Yeah, we have bad luck with journals. Basically, it's too much work for us
hands-in-pockets, lackadaisical folks. We're used to putting out one book at
a time, which takes anywhere from four months to four years. (How long did
the sendmail book take?) Doing a publication over and over, even with three
months between deadlines, is a killer.
We had three great ideas--the X Resource, the W3C journal, and the Journal
of Linux Technology--and we couldn't make them work, because between the
burn-out factor and the tendency of most knowledgeable editors here to
withdraw their attention (we get wrapped up in our book projects) we failed
at all three.
I get a lot from the Perl Journal, but I couldn't push for us to get
involved in the production. It's just not a fit with our corporate style.
On the other hand, we're pretty good at Web sites. Not much with perl--we
sponsor Tom's perl.com but I don't think it gets as much traffic as some
other sites--but with XML and a couple other technical areas.
Andy
