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I hope books don't go away

Ron Porter — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:35:43 -0800

I might be an old fogy when it comes to books, but I certainly hope they don't go away. As much as I like my e-books, there is nothing quite so satisfying as going the bookstore or library and just wandering the shelves and thumbing through a few books. I can't imagine how anybody could improve on that as a way to decide what to read next.

If I may offer my opinion, that browsability is the obstacle that must be overcome. If you can't put the book on the shelf somewhere then you have your work cut out trying to get me to buy. With very few exceptions (and your titles have so far been among them), I simply don't buy without being able to thumb through a copy. I've tried making on-line decisions with table of contents, sample chapters, and reviews. It's simply not as accurate and it's far more time-consuming. I can cover the local McNally-Robinson in about an hour. During that time I will have identified 50 or 100 titles of interest (books and magazines) and flipped through perhaps as many as 2-dozen. Some get filed for future evaluation and I normally walk out with 2-4 magazines and 1 or 2 books. Online, it would take me all day to track down items of interest and perform what evaluation I can and then I'd still have to wait a week for delivery. A week? By that time I should be finished reading them and looking for the next ones!

Good luck and keep up the good work.

First Software Creativity Story

Daniel Read — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 09:32:55 -0700

We received our first entry for the Software Creativity Search contest, from Ben in San Francisco, California. Ben's story describes exactly why we're so excited about the publication of Software Creativity 2.0. Read the story on the new page we've set up for the Software Creativity Search contest.

Thanks for reading,
Dan

"Sneaking" Ruby into production?

Edward G Nilges — Sun, 03 Sep 2006 20:24:16 -0700

See my blog post in reaction to something from the Hal Fulton Ruby interview.

Essays and Blogging

Daniel Read — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 14:41:30 -0700

Speaking of essay-style blogging, via Reddit I came across this excellent 2004 essay about essays by Paul Graham. Along the lines of my previously expressed sentiments, Graham writes "The Web may well make this the golden age of the essay." If you've ever wondered what people mean exactly when they describe a piece of writing as an "essay," this is a good place to start.

If you are interested in exploring essays further, I recommend reading some great essayists to see what it possible. E.B. White is one of my favorite essayists outside the software and computer worlds. Based on what I'm finging from my current reading of Paul Graham's book Hackers and Painters, I think we'd have to include Paul as a top-notch essayist himself.

Dan

University Press Going to Digital Printing

Daniel Read — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:51:07 -0700

I'll post comments to this thread from time to time that reflect two trends that I see as positive for everyone, especially authors and readers: on the one hand, the trend of more and more independent publishers popping up, especially in the software development space; on the other hand, the increasing importance of digital printing (aka Print on Demand).

On the latter topic, we have today this post by Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly Media) about the fact that Rice Universtity Press is going to a combination online and print-on-demand model. Expect to see more of this. It's a natural for text-oriented books where there is little reason for printing up enough books to fill up retail distribution channels; if the bookstores are only going to stock bestsellers and "mainstream" titles anyway, why take the significant financial risk of printing up and storing thousands of books? If you do get lucky and get into the bookstores or have a big seller, digitally printed books sit on a bookstore shelf just as nicely as offset printed ones, and there's nothing to stop you from doing an extra offset print run of a title.

Thanks for reading,
Dan

No apologies needed

Cristi Potlog — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 07:15:53 -0700

Dan,

No apologies needed, it was just something that I have sensed reading subtext. You cleared that suspicion away now.

And you're right, I wrote that the book has been just published at the beginning of the post. My apologies here, for misleading.

I replaced the text with has been just reelased.

Best,
Cristi

No Disapproval Intended

Daniel Read — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 07:06:25 -0700

Cristi,

My apologies, it was not my intention to express disapproval. I did not communicate well. My comment about the book's availability was mostly intended to clear up potential confusion for readers since your post referred to the book as having been "publishe." I have never read Petzold and was genuinely interested in hearing more about why you liked his work so much--just trying to expand the discussion. I appreciate your response to my question. I was particularly interested in learning whether Petzold made programming style and general technique part of his Windows-specific subject matter, and you've answered that.

Since reading your original post and have been reading Petzold's blog. He is deep into the XAML! This is an area I have not explored at all yet, but it looks interesting.

