How to bribe a computer book author

In an interesting Sydney Morning Herald article on how to buy a good computer book, Eric Wilson claims that software companies offer bribes to encourage books on their products.

The dirty little secret of the computer book industry is that there are all sorts of undisclosed deals IT vendors do to make these books happen. They might pay the author or they might subsidise the publisher.

I've been in the business for seven years and around 15 books. I haven't been offered a dollar from a vendor, nor have I heard of any similar deals from my peers.

Incidentally, if a vendor is reading this, I can be bribed for much less than money. Just give me a contact at the company I can e-mail with occasional questions about bugs, weird glitches, and misdocumented features.

2003/06/20 · 2 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

hey, i though the dirty little secret of the computer-book industry was that we were providing manuals to users with pirated copies.

i realize this perception dates me, to the time when software publishers included manuals with their licensed copies.

#1 · xian · 2003/06/23

#2 · moń · 2006/03/16