I received this in my mailbox this morning and thought I would pass it on. I also would like to know what section of the monastery this is best posted in. 
From: Julia Gilbert <JuliaG@wrox.com>
Subject: Pro Perl authors 


My name is Julia Gilbert and I am an Author Agent for Wrox
<http://www.wrox.com> .

You may be familiar with our range of books.  Our trademark is 
"Programmer
to Programmer", because Wrox books are written by professional 
programmers
for professional programmers and are subsequently reviewed by 
professional
programmers.

We are currently in the process of producing a publication dedicated t
+o
professional Perl programming and are seeking authors who have the 
expertise
to write chapters on one or more of the following subjects:-

1) Distributed Perl Programming 
(IPC, RPC, CORBA)

2) Perl and Other Programming Languages 
(Using C from Perl, writing with the POSIX.pm module, syscall, 
Devel::Peek,
DynaLoader.pm, Using Perl from C, Converting Perl into C, Converting 
Perl
into Bytecode (and back))

3) Perl and Unicode
([perlunicode] (I18N.pm), use utf8.pm, use bytes.pm) 

4) Locale and Internationalization 
(use locale, Unicode, Time and Timezones).

In addition to these chapters, we need someone to write a short sectio
+n 
on
Integrating Perl with Netscape

We would need your first draft of the chapter(s)/section(s) before the
+ 
end
of November, so please let me know ASAP if you are interested in 
writing for
us.

You are welcome to pass my enquiry on to any colleagues who you think 
may be
interested.

I look forward to hearing from you soon,

Julia

Julia Gilbert
Author Agent

Wrox Press
http://www.wrox.com

[download]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Nov 02, 2000 at 21:22 UTC
    Over on Advogato, Skud has been discussing this for a week or so.

    Basically, the publisher sent the original request out, blindly, to a number of Perl hackers a few weeks ago. The compensation was rather low, the editorial direction was not high, and the deadlines were insane -- not to mention the fact that lots of people in clpm don't really like getting unsolicited bulk e-mail of this sort.

    Undaunted by an early string of rejections, the publisher continues to search for people to finish the book. (One might wonder if it were better to line up authors *before* making a deadline.)

    This behavior doesn't exactly endear me to look favorably on the resulting book....

[reply]
      Well, I dont post on clpm, so that was not her avenue to me...

      What I wonder is why the editor isn't contacting people for each of the topics as he should probably know the people well-versed in each field.

[reply]
(Ovid) RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by Ovid (Cardinal) on Nov 02, 2000 at 22:09 UTC
    She contacted me, also. I had approximately 12 days to turn in the first chapter, which would have been fine if I didn't have a job! I am positive that she got my name from Perlmonks because she addressed me as "Ovid" (heh!) and I haven't been posting to Usenet, nor have I been hanging out on IRC.

    Needless to say, I declined. However, I sent a follow-up e-mail mentioning that not only does Wrox Press not have a Perl/CGI book (that I could find), the market in general (in my opinion) needs a such a book that is not only named at beginners, but offers correct security advice, demonstrates good programming techniques, yada, yada, yada.

    Not only did Ms. Gilbert not bother to respond to my e-mail, she sent me a follow-up e-mail informing me that the deadlines for the chapters she needed had been pushed back to the end of November. So, in my mind, she spams me, ignores me, and then spams me again.

    Incidentally, if anyone is interested, the online version of my Web programming course has been updated slightly. I have corrected a number of minor issues and have clarified some subject matter that I explained poorly. Further, there is now an Appendix 2 (but still no Appendix 1), that is a list of URI escaped characters and also HTML character codes. It also has an interesting little program at the bottom of the page :)

    I still don't have the third chapter written yet, but I hope to get to it in a week or two. The Wrox press spam got me to thinking that if I receive enough of a positive response, perhaps I should write a book. Hmm...

    Cheers,
    Ovid

    Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just go the the link and check out our stats.

[reply]
      She didn't contact me though.

      But when I hear "Wrox Press" my immediate memory is being asked by them to be a speaker at a Java conference. WTF? I most emphatically am not a Java programmer!

      That and the fact that I don't like spam (and the fact that I am busy) are quite sufficient to guarantee I would tell her, "No"...