Best,
Dan

More on Petzold

Cristi Potlog — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 04:34:46 -0700

The book is not yet published, that's true. I posted only a pre-order link on Amazon. But as a reader to the book's blog it seems that the work is almost over.

About Windows Programming, let's say that it was the first real programming book that I read and through it's well chosen samples that just worked and technology insight I realized my first computer programs on Windows.

I'm not saying that it has any influences on my programming style or anything, not being a programming engineering book, but it was a great starter, and made my life a lot easier. I recommend it to everybody, although it may be outdated at this time.

This post is a mere homage to Petzold's work, and it came from a feeling of joy of seeing the man about to finish a new book.

Even though I'm sensing a bit of disapproval from your side, I'll stick to my opinion.

Best,
Cristi

Tell us More About Petzold

Daniel Read — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:11:20 -0700

Cristi, what is it about Petzold's work that affects you so strongly? I'm curious to know more about how Programming Windows improved your skills as a programmer. Does he offer more than information and advice that's specific to the platform he's writing about?

Also, it does not look like the book is yet published. Looks like it will be a few more months at least.

Thanks,
Dan

Answers To Edward's Questions

Daniel Read — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:32:37 -0700

Thanks for the great questions, Edward.

First, on the topic of libraries, it is definitely our intention to make sure that our books end up in as many libraries as possible, including the Library of Congress in the U.S. If you could help us get into the library of Hong Kong University, that would be great. I'll send you an extra copy that you can bring to them as a gift, in fact. Being part of "the memory of civilization," as you put it, is one of the primary reasons for writing and publishing books in the first place--at least it is for us.

Your comments numbered (3) and (4) point out the downside that if a book is only available for purchase online, then how can potential readers peruse it as a physical object while browsing in the bookstore, and how do they stumble into it in the first place? There's not a quick answer to this, but I'll hit on a couple things that hopefully will suffice.

First, we would love to get our books onto brick-and-mortar bookstore shelves in every store in the world so that browsers could stumble into it and skim the text before buying. Our model does not specifically exclude this--we simply do not *count* on it. We have already been sending the book out to retailers for their consideration, and I've contacted some independent stores myself via email (believe it or not there are a few indie technical bookstores still around). If one or more retailers wants carry the book and orders a certain quantity, then we'll be happy to print those up--in fact, they won't even have to deal with us directly to do this; they can just order whatever quantitly they want from our wholesaler, Ingram. We give a standard trade discount, and we accept returns.

The difference from the standpoint of publishing business technique, if you will, is that we don't *start* from that position: printing up a large number of books on an offset press, storing them somewhere, and hoping, hoping, hoping that the channel will order them and sell them through. If we were forced to start there, the whole risk profile would be different, and we couldn't take a risk on a great book like Software Conflict 2.0. We'd have to stick to AJAX and Rails books that we could be sure would sell.

There's also nothing in our business model that says that we are precluded from using offset printing or doing a large print run of a certain title. In fact, we know one publisher who is doing a mix, using offset for some titles, print on demand for some titles, and even a hybrid for some titles.

The other angle of this that you mentioned was the browsing effect, creating the opportunity for people to stumble into the title and then giving them a way to check it out before making a decision. Our strategy is to create analogs to this online as much as possible. For one, we ensure that anyone searching for the author's name on any search engine is only a click away from finding out about our book(s) by that author.

We also maximize Amazon and other online retailers as much as possible. Amazon in particular is used as a book browsing tool by many. We are participating in Amazon's Search Inside program also, which means that buyers can see scanned images of excerpts from the book. Not to mention, we have excerpts, the Table of Contents, and other information about the book available on our web site.

We are also, of course, following the traditional promotional path of sending out review copies to various publications. Many people as you know find out about new books by reading reviews. We're also hoping that as more people receive and read the book that word-of-mouth will kick in also.

As I stated above, time will tell how this all works out. In the meantime, however, our whole strategy is based on the idea that a book is a timeless, mysterious thing that is a worthy end in itself.

Dan

Comments on Dan's business model

Edward G Nilges — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:00:43 -0700

Dan, I think on-demand publishing a great idea, but, I have two concerns.

(1) Will a copy of the on-demand book make it to the Library of Congress?

(2) More generally, will libraries world wide have the opportunity to order a copy of an on-demand book? I say this because being in the library of Hong Kong University (as is the case with my book) gives the book credibility. More important, it becomes part of the memory of civilization.

