Offshoring IT Services: Book royalty etc
A few weeks ago I received a royalty check from McGraw-Hill for my book “Offshoring IT Services” which was published a little over a year ago. Just after its publication, I had blogged about my experience in getting a book published, and since then I continue to reflect on the topic, and also muse on some of my observations on this blog.
How successful was the book? Well, let us put it this way: it did not get on Amazon.com (or any other) “top 10” list. My publisher tells me it is not a ‘bestseller,’ which means it was probably destined to be in the ‘Long Tail’ of technology and management books. The reasons are not hard to fathom:
- Prior to its publication, I was just another Indian-born techie with a viewpoint on offshoring. Now, Bill Gates and Andy Grove were celebrity technocrats much before their books were written; their books were bound to be a hit; right?
- The audience for a book on offshoring is globally dispersed and is an extremely small niche. Reaching a niche like this is expensive and time-consuming. Hence the publisher didn’t think it worth the expense to market the book actively. Nothing wrong here, it was a purely business decision.
- Reaching out to the target audience, skeptics among technocrats and IT professionals is especially when ‘thought leaders’ outside IT offshoring industry – like Alan Blinder and Lou Dobbs - continue to challenge the merits of globalization, and also continue to get a lot of air-time in the media. This despite the fact that the practice of offshoring continues to mature, and managers and executives are starting to learn the intricacies of global sourcing. While some technologists and line-managers continue to ponder over the impact of sourcing on their lives and careers, they realize that the practice is here and they need to learn to be a part of the global marketplace. Bottomline: few prominent IT leaders and technocrats – outside the services sector – are vocal about the need for managers to learn and observe the best practices.
My takeways:
- The publisher tells me that the first print-run is ‘almost sold out,’ which is great for a first-time author.
- The book received some good reviews from a few in the media, some academicians and bloggers.
- Though the book encompassed my personal observations and viewpoints, Infosys’ corporate marketing was gracious enough to promote the book online on the corporate website. Account managers handed complimentary copies to select clients.
Well, before you ask me, the royalty - in absolute dollar terms: it was in Indian Rupees - was not much to write home about; paraphrasing the famous Mastercard advert:
There are some things (a book-royalty) money can't buy..
… for everything else there's MasterCard".
The sheer egoboo of seeing one’s thoughts in print, reviewed and commented on? …priceless.
Comments
Regarding your book I would like to say that it seems to be a big success because I have been waiting for it for months on Amazon. All I get is "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this title will be in stock again."
I am partner in a small IT consultancy in Bulgaria, Europe... Actually we are competitors with all other outsourcing software companies in the world, that is why I do hope to have a copy of your book someday and find valuable stuff in it which will allow us to grow while keeping our rates higher than the rates of Indian companies.
Posted by: Dimitar Bakardzhiev | June 3, 2007 12:49 PM