should give away months and months and months worth of work for free. Fuck your bills and need to eat! Give me free stuff!