[reply]

      I had a similar experience like Ovid - I was contacted, responded with an offer to write a chapter and was told "we have already an author covering this" - so why did she send the mail to me with all these chapters in the first place?

      Christian Lemburg
      Brainbench MVP for Perl
      http://www.brainbench.com

[reply]
(ar0n) RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by ar0n (Priest) on Nov 02, 2000 at 19:09 UTC
    As it says in Guide to the Monastery:

    "Meditations - Have you found out something amazing about Perl that you just need to share with everyone. Have you had a Perl epiphany, or found something in Perl that just blows your mind. This is the place for those neat little tricks and amazing discoveries."

    Perl Monks Discussion is for discussions relating to Perl Monks, not Perl (which is why I moved from there to here).

    [ar0n]

[reply]
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by KM (Priest) on Nov 02, 2000 at 22:52 UTC
    Many of us are spammed by Wrox on a regular basis, and I really which you didn't spread their spam here. These people get email addresses, spam people, have inane deadlines, pay crap (one friend was paid for what they used of his writing, not what he wrote), have bad editing (Simon was irate when he read his book and saw the horrible editing), and simply do not go about finding good authors in a good fashion. Nor, do they seem to want to publish quality books. How do you expect to have quality when you give 1-2 week deadlines? Being someone who just wrote a book, I know 1-2 weeks for a chapter can be very difficult (depending on the subject matter). Personally, I asked them to stop emailing me, yet, they haven't. From what I have seen, other publishers get email/names from authors/reviewers of their own, not from harvesting email addresses from CPAN and websites. Shame on them!

    The only thing to meditate on here is why you felt the need to post this here. If I could delete this, I would.

    Cheers,
    KM

[reply]
      Well, KM not everyone is as knowledgeable as you about the practices of these people. Before I posted it, I went to the website to check them out. I typed "Perl" into their search box and up came Simon Cozen's book, which to me lent credence to them as a company.

      Also, having seen their books in other non-Perl venues, I continued to see this lady's actions as legit, albeit unsolicited.

      Regarding your statement The only thing to meditate on here is why you felt the need to post this here. If I could delete this, I would. I can't see that as wise --- you have shared quite a bit of information that I am sure is new not just to me. Now we are all in the know about the scam this place is running and I, as well as anyone that reads this post, will be all the wiser for wealth of information you have shared.

[reply]
        I continued to see this lady's actions as legit, albeit unsolicited.

        Yes, unsolicited to you.. then unsolicited by you, to the Monestary. Even if it was unsolicited email from Tim O'Reilly, unsolicited email is Spam, and this is the spread of that Spam.

        will be all the wiser for wealth of information you have shared.

        Sorry if I am seeming confrontational, their emails have been quite the sore topic for some of us as of late. I hope we all learn something :-)

        which to me lent credence to them as a company.

        Well, Clinton Pierce wrote Teach Yourself Perl in 24 Hours for Sams, which happens to be a very good book, written by a very cluefull person.. but.. Sams still sucks as a whole :)

        Cheers,
        KM

[reply]
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by Fastolfe (Vicar) on Nov 02, 2000 at 21:01 UTC
    I got one of these e-mails a month or two back, except the list of material needed for chapters was different. I responded, declining interest. Looks like she's just sending e-mails to various PM posters. I wonder how much she's offering for content.

    /me wonders how you integrate Perl with Netscape.

[reply]
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by Maclir (Curate) on Nov 03, 2000 at 10:23 UTC
    I got one of these - ohhh probably about 6 weeks ago. I can only assume my address came from someone trawling perlmonks.

    I was kind of flattered that someone at least thinks that with my beginners level of perl knowledge I could still impart useful stuff to others.

[reply]
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by extremely (Priest) on Nov 03, 2000 at 13:45 UTC
    ++'ed for good intentions, princepawn. You hear about perl jobs that sound good, you keep em coming. =)

    --
    $you = new YOU;
    honk() if $you->love(perl)

[reply]
RE: Authors for Professional Perl Series Needed
by princepawn (Parson) on Nov 02, 2000 at 21:04 UTC
    No, I dont think she could cull me email address from my username at Perlmonks.org.

    Instead, I think she was doing some sort of web search.

    This same company put out Simon Cozen's book "Beginning Perl" I have been impressed with his monthly tutorials on perlarchive.com

[reply]

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