Category: Core MySQL

Categories
Core MySQL Core PHP

Sales Totals for Core PHP and Core MySQL

Long, long ago, I wrote a book about PHP. Actually, it was the first book about PHP. And it was a success. It lead to two more editions and another book about MySQL. Zeev, Andi and Monte each graciously helped with reviews, writing and endorsements. Being a best-selling author of the first PHP book has been great for landing gigs. Facing a range of criticism, especially in Amazon reviews, was a valuable learning experience.

Having last published a book in 2003, you might guess that sales have dropped off. The royalty checks are small. Even though the effort to write the books was immense, the rewards more than made up for it, especially for the first edition Core PHP. Despite diminishing returns, I might have continued the pattern of writing a new edition for each major version of PHP, but better books came out and PHP 6 never did.

As a perspective-setter, I offer all-time sales totals for the four books I wrote.

  • Core PHP 1/e (1999): 19,448
  • Core PHP 2/e (2000): 16,714
  • Core MySQL (2002): 5,773
  • Core PHP 3/e (2003): 11,456

 

Categories
Core MySQL Professional

Core MySQL Going Open

While Core PHP was my first book and the one that most people know, I also wrote a book in 2001 on MySQL called Core MySQL. It didn’t sell very well, probably because Paul Dubois already had a good book on the market about MySQL. Core PHP owed a good portion of its success to being first (well, Egon Schmidt’s book in German came out a couple weeks before mine, but the English-reading market is a lot bigger.)

Still, I am proud of Core MySQL because I had a better handle on the principles of organizing a book after doing two editions of Core PHP by that time. And I had to think through more things for that book because MySQL is more than just the SQL language. I liked learning relational database theory deeper than I did when I was in college and then figuring out how to explain it.

My contracts with Prentice Hall include a clause that returns the rights to the text to me if they cease publishing them. It’s taken a year for them to work through the process. Recently I got a letter confirmed that the rights are now returned to me. That will allow me to release the text under some sort of open license. Hopefully my spin on thing will help someone learn MySQL and relational databases.

Stay tuned for details and send me suggestions for licenses. I haven’t researched the options yet.