\_ I am an acquisitions editor for a well known computer book
\_ publisher and I am looking for Linux gurus (in addition to other
\_ areas) to review proposals from prospective authors, perform
\_ technical edits on written manuscript, and of course new authors to
\_ write books. For each of these jobs there is of course payment, it
\_ just depends the role.

This is my $0.02 and doesn't necessarily reflect on the company who
sent this message, but is meant as a general warning in the field of
writing.

I was at one point contemplating assisting a publisher by writing a
chapter or more of a linux book.  We had a disagreement over terms,
particularly the "work for hire" clause.

IANAL, but IF you sign a 'work for hire', then you get *only* the
money in the contract, and if that doesn't say anything about
royalties or derivative works or anything subsequent then you have NO
rights on what they do with it *and* *you* can't do anything with it
either.  So, given that, a possible scenario was:

* write like a dog
* revise like a dog
* get chump change (another part of the contract I didn't care for --
    "you'll be famous" -- this from a company I had *barely* heard of :-)
* book publishes
* book does 'well'
* second edition, minor edits, if any
* different book, same chapter, minor edits if any
* second edition of book #2
* third book, same chapter...

dya notice that there was no recurring chump change despite being used
several times?  

I went and read the 'typical' ORA contract that is floating around on
their site someplace, and *I* would have signed on that one, if I
didn't like the first two steps (I happen to know how hard writing
is).  

Anyway, YMMV, and I have nothing against publishing companies and
work-for-hire so long as *both* parties understand the ramifications
before signing.  Read those contracts, lawyers wrote them.  :-)

David