Re: Practical Common Lisp going into 2nd printing

Peter Seibel wrote:
> Kenny Tilton <ktilton@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> > Peter Seibel wrote:
> >> So I received word yesterday that _Practical Common Lisp_ is
> >> going to have a second printing. Besides the good implications
> >> this has for how sales have been going,...
> >
> > Have you reached break even on your bet trading off early revenue
> > for later and the right to keep the book online?
>
> Well, I didn't trade early revenue for late revenue; I just gave up
> early revenue. So if I'm right, Apress gets a windfall. And if I'm
> wrong, I'm doubly screwed. But, absent communication with an
> alternate universe where I didn't leave it online, there's no way
> of knowing which it is.

Larry Lessig points out about Cory Doctorow's book, which was both
published and released under Creative Commons (Free Culture p.284):

"There are two groups of people out there: (1) those who will buy
Cory's book whether or not it's on the Internet, and (2) those who
may never hear of Cory's book, if it isn't made available for free
on the Internet. Some part of (1) will download Cory's book instead
of buying it. Call them bad-(1)s. Some part of (2) will download
Cory's book, like it, and then decide to buy it. Call them (2)-goods.
If there are more (2)-goods than bad-(1)s, the strategy of releasing
Cory's book free on-line will probably increase sales of Cory's
book.

"Indeed, the experience of his publisher clearly supports that
conclusion. The book's first printing was exhausted months before the
publisher had expected. This first novel of a science fiction author
was a total success.

"The idea that free content might increase the value of nonfree content
was confirmed by the experience of another author. Peter Wayner, who
wrote a book about the free software movement titled Free for All, made
an electronic version of his book free on-line under a Creative Commons
license after the book went out of print. He then monitored used book
store prices for the book. As predicted, as the number of downloads
increased, the used book price for his book increased, as well.

"These are examples of using the Commons to better spread proprietary
content."


Perhaps this may be useful if you wish to formalize your license:
http://creativecommons.org/license/?format=text

.

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