Jonathon Blake wrote:

> Nicholas wrote:
>
> >I like what Barry is suggesting.
>
> I don't see why Barry thinks that ORA will produce more sales than
> Oxford University Press.

I didn't say anything like that.

What I said (OK, that's what I get for discussing business matters on
this list I guess) is that a combination such as Adobe/Oreilly is likely
to value access to the info differently then OUP, and hence pay PTD
better. Maybe he just makes himself out to be a near-pauper, I don't
really know, but still, I think that since those companies have a
history, a motivation, money, and loyal readers and customers, they
could make a go of it.

Other companies, either alone or in pairs might be candidates on
reflection for the same thing.

> For starters, it is neither an ORA title,
> nor fits anything in their current offerings. [CJKV is an entirely
> different beast from _World's Writing Systems_.]

Which is why I suggested it would be a revision or a revisiting of the
same topic. PTD also expressed distastes for doing the same thing over
again. I most certainly did not mean to be understood that O'Reilly
should simply buy the rights to the old book and republish it. That
would be nonsense. But they might bring a different sensibility and
audience to the topic.

>
> Amazon sells one or two copies a week of _World Writing Systems_..
> That puts it near the tail end of the "good for backlist" category.

O'Reilly serves the function of driving the acceptance of certain
technologies, and doing it with a recognized panache. Those technologies
are not always directly commercial, although sometimes they are. They
also do lots more besides publish books as I mentioned, and their web
site explains. I also would speculate that they are likely tied up in
the equity game with some of the open source players too, so promoting
adoption of technology benefits them at leas indirectly also.

>
> _If_ OUP decides to let it go out of print, then maybe discussion with
> another publisher might be worthwhile. Until that point, there is no
> economic incentive for anybody else to publish it.

Agreed. But that was not what I suggested at all. Sorry you
misunderstood. Hope it is clearer now.

Best,

Barry