Surely the issues of "publisher as middleman" and "book-by-subscription" are orthogonal?
Re:Numerical Linear Algebra for Programmers
by dragandj on Friday June 26, 2020 @08:51AM
(#23651392)
Yes, but the main goal of these subscriptions is to fund my work on the free open source libraries related to the book.
You get the book, AND the active development of the libraries.
Re:Numerical Linear Algebra for Programmers
by enriquto on Friday June 26, 2020 @09:13AM
(#23651574)
I would only buy the book if you put the pdf freely downloadable on your website (I systematically do that to support authors, because I love "dead trees").
Re:Numerical Linear Algebra for Programmers
by cyberdrunk on Friday June 26, 2020 @09:00AM
(#23651469)
Best books are often written by academics, who get paid to work on them by their university. The royalties are just some nice extra income.
My experience of speaking with authors who have published books is that most of the money stays with the publisher and not the author which is a real pity. The net effect is the discouragement to write books which is counter to progress.
The subscription model is really interesting to me and I hope it makes a difference to the book publishing paradigm.