Poll: Top ten languages for computer books
I received a statement this week listing sales for the Eclipse IDE Pocket Guide, a book I wrote for O'Reilly Media. There were a couple of things in the statement that might surprise you (they sure surprised me) so I thought I'd share.
First, I noticed that sales of the printed version were some 20 times larger than online sales (downloadable PDF's and Safari). I checked previous statements and it wasn't a fluke. Even though the online version is cheaper it seems that most people prefer reading it on paper. It would be interesting to know if other writers are seeing similar numbers.Second, there was a line titled "Subsidiary Sales" that accounted for nearly 70% of the total for the quarter. I looked into it, and discovered the publisher has subsidiaries in several countries that translate books and sell them in their local languages. I've seen a Russian version and a Portuguese version, plus I've heard there's a German version and maybe some others. Foreign language sales were more than double the domestic US sales. Wow.
What languages would you like to see used for original and translated technical material?