the crypt

In that case we're doomed!

Seriously, books used to be a pretty good metric, but people get their information in so many diferent ways now, that a "bestseller" in this genre might be fewer than 15,000 copies. By comparison to what the market used to support, this is quite low; the numbers might suggest an extreme recession of interest, which IMO is not the case.

FWIW, "on the books" the first two editions of Robot Builder's Bonanza sold 100,000+ copies, though the actual numbers are considerably higher, as for about 10 years TAB gave that book away as a premium to their book club (and before you ask, no, I didn't get a dime for them). There's no way the market could support these kinds of numbers now, because books are no longer the preeminent method of getting this type of information.

-- Gordon

Gordon, do you have a web site? I have been thinking about the "howto" book market, and I agree with you that it is dead.

I think the new author/monetization strategy for this sort of thing is a self-published site with some sort of advertising on it.

I have sort of been experimenting with it on a couple sites, and with Yahoo and Google, you could make a reasonable living if you could find a way to drive traffic to your site.

The problem is that, the book store presents itself as a place to browse and discover. People, at least, used to go books stores to do just that. The web, people search using google. Unfortunately, the results don't lend themselves to as much discovery as they do location of specific information.

The challenge, it seems, is to create and promote a library/bookstore metaphor for on-line authors.

That and other interests keeping me occupied.

Observation from the trenches. It used to be that when you proposed a book to a publisher, you researched any competing titles, so that the publisher could A) judge the overall market before adding their title to the mix, and B) ensure that your book was unique. Today other books on the subject are but a footnote. In writing a book, you have to keep asking yourself if what you're writing about hasn't already been hammered to death on Web sites. People have more choices.

There are other means to teach. Example: A well-scripted JavaScript-based 555 demonstrator can take the place of a chapter in a book on designing various types of timers. Accompanying explanatory text can be concise, and "readers" walk away with a hands-on grasp that a book alone doesn't provide. People might even may for such a demonstrator, though the more likely business model would be Google advertising, or similar.

Whole segments of books genres make little or no sense these days. These include "circuit scrapbooks," which were popular in the 60s to 80s. The quality of the designs notwithstanding, what you can't find on the Internet, someone makes available in a CD collection you can purchase for $5 at the swap meet.

This doesn't mean the information is no longer sought, but that the traditional methods of providing the information have been supplanted by other approaches.

-- Gordon

Actually, there are "howto" books that do quite well. Much of the success of any howto book is the age of the topic, which means how likely the information can be found somewhere else. Amateur robotics is a mature topic, even as new things are developed. So, books on robotics won't do as well as a book on something that is new. MAKE magazine's compilation books on making geek gadgets are doing pretty well, for instance -- any Amazon ranking under 10,000 usually points to a book that is making money for its publisher and author(s).

In the ideal world, you want a printed book that is self-discoverable by readers who enter a bookstore to browse, because there is a section of the buying public that still does not use online resources to buy things. This book, in turn, leverages a Web site where you can upsell readers with additional product, or cross-sell with ads, or whatever.

Some years ago, Fatbrain (since sold to IDG, which changed its name to Hungry Minds, since sold to Wiley) would publish and sell online content, specializing in technical topics, including robotics. Other than one or two success stories, most of the "books" didn't sell a single copy. The problem was (and is) in marketing; the effort to sell a virtual book is much harder than most publishers and authors are willing to invest.

As you alluded to, a printed book is its own marketing and advertising, and still represents the easiest way of getting something sold. The author sells it once (to the publisher), and the publisher sells it just a handful of times (to the product buyers of bookstores; over 50% of all bookstores in the country belong to one of two major chains). The bookstore puts the book out on display, and readers do the rest.

Books haven't been made irrelevent, but for authors -- especially for books on more mature topics -- the traditional writer/publisher/bookseller model may not provide the financial motivation it once did. It's much more of a packaged deal these days. Authors pretty much have to brand themselves.

