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Looking for advice: let's say I had a great system, do publishers buy them anymore?
Hyperbole about "the greatest system ever" aside, maybe OP does not want to trade it himself, for whatever reason. I've seen people create good strategies, but could not trade them - because maybe they did not like the drawdowns, or the amount of capital it required or maybe just the style of trading it did.
Your advice about leasing the system or selling signals is good, yet some people can't handle the stress of knowing others are trading real money based on their signals.
I would assume OP has thought of your very valid suggestions, and decided a book might be a way to go. Like you, I have reservations about the book route.
Sadly, I have to say that I think this is probably the most realistic way to look at this situation.
I can empathize about not having money and needing it for some purpose unrelated to trading, and I can understand thinking you have a great system and being torn between putting it use or doing something more important, the charity projects you mentioned.
But let me say that if the system is that good, then it would make you a lot of money pretty quickly. If you think a book deal is easy money, and that writing a book is a quick task, and that you can cash in on the system that way, I sincerely doubt it. If you don't have a track record, why would a publisher be interested in purchasing a book from you? Just because you can show some charts and can explain how great it is? Probably not, if you have no real-world experience trading it live, consistently, and profitably.
So, while I don't want to be discouraging, I think the way to capitalize on the system is to trade it. If you don't have time, that's fine, then make the decision to put it on the shelf until you do. I think you basically have something you think is a great idea, but you haven't said anything about having actually traded it. There are a lot of seemingly great ideas that don't pan out, and if you haven't traded it profitably and well, and for a decent amount of time, then neither you nor a prospective publisher can know what you've actually got.
So, while looking for a way to sell it is not necessarily a lost cause, I think the most likely way to get some cash out of it is to trade it. If you can't trade it right now, then put it on your list of future projects, and find the cash some different way.
I'll wish you good luck, and I do hope for your success, but I think you should be thinking more in this line than looking for a publishing company to buy the book from you.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and great advice. So I guess publishers don't buy good ideas anymore, okay. So yeah, I guess I'll just trade it myself as soon as I have the time. Perhaps I'll sell it via my own website later on after I have some track record too, but I'm not sure if I want to put the effort into that, unless I had a partner that did all the marketing work for me. I may just give it away for free at that point too. It's just a cool system that I think alot of people would like, so it urks me to just keep it to myself, I want to share it with others. I know how frustrating it is to try to figure out good trading techniques, and learning what works and what doesn't. IMO there aren't a whole lot of techniques that work, for instance even trendlines are confusing because everyone is drawing them wrong, so the industry is basically desperate for something that actually works and makes sense, something that can be a solid reliable standard.
Realize that the possibility exists that in giving it away, you might actually cause the strategy to no longer work, as others trade it, front run it, etc.
It could be argued this is what happened to the world famous Turtle strategy.
Guys, let's put a stop to this and act like we're grown up. There's no need to be mocking or personal, or to throw fuel on any fire. Don't get things started up again.
Everyone involved, just relax and let things go.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
Good point, but the Trend Tracker indicator is the basis of my system, and it cannot ever not work because it's not a prediction of the market (or future) but it's telling you what the market is actually doing, so as more & more people trade it, it'll just become more accurate. The only problem is when everyone is trading it, so everyone is doing the exact same thing, so that'll result in everyone getting more slippage on their trades, so that'll eventually cause everyone to have to trade longer term. But the indicator will still keep working LOL.