Question for Mason

[walleyes]

I have Harrington's book and like the other posts must agree that it contains terrific info. I've always been puzzled however as to why a premier player such as Harrington or others would want to dispense the knowledge it took them decades to obtain in a book for others to have at less than 30 bucks. Without the specifics obviously can you tell us how your authors are compensated. For example is it a flat contracted rate, so much per book etc. Also, what is the range an author can expect to be compensated if a book such as HoH sells well. If you can't answer the questions, I understand. But, ever since I've been playing poker and reading poker books, I've had these questions. Thanks for any insight you can share.

[cowboyzfan]

Why does anyone who is a success write a book? Most failures don't get book deals, and certainly they don't have many people clamoring to buy.

I am always amused by the amount of people who are perplexed why a poker player would reveal their secrets. Here is an analogy, look at how many people are overweight. Yet, who truly doesn't know how to lose weight? People know how to do it, but they keep hoping there is some trick they can learn, instead of hard work.

Poker is the same thing. You can tell all your secrets, but learning them, and applying them effectively at the table is hard work.

Another analogy is golf, In golf, we know 10 times as much about the swing as we did 30 years ago, our equipment is better, the courses are better maintained, and we know much more about fitness. However, the average golfer has NOT improved over this period. The average golf score is the same.

My feeling is this, for every person who learns from a Sklansky or Harrington, they will bring with them 20 additional fish to the game. Those that think a poker book could "ruin" the game just don't get it.

think about it, Doyle used to love to talk about how Super System "ruined" the game. He was so worried about it, that he wrote Super System 2. get it?