Help appreciated: what’s wrong with my Zone-based Firewalls book?
A quick question for you: in two years since my Deploying Zone-based Firewalls digital short cut (marketese for downloadable PDF) was published, we’ve sold around 200 copies of it. Obviously we’re doing something wrong and I’d appreciate your opinion: is it the topic (are you using ZB firewall on Cisco IOS?), the format (would you prefer paper copy?), the platform (Cisco IOS as a firewall), pricing ($14.99 for 112 pages) or something else?
I think a pricing of just below the $10 mark would be appropriate. Taking a book like the new R&S guide, in printed format is $76 on Amazon.com. This book is 1200 pages. That makes out to about $0.06 per page in printed format. This book, by the same measure is then $6.72. Ofcourse amount of sales and other factors will influence this alot, its still the best guideline I can come up with. So $10 would be a good price for me.
Hope that helps a bit.
The only issue is that when I go to download it it just wants to download a 1.4kb ".acsm" file which seems to be some sort of XML, of which my machine has no idea how to handle. With both Firefox and IE8...
I'm left bewildered and wondering if I purchased something I can't even open. Maybe the pirated copy would have been a better option as it looks to be a proper PDF..
If my experience is anything to go by then I'm somewhat less than impressed with the online ordering system, but looking forward to reading the book if I can get it to work.
The online ordering system leaves a lot to be desired however. It was not intuitive - and for online purchases this really is a must. For the first time in many years after buying the book I was left with a nasty feeling that I wouldn't be getting what I ordered as it wasn't obvious how to get the document in a format which could be read.
Perhaps other people do what I just did - it's available on Safari. I went there, added it to my bookshelf and that's how I will read it. It's the digital age, I suppose... :-)
Pirates are going to pirate it either way, DRM or not.
But for wider audience, I'd think that its a matter of it being more widely known, but I'm at a loss as to how you could do advertising for such a book to your target audience.
2. I have not heard of the book till today and I try to keep abreast of Cisco Press Books more than most people might or at least most normal folks outside of the 200 buyers. This is probably it. :)
3. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I know I prefer paper to e-books. Just me. I do like having e-copies but until I get really into the kindle thing, paper is the way for me.
4. The price seems very reasonable too me at under $15.00 a copy.
5. I love your work and may just go buy a kindle so I can take advantage of this opportunity now that I know about it.
1) I prefer to put some paper under my pillow.
2) I don't buy anything for that I don't know if I can still use it when I change computers, don't have an internet-connection or the seller goes out of business (or somethng else like that). So I don't buy anything that has DRM.
I had bougt it as a real book, as I ran in many problems when I started the migration of many CBACs to the zone-based model. (Another reason for buying it as a book would be that I buy nearly every security-book from CP ... ;-) )
thanks for pointing this one out. Like some of the others, I wasn't even aware of it. Which is a shame, because I am not aware of any other books on this important topic for ccie candidates.
I like your writing style a lot and am looking forward to reading it. Most of my study material (universcd) is electronic anyway, so I don't mind the format.
Cheers
Have purchased it and am now struggling to open the legal copy with Adobe Digital Editions - we'll get there eventually but I do prefer the paper book experience to the digital variety.
Thanks.
2) I don't have a need at the moment for zone-based firewalls.
3) I wouldn't buy it unless it was available in a non-DRM non-proprietary format.
4) I'm notoriously cheap (not that I condone pirating your book either).
It has to be much cheaper so that I can buy the rights multiple times as I change computers. Realistically, I will stick to paper versions in the future.
The first and perhaps biggest issue is DRM, as some others have noted. You are marketing this book to technologists, who understand the risks posed to the consumer by DRM. The PDF I purchased through Safari does not have DRM (although each page is tagged with my Safari username.) As a rule I do not purchase electronic media that has DRM. On the few rare occasions that I have purchased a secured PDF, I immediately printed the file on a Windows computer and extracted the PS file from the print spool directory. Whether it is Amazon clawing back a Kindle ebook due to some licensing snafu, or some company going bankrupt and taking my DRM permissions with them, there are simply too many risks associated with DRM.
The second reason for me is the publication date. Unfortunately, in our industry, a book published in 2006 has the word *stale* written all over it. I am not saying that your book is stale, I am saying it looks stale by virtue of the publication date. When I am searching on Safari and I see a publication date of 2006 I am unlikely to click, simply because it is too time consuming to look any further. While this is true for a book focused on some standard or protocol, it is doubly true for a book about a vendor implementation. If the topic has evolved or changed enough to warrant a new edition, then release a new edition.
A third reason may be the pricepoint. $14.95 seems steep for a 100 page book that is this narrow in focus. On Safari, the nominal cost of a token is $2, so I paid $6 for my PDF of the book (ignoring the sunk cost of my subscription.) However I am curious, when you mention that 200 copies have been sold, what does that number include? Does that number reflect regular Safari users (reading online) and Safari PDF purchasers (like me)?
Also the description does not really tell at what kind of audience the 'digital short cut' is aimed.
Maybe you can try to expose more of the book, in what style it's written, how it will directly benefit you as beginner/intermediate/advanced user, who you are, you're credibility as cisco expert, etc.
The issue is ignorance here. Cisco introduced zone firewalls with little explanation, so the masses have stuck to what they know - eg CBAC.
Moving forward, why not produce a brief general guide to IOS firewalling moving onto zone based firewalls in more depth so that people can understand what they can achieve in real life deployments.
ie the BIG picture, rather than detailed config.
Once the idea of using them is made & sold, the next natural question is, where can I learn how to configure them. Voila - buy the book :)
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps5708/ps5710/ps1018/prod_white_paper0900aecd8062a909.html