-- Gordon

blueeyedpop wrote: > there may well be an increase in popularity in robotics, > if you consider robotics related posts on all the forums

I think this could be true. The total number of robot builders posting in web forums seems to be increasing even though the number posting here in c.r.m is declining

I'm a little late joining this thread but I thought I'd throw in my two cents as well. I don't post here often but I'm a frequent reader of the newsgroup.

I think usenet in general is slowing down due to the proliferation of easier to find web forums. Most typical computer users I talk to don't know what usenet is, don't know what a newsreader is, don't have a newsreader, and wouldn't know what to do with a newsgroup name like comp.robotics.misc anyway. It's much easier for them to go to google, search on "robotics", and join one of the dozens of robotics forums. I think this is sad because it splinters the robot builders into dozens of uncommunicative groups instead of bringing them all togther in one place like usenet used to.

That's one of the reasons I've resisted starting yet another web forum on robots.net all these years despite frequent user requests for one. I always point users to comp.robotics.misc instead (though we have spawned at least two unofficial web forums started by our users). I've had another wave of requests for forums lately and may eventually give in.

I have contemplated from time to time trying to construct a comp.robotics.misc interface/gateway for robots.net members that could be presented on the website as a web forum but act as a gateway to the newsgroup somewhat like google groups does for usenet as a whole. I've never gotten beyond the contemplation stage though.

The number of robots being submitted to our robot gallery per month has declined a bit but I think this could be due to its having a somewhat fixed audience size who have now submitted most of their robots. Most robots.net readers come to read the news or the user blogs - and more of those readers are accessing the site via RSS these days. The gallery still gets a lot of hits from viewers but I'm not sure how many are actual robot builders.

Overall the robots.net traffic has increased every year since 2001 and, so far, this year is no exception.

Another indicator is print magazines. I've watched dozens of robot magazines come and go over the years but we now have Servo, which has survived for quite a while, Robot Magazine, which looks very hopeful, and Make (okay not specifically a robot mag but every robot builder I know loves it). So I'm optimistic.

-Steve

It is funny, this thread feels like "Am I dying, I feel all light and floaty... Maybe I am dreaming, or I am dead, how do I know..." or in other words, the biggest most virulent thread on CRM presently is about the decline and possible death of CRM...

I honestly don't think it is anything but popularity of robotics that is driving this forum, and sales of vendors down.

I call it diffusion and dillution. Information is everywhere, good and bad.

New products seep out of the woodwork. Less professional manufacturers and vendors take away profits from bigger, more professional, established companies. Un-lacquered boards, no silkscreen, and documentation that would get them a scoul from their high school teachers abound.

A guy in his garage can make a product in the evenings, sell it on the internet, and doesn't have to put a hideous amount of development into something people will buy.

A guy who loves robotics can get the bright idea through his head that his robotics forum will be better than the trillions of others out there. Maybe he and his buddies hang out there, and make it their haunt. Yabb and the dozen-dozen other forums are free, and easy to use. Self sensorship, and thinking what value you are bringing with your forum is another matter.

Not to imply anything, but this post popped up just recently:

Hi guys, if any of you are into the Micromouse projects and may be entering the competitions this year a new forum has been set up at:

....

As of now, they have 41 posts, and 13 users, all since Sunday. My crappy news reader shows 53 posts on CRM alone. Just more diffusion, or specialization... Why post on CRM, when you and like minded micromouse builders don't have to read "try googling it, i did, and got 12 billion hits" , and don't have to deal with threads on why their forum is dying.

The opposite of diffusion and dillution is concentration and distillation. Specialized forums for specialized needs. There are 13 members on the micromouse forum in 5 days. I have to guess they won't be covering wheelchair motors, or 100A open source motor controlls.

I do like your idea of building a news portal. One of the best I have heard for a while. With the portal, you can link other data to people as well. Bring value to Usenet.

Mike

I remember a decade ago it seemed a lot more virulent.

Mike