Re:^4 New Perl 6 book -- Yes, Perl 6

[Louis_Wu]

we'll end up getting billed rather than get cash

Sigh. Does that happen often? I was under the impression that authoring ORA/Perl/programming books didn't pay well, but was still a net gain; seems I wasn't entirely correct.

Next time I hear of someone pirating ORA books, I think I'm going to be more hard-nosed about it.

---

Perl programming and scheduling in the corporate world, as explained by dragonchild:

"Uhh ... that'll take me three weeks, broken down as follows: 1 day for coding, the rest for meetings to explain why I only need 1 day for coding."

[Elian]

I was exaggerating a bit--O'Reilly is pretty good about promoting the books and making sure they go for ones that will sell well enough to pay, so we should all get at least enough for a dinner out of it. :) (I was thinking of Simon, who's not yet broken even on his embedding and extending perl book)

[Anonymous Monk]

Could you elaborate on the cost to the authors? Thanks.

[Elian]

There is no cost as such--the negative paymens are virtual rather than actual. What publishers do is potentially give an author an advance on royalties. Then as the book sells you get a statement (usually semi-annually or quarterly) that shows what the sales have been, what your royalties on those sales are, and what they've paid you so far. If they've paid you more than the sales so far, the royalty statement shows negative.

You can get a negative statement either because you've not sold enough copies to cover the advance, or if the returns exceeded sales for the royalty period. (Which does happen--publishers do take back unsold books in a number of circumstances)

You don't ever have to mail your publisher a check or anything, you just won't get a check from them. (Potentially ever, I suppose, if sales never cover the advance)