(3) What about the browser? How many people simply don't know that want a book until they hold in in hand?

(4) Again more generally, true book lovers don't "want a specific title". They don't know what the hell they want. It's the practical man, who doesn't read most of the time, that knows exactly what book he wants.

People treat a book author with a bit of awe, since he's done crossed de line into a status with what Walter Benjamin called "aura".

His words may actually reverberate years from hence in libraries covered with the sea when the sea again retreats.

Comments from Former SD Editor

Daniel Read — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:14:26 -0800

A post today to Alexa Weber-Morales's blog offered what will probably have to be considered the final word on all this:

Today I read several misguided opinions on what caused the demise of my old magazine. Yes, I should ignore them. I am tempted to set them straight, but to what avail? This is a lesson--to others, an event can appear so different from what actually happened, and even those who participated may not agree on a single truth. The funny thing is, outsiders will infer all sorts of rationales and important trends from what happened, when those 9 men and 4 women who were on the inside of the situation know that, in the moment, it was just a struggle for personal/professional supremacy. And as much as I deplore real war, I feel no need to spend 8 hours a day working on a simulated battlefield. I came, I saw, I learned. Now I'm gone and doing amazing new things. So goodbye, SD/CL. You taught me well. I'm just sorry I couldn't save you from an untimely closure at 22.

I'm tempted to comment further, but since I am (literally or otherwise) one of the well intentioned but ultimately ignorant commentators to which she refers, I am doing my best to resist. It's no good: I can't resist inserting the idea that probably a lot of events that ended up having historical significance attached to them seemed mundane to those on the inside. Actually, though, it *is* disappointing to have confirmed the impression that when it came to it, the beloved SD Magazine was little more than someone's chess piece "on a simulated battlefield."

Dan

Two-Headed Whatchamacallit?

Andy Tegethoff — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 13:00:55 -0800

Unfortunately, that's what I see "Dr. Dobb's Old-Tyme Project Management and Programmin' Weekly" becoming.

This was a trade rag I read pretty much cover-to-cover every month. The direction of the articles had already kind of soured my enjoyment of it to some degree, but Ambler's and Keuffel's pieces were consistently worthwhile -- with many of the other contributors also frequently distributing gems.

I will miss this one, and I'm not sure I'll get in on Dr Dobbs. Time will tell...

I echo your sentiment about the IEEE mag, Dan.

Great post, thanks, Donna

Edward G Nilges — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 01:26:53 -0800

I wrote a letter to the editor of COMPUTERWORLD in 1972, asking why Turing got no credit: I didn't realize that his reputation as a "homosexual" had obscured his achievement.

It is hard to imagine just how feared homosexuality was in the 1950s. Basically, my father, who as an upper-middle class physician, both refused to wear Harry Trumanesque goomba shirts and forced my Mom to wear high heels, gloves, a hat, and a dress every day of her life, because, I think, he feared being outed as gay, which he wasn't.

He spoke to me recently of how my Mom looked up to him as a real guy, who'd served in the Army, but unlike the guys who grabbed her when she and her fellow nurses served in the USO. My Mom liked the fact that my father knew opera and would take her on dates to museums, a cheap date in the 1940s.

To me my father represented a solution to the equation of being a guy and being half-civilized.

But because my father couldn't talk about these issues, and because I inherited my Mom's willowy frame, my father was always scared that I was queer. This created alienation and bad feeling that lasts until today, because I felt people shouldn't be labeled. Plus I am not gay, just happy now and then :-).

There was a fashion in the 1970s for outing famous figures. I feel we're all a little bit bisexual, and that creative, intelligent people a little bit more.

Certainly, I encountered anti-gay sexual politics in MIS. The very idea of the geek codes the geek as the feminine/queer term in a relationship to the "real" MANager.

Simple software quality and reliability is re-presented, in the politics, as "frills" with the implication that the software designer not concerned, like a real Man, with the essentials of "business" alone wears mesh bikini shorts underneath his sober Gap attire.

The very idea of the Turing machine is gay-subversive, for it deconstructs the phallic competition of the "powerful" system, which systematically confuses information with the conversion of energy that occurs in that quintessentially male device, the car, with the textual, writerly, and therefore suspect activity of code.