Books in Beta Form

congaflum writes "The Pragmatic Bookshelf recently released the second beta of their upcoming book Agile Web Development with Rails. By releasing the book to the public in beta form, the authors are able to gather feedback about the books content from a larger audience that would normally be the case. Readers get to influence the direction on the books content by posting feedback to the publisher's website. And of course there's the benefit of simply getting to read the book early. Could beta-version books be a sign of future changes in the commercial publishing industry? And with the availability of things like print on demand these days, how about books that are much more frequently revised (why buy a year-old Edition 1 of something, if you can have Edition 1.1.18?)"

Comments

Star Wars Beta?

[fembots]

Maybe Star Wars should be released in beta? This way nobody can really argue who shot first.

For a guide/manual book, beta is probably a good idea because the ultimate goal is for readers to make use of the book easily.

For a story book, instead of releasing beta of a pseudo-complete book, author should release it chapter by chapter, and change the story direction based on reader feedback, in another word, Plot-Beta rather than Writing-Beta.

Re:Star Wars Beta?

[Ambush Commander]

For a story book, instead of releasing beta of a pseudo-complete book, author should release it chapter by chapter, and change the story direction based on reader feedback, in another word, Plot-Beta rather than Writing-Beta.

That would be a disaster. ;-) Seriously, though, a lot of the time, the criteria for getting a book published simply is whether or not it's finished or not. Young, struggling writer = Unfinished Novels. Lots of them. Old, struggling writers = Finished Novels that sold about 100 copies. Let's not change the problem.

Post-Publish Fate

[BlogPope]

What happens to that book content once the book is published? Will it still be available? Seems odd

On the plus side I wouldn't mind seeing an "updates" site where the author could publish tech corrections, version updates, etc.

Re:Post-Publish Fate

[joeljkp]

Here's an idea for a wiki if someone wants to implement it:

ErrataWiki, or maybe WikiFixes

Search by title, author, ISBN, get book errata and corrections listed by edition, and tagged with any official confirmation

Buying newer versions

[dcclark]

(why buy a year-old Edition 1 of something, if you can have Edition 1.1.18?)

Easy. Because I need the information NOW. Because I want the physical copy that I can grab off a shelf any time I need it. Because there will always be a newer version coming out, and if I really need the book, I have to get it eventually.

Perhaps this trend will encourage people to be a bit more conservative about actually buying a book, but people who need a book will still buy it when they need it. Of course, this begs questions like... will we eventually get the x.0.1 updates for free somehow? Will publishing ever expand to such an extreme anyhow?

I dont know

[hobotron]

As weird as it sounds, a publicly moderated "bugtraq" forum for a new book would be highly interactive and interesting.
I am also wondering what happens in the long run? Would the authors' individuality be hopelessly spoiled by people camping (and/or some version of bot/scripting), or even just the will of the masses ruining the personal touch of one author?
Where would it end?

Re:Paranoid College $tudent

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait--you never took a college course where the textbook was the most recent version written by the professor? And it wasn't quite done before it hit the printers?

I recall a $100 textbook I bought 8 years ago. In the first lecture, we were helpfully given a 40 page packet of "errata" with the textbook.

This aint new.

Counterpoint

[FunWithHeadlines]

You make a valid point, but mostly when a committee actually tries to sit down and write something. In contrast, soliciting feedback is an author's best friend. The readers of the author's work give comments that might not be valid, but they just might be. Grammatical errors are found, or changes in tone, or just hard to read sections. All of this is very valuable, and the reason editors exist.

This is a way of open-sourcing, so to speak, the editorial process. And as long as the author has final say ("What? That's a stupid suggestion!") it can still read as one person's voice, but a voice that has been refined by many eyes to eliminate the inevitable mistakes.