Permanent Portfolio Real World Perspectives -- Concept

[Cortopassi]

Hi, All:

I am asking for opinions on the potential success of putting a book together (Kindle/ebook or real paper) that takes some of the gems of back and forth discussions on the PP that have happened on this forum over the years and compiling the best into a book.  Imagine 2-10 page sections, each covering a key topic, with some of the best comments on the subjects.

Craig seems to think it could be a good idea, and suggests self publishing this through Amazon.  There are a few items I am asking you all for opinions:

1) Copyright issues.  I am trying to contact a patent/trademark lawyer friend to get a better idea, but does anyone know if individual comments on an open forum like this are in any way copyrighted and would my using them in a book violate anything?
2) The actual final format of the book -- I like real books, but certainly an electronic format is much cheaper and quicker to publish.  Any opinions?
3) Any opinions on whether you think people would buy this (you all are a key group!) and whether or not the potential universe of buyers is even large enough to make it worthwhile at all?

My wife's comment was basically wondering why would people buy this, when they can go on the forum or Google search these.

I appreciate any comments.

Mike

[MediumTex]

Sounds like an interesting idea.

The problem with this sort of effort is that often there is no "voice" in the final product to weave together a narrative that makes you want to keep reading.

I think that you would need to arrange it topically and be very disciplined about sticking to the topic in each section.

Another challenge is to make sure you are adding something to the existing written body of work out there.  You can do it through the skillful editing and compilation of existing work, but it requires a steady hand.  With the PP book, I know that we really really really really really wanted to add to what HB had already written, rather than just rehash it.

There was some really good writing in the epic PP BH thread.

I've found that the kind of writing people want to read tells a story, rather than just presenting information. 

Every sentence should be an audition for the next sentence.

[mathjak107]

can i  do the counter-point section ?      lol  i just need someone with working fingers and a shift key  ha ha ha

[rickb]

1) Copyright issues.  I am trying to contact a patent/trademark lawyer friend to get a better idea, but does anyone know if individual comments on an open forum like this are in any way copyrighted and would my using them in a book violate anything?

Bogleheads explicitly spells out their copyright policy, see https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/rules, which explicitly preserves the author's ownership of posts.  In contrast, Wikipedia also explicitly spells out their copyright policy and makes anything you say there republishable by anyone so long as the republished work also includes a similar ("copyleft" style) copyright policy.

Absent a terms of use statement (which is the case here), my non-lawyer guess is that anything posted here belongs (in a copyright sense) to the original poster and the terms of use explicitly stated by bogleheads are implied (i.e. the site is allowed to make the posts publicly visible, others are allowed to quote you on this forum, moderators are allowed to delete or edit your posts, etc. - but no one is allowed to republish your posts in any other form without your permission). 

[Cortopassi]

Thanks, guys.

[Cortopassi]

That is the 64k question.  If I were to say any and all interested in knowing more about the PP, I don't know what that universe/# of potential buyers might be.  Stats on # people worldwide who follow the PP would be a good start, but I have no clue on that.

It reminds me greatly of a lot of products ideas and concepts I've worked on in the past.  Great/good ideas, but how to market?  I developed and sold a dog leashing product (magiclatch.com) and recently got bought out by my partners (at a loss...) because after three years, trade shows, Google Adwords, You Tube Ads, Amazon and Facebook marketing, etc, while it was a good idea and the market huge (dog owners!) the status quo was too hard to overcome and sales were/are poor.

I don't know if MT or Craig would be willing to share details of how they came about to develop their book, and the steps it took and how to get past that big marketing hurdle --  interested in a subject enough that you've written a book and spent countless hours on it, now how do you effectively market it?

Hell, the PP book is in the Arl Hts, IL library, for example, how the heck does it get there?  I am a novice.  I assume publishers come with a marketing arm to get the book into stores, libraries, etc. for some cut.

Personally, the main audience would be me!  I just figured, rightly or wrongly, that others may be interested as well.  That assumption may be misplaced.  And how to seek out those people, good question.

[MediumTex]

That is the 64k question.  If I were to say any and all interested in knowing more about the PP, I don't know what that universe/# of potential buyers might be.  Stats on # people worldwide who follow the PP would be a good start, but I have no clue on that.

It reminds me greatly of a lot of products ideas and concepts I've worked on in the past.  Great/good ideas, but how to market?  I developed and sold a dog leashing product (magiclatch.com) and recently got bought out by my partners (at a loss...) because after three years, trade shows, Google Adwords, You Tube Ads, Amazon and Facebook marketing, etc, while it was a good idea and the market huge (dog owners!) the status quo was too hard to overcome and sales were/are poor.

I don't know if MT or Craig would be willing to share details of how they came about to develop their book, and the steps it took and how to get past that big marketing hurdle --  interested in a subject enough that you've written a book and spent countless hours on it, now how do you effectively market it?

Hell, the PP book is in the Arl Hts, IL library, for example, how the heck does it get there?  I am a novice.  I assume publishers come with a marketing arm to get the book into stores, libraries, etc. for some cut.

Personally, the main audience would be me!  I just figured, rightly or wrongly, that others may be interested as well.  That assumption may be misplaced.  And how to seek out those people, good question.

The PP book was pure luck.  One of the guys who followed the BH PP thread and this forum happened to work for a large publisher and basically suggested the idea to us and pitched the book idea to the publisher, and in many ways paved the way for us.  The publisher saw the obvious market for the book, but without that introduction it wouldn't have happened (at least we wouldn't have been the ones to write the book).  Just a fortunate confluence of events because I think the end product turned out well, and I don't think anyone else could have done a better job at creating a readable guide to the PP.  I think that the illustrations were also really cool.  The illustrator was Craig's idea but we each came up with the concepts for the illustrations and I think they added a lot.  The "401(k)asino" was one of my favorites.

[mathjak107]

i read the book and think an excellent job was done on  conveying the thoughts and ideas  of the pp.  i don't even  have to follow it to realize what a good job was done  on expressing the ideas behind it .

[frugal]

MediumTex,

how many books could you sell up to now?

Regards!

[MediumTex]

MediumTex,

how many books could you sell up to now?

Regards!

A wild guess would be around 5,000.

Many thanks to all of you here who bought a copy.

[frugal]

MediumTex,

how many books could you sell up to now?

Regards!

A wild guess would be around 5,000.

Many thanks to all of you here who bought a copy.

Hello,

and how many PP investors in the world you estimate?

Regards!

[MediumTex]

MediumTex,

how many books could you sell up to now?

Regards!

A wild guess would be around 5,000.

Many thanks to all of you here who bought a copy.

Hello,

and how many PP investors in the world you estimate?

Regards!

No idea.

[Mark Leavy]

MediumTex,

how many books could you sell up to now?

Regards!

Hi Frugal.  I'm just curious as to how old you and your wife are.  And how much you weigh.  Are you ugly or pretty?  And what kind of grades your kids are getting in school?  And what is in your bank accounts?

Cheers and thanks in advance!
Mark