Security Yearbook 2024 Will Be Published by Wiley!
Big news to announce. Last night I signed a contract with Wiley to publish Security Yearbook 2024.
Security Yearbook was inspired by my experience signing copies of Secure Cloud Transformation: The CIO’s Journey in Zscaler’s booth at RSAC 2019. Three things occurred to me:
A book launch on the Expo floor was a great way for a vendor to draw a crowd. Over 400 people lined up to meet the author and get a free copy. But what should my next book be?
Many of the people I met were young and told me they were new to the cybersecurity industry and had come to RSAC to learn all about it. I should write what I know: the entire cybersecurity industry explained.
Walking the show floor I met startup founders who had no idea that their innovative approach to solving a security issue had been tried before. We were losing the knowledge of our own history.
Thus was born the idea of a history of the IT security industry. The next year I launched Security Yearbook 2020 on the show floor and several adjacent events including the CyberEdge introductory class on the industry and the CISOs Connect meeting. It was easily the most successful book launch I have had and the buzz was building. I was lining up speaking events for the rest of the year.
A week later Covid hit and everything came to a halt. 2020 was a record year for book sales as people found themselves with more time at home. Unfortunately, those books were primarily fiction, providing a refuge from the world.
I continued to produce and print Security Yearbook. The costs came close to $25K. If it weren’t for shipping costs it would have been a profitable investment.
Last March IT-Harvest underwent a major shift. We launched a SaaS platform for researching the entire cybersecurity industry. We track 3,399 vendors this morning and have 32 users of the platform, well above plan. Security Yearbook is closely tied to that because the platform is used to generate the listing of all the vendors.
Security Yearbook 2023 will be the last edition published by IT-Harvest Press. Letting go of production means I will not control the design or even the format, but I am happy to relinquish that in exchange for Wiley’s vast distribution network. Next year’s edition will be available in bookstores, schools, and libraries.
In the meantime, Security Yearbook 2023 is still in the final production phase. If you have pre-ordered your signed copy it should arrive in late July. Per the newly signed contract I will stop selling all copies of Security Yearbook by April 30 next year, about the time Security Yearbook 2024 will hit the bookshelves.