Self-publishing a book with Glasstree

Three years and three major revisions after it first appeared on Arxiv and GitHub (why GitHub? see this blog post), my review article on two-dimensional conformal field theory may be mature enough for appearing in book form. But with which publisher?
To answer this question, I should first say why I would want to have a book in the first place, since the text is already on Arxiv.

Was it such a good idea to put this review article in the public domain?

Two years ago, when posting a review article on Arxiv, I did the experiment of putting it in the public domain. The idea was to allow anyone to distribute and even to modify it, in the hope of increasing the circulation and usefulness of the article, as I explained in this blog post.
Putting the text in the public domain also has potential drawbacks:

• losing revenue,
• losing control.

The potential loss of revenue is not a problem for me, as I am already employed and paid to do research by the French research agency CNRS. In fact I am not sure whether scientists should earn money from their professional writings or patents. Anyway, in the case of such a specialized text, the potential revenue would be small.
The potential loss of control is a priori more worrisome. Could my reputation be damaged if someone did something bad with my text? In order to find out, I had to wait until people actually did something with my text.

 

Enters Amazon

My review article is now available for sale on Amazon, in the Kindle format, at the price of about $9. I had nothing to do with that edition, I guess it was done by an Amazon robot.

The case for emancipating articles from their authors

In August 1795, the composer Joseph Haydn, on his way back from England, stopped at Passau, where he listened to a performance of one of his most famous works, the Seven Last Words of Christ. He had written this work in 1786, at the request of a Spanish canon, who wanted orchestral music for accompanying meditation during church services. At Passau however, the local Kapellmeister, Joseph Friebert, had added a choir, and made the work into a cantata. Haydn himself had already done a transcription for string quartet, and approved another transcription for piano -- but he had never thought about a cantata.

So, how did Haydn react, after his work was modified without his authorization?