book

1. Communicate honestly about schedules and don't overcommit to an unrealistic schedule - writing doesn't pay much, but writing well will lead to other opportunities. The worst thing you can do is make your editor dislike working with you. Unless someone is paying you to write full-time, calculate how much time you think you can spend and cut it in half.

Here's the problem I was trying to solve. The books I write all use Apache FOP to render both plain HTML and PDF. Unlike some of the commercial (read "way too expensive") FOP processors out there, Apache FOP doesn't automatically scale/resample images for print resolution. The solution in DocBook is to include references to two images: a PNG at 72 DPI and a PDF at 150 DPI.

In this interview with Mac Slocum, Tim O'Reilly says the following about how changes in digital and print book "form" affect the publishing business:

Someone recently asked me what tool they should use to write a book. I've decided to answer with a confusing (and somewhat intimidating) diagram. Here it is you can click on the diagram for a larger view:

Book Publishing Pipeline

This post should be something everyone who has ever received a royalty check should read. I'm not going to say I've ever received a royalty check that was anything less than truthful, but I do resonate with the idea that publishers don't understand how to pay royalties on digital downloads. (Oh, and for some reason, most publishers only give you half royalties on digital downloads vs. print books.)