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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?)"
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.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
On the plus side I wouldn't mind seeing an "updates" site where the author could publish tech corrections, version updates, etc.
My other car is a Popemobile
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With people having the electronic format available there's a few factors to consider:
1) There will be more word of mouth, so more people will hear about it
2) Some people will buy it because they read some of it and like the content but prefer the format of the book (so that they can read it in the bathroom maybe, what do i know).
3) Some people will read it and decide that they either don't like it, or that they are satisfied with just having the book in its electronic format.
What the publisher in this case is that item 1 and 2 will add more buyers than item 3 will cost them.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
Yeah, this may just be the paranoid college student in me, but why do I see this being taken advantage of for textbooks? It's bad enough they release a new version just when you're finally ready to sell the book back to your campus bookstore, but updating possibly even quicker, new editions may keep coming out mid-course.
If they only make you pay once for the beta and for the full version when it is ready, as this one appears to work, that's okay I guess, but this could get way out of hand.
More efficient would be to release each chapter as and when it becomes beta-ready. If the publisher is greedy, then the chapters can come with some sort of expiry date so that the whole book cannot be assembled by the chapter collectors.
I'm just thinking like a publisher here... personally, I would want no kind of DRM or expiry date or any such crap on these things.
(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?
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?
There is truth in humor.
What a grand idea. Let's dumb-down, mollify, coddle and all-around temper any possibility of having something 'different' and instead replace it with the infamous 'too many cooks' defense.
Honestly, how many books have you read, written by a committee, were worthy of the time spent reading them? Or movie-scripts written by 4 or more people?
I have nothing against collaboration, but let's be honest; it's easier for one person to innovate than it is for ten people to integrate.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
"At SourceBeat, we believe the traditional publishing model does not work in rapidly changing environments such as open source software. Traditional books take too long to go from author to bookshelf, and many times the books are outdated soon after release. Until now. SourceBeat is the first publisher to create always updated open source technology books, written by expert authors such as James Goodwill, Bill Dudney, Matt Raible and many others. Utilizing our "LiveBook(TM)" process, readers and subscribers are always sure of getting the most current information on each open source project.
How it works differently than the traditional publishing model is that instead of buying a static book, readers subscribe to a particular book for 12 months. The expert authors provide updates on their respective topics, ensuring the most relevant and current information on a project. No more buying multiple books on the same topic in order to cover the areas you need. In addition, as a subscriber you can interact with the author through list servers and weblogs. This way you can let them know your thoughts on current items and also what you would like to see in future updates."
Seems like a good model - I am planning on subscribing to Plone Live myself.
SourceBeat has been offering "subscription" based eBooks for a while now. My book Desktop Java Live just had its first release published through them. The books are updated often to keep up with changes in open source content. SourceBeat also supports print on demand so ordering a print copy generates the latest version available. This gives readers the best of both worlds regardless of whether they pick the eBook or the print version.
This seems a lot like what they did in the 17th cent. with the passing around of manuscripts before publishing--- just an observation.
/. was bad about posting dupes, but this is just getting out of hand ...
I knew that
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.
It's not just that POD sucks. This is actually a *lousy* time to be writing technical books for publication on paper. I've written a raft of them in the past 20 years and have seen some rich and lean times, but these are the worst. The major book chains are relentlessly reducing the sizes of their computer book sections, meaning that they will buy fewer copies of fewer titles, which means that publishers will be choosing fewer titles from fewer authors, and will give less money to the authors they choose--who will tend *not* to be first-timers.
Basically, the computer book industry is moving from the anomaly of the 1990s, when anybody could get a computer book published (talent optional) to the place where SF and most other categories are now: You'd better have a major reputation forged elsewhere (magazines, online forums, university research, successful startup, etc.) that spills over into computer books, or nobody's going to return your phone calls. The walls between book categories are high: Even though I've sold a quarter million computer books, I can't get anybody to even look at my SF novel.
It's relatively easy to establish your own press based on POD technology, and it will get easier in the future. If you know how to reach your audience, you can sell direct and make money on relatively few books, perhaps more money than you could make as a new author with a conventional publisher. There's research and work involved but others have done it, and if your topic is narrow enough it may be the only route to take near-term. (2-5 years.)
Good luck and don't give up.
--73--
--Jeff Duntemann