This site is now embarrassingly out of date. As I’ve focused on other stuff it appears I’ve completely neglected my own namesake. I guess if there were a way to just take the site offline for awhile I’d probably do that. But there’s not (at least in the old version of WordPress I’m running). So in the meantime, until I can actually start posting some stuff again, we’re going to have to make due with this lame apology.
In a nice little demonstration of how quickly and effectively the blogosphere publicity apparatus can work, a posting on the Digg Blog about our recently published book PHP 5 in Practice (written by Eli White, who works at Digg as a PHP programmer, and Jonathan Eisenhamer), was dugg yesterday on Digg.com itself, boosting the book’s Amazon ranking from #460,000 up to around #6,000 overnight.
All that, and the post didn’t even say anything about what a great book it is, and how PHP programmers everywhere will find it packed with practical recipes and solutions based on Eli and Jonathan’s years of experience in the PHP trenches.
read more | digg story
Technorati Tags: Digg, PHP, programming, how-to
Many years ago in the heydey of computer book publishing some smart guy at Sams Publishing one day got the idea to take a computer book that had a CD in the back of it (like, say, a programming language tutorial that included a compiler and example files on the CD), put that book and its CD into a big, bulky retail software box, and then sell it as if it were a software product.
Dubbed “book in a box,” this idea was so wildly successful it eventually grew into a whole new business line for Macmillan — a line that eventually was closed down after getting quite a bit too far astray from the original, successful idea of building software products that were natural extensions of our book lineup, and that built on our core stength in teaching people to use computer technologies.
But I’ve always thought that the original idea of packaging our book content along with the software that you need to learn the topic at hand, and selling it as something that isn’t necessarily a big printed book, was truly an excellent one — one that there’s just as big a demand for now as there was in the ’90s.
The problem was, we just didn’t have a good vehicle or channel for this kind of product any more — bookstores didn’t want to carry software boxes on their book shelves, and places that sold software had pretty much gotten out of the business of selling computer books.
So, meet the 2006 version of “book in a box” — the Linux Starter Kit:
Designed to look a bit like a software product, but to be shelved alongside books in a package that a reader can easily open up and browse in a bookstore, the $39.99 kit includes:
So far, initial sell-through of the Kit has been very promising. And the first couple of reviews have generally lauded the idea and the package. Though there have been a couple quibbles over whether or not SUSE 10.1 is really the best distribution for a target audience that seemingly includes users like your “Uncle Fred and Aunt Suzy” — which to me means more that we need to tweak the packaging to make sure it’s clear that it’s *not* intended for the novice user who barely knows what an operating system is, but the computer enthusiast or self-taught learner who wants to try out the world of Linux without a lot of investment in cost, time, or risk. In other words, the classic Sams reader.
Expect to see more like this.
Technorati Tags: Book in a Box, Linux, Starter Kit, Sams Publishing, SUSE, SUSE 10.1
Sometime soon our first short (50-100 pages) PDF product — Pearson’s brand name for this type of product is “Short Cuts” — is expected to be available for sale.
We decided to capitalize on the recent release of SUSE Linux 10.1 and come out with a concise electronic guide — called SUSE Linux 10.1 Kick Start — to what’s new in SUSE 10.1, how to get it installled and configured, how to set it up as a complete desktop operating system, and how to troubleshoot common problems.
Jem Matzan (who produces The Jem Report) wrote the PDF/guide/shortcut (don’t yet know how to refer to these things exactly), and I think he did a great job of writing something that adds value above and beyond the excellent SUSE documentation and that’s something SUSE users are going to willingly pay $7 or $8 for.
Plus we’re doing a lot of interesting things on the design and production end of things to make the PDF much easier to read on-screen than the typical ebook, and to take advantage of the medium to make the information inside more readily accessible through a variety of different avenues — to allow more random access for the reader.
It’ll be very interesting to see how it’s received.
Technorati Tags: e-books, Linux, Short Cuts, SUSE, SUSE 10.1
Early this week we finally got our first book up on Safari’s new Rough Cuts program¹, where electronic versions of unfinished books are made available for readers to view online and/or download in advance of the official publication date.
Theo Schlossnagle’s long-awaited book, Scalable Internet Architectures, has the distinguished honor of being the very first Pearson book in Rough Cuts. ASP.NET 2.0 Unleashed followed shortly thereafter later in the week.
I guess it’s likely that the ASP title will sell a bit better in the short run than Theo’s book, just because there’s probably more current buzz about the new version of ASP. But it’ll be interesting to see how much interest — and useful, thoughtful feedback — Scalable Internet Architectures generates in advance of the expected print publication date sometime in July 2006. I expect it’ll do well.
Unfortunately, Teach Yourself Ajax in 10 Minutes, which quite certainly would have been a guaranteed Rough Cuts bestseller, was actually scheduled to come out too early in print form — the Safari people wanted at least a three-month interval between the title’s first appearance on Rough Cuts and the print publication date. First time ever I’ve published a book too soon.
¹Safari Books Online is a 50-50 joint venture between O’Reilly and Pearson, and includes books from both companies as well as others.
Technorati Tags: ajax, books, Pearson, Rough Cuts, Safari, Scalable Internet Architectures
Welcome! My name is Mark Taber and I work for Pearson Education in Indianapolis publishing computer books for Pearson’s Sams and Que imprints (as well as MySQL Press and Novell Press). I’m not sure how frequently I’ll be able to post to this site, but I did want to have a vehicle for posting the occasional item about a new book or a new series or product when it seems like it might be of general interest. So sign up for the feed and then site back and relax and see what eventually comes your way. And if you like, feel free to visit my personal family blog at www.colleen-n-mark.com (which is where the trade show posts below came from originally).
This year, one of the trade shows that I regularly go to — the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) — happened to take place the same week that Melinda was scheduled to be at Band Camp practicing her flag-waving routines and that Christopher was planning to stay with his grandparents for a week (and our two recent houseguests, Katharina and Renu, had both already gone home to Germany and India respectively).
So Colleen and I decided to take advantage of this serendipitous sequence of opportunities and make use of some accumulated frequent-flyer miles so that she could come along with me to Portland — the first time since our honeymoon trip to New Orleans almost 19 years ago that we’ve travelled together on the same plane!
We had a blast. During the day, while I took care of business at the conference (manning our exhibit booth, schmoozing with authors, learning about new products and technologies, etc.), Colleen visited an old teacher friend who lived in the area and generally acquainted herself with Portland’s many charms and peculiarities.
We also had several evenings to ourselves to ride the streetcars, eat dinner in some interesting Portland restaurants, and explore the wonders of the famous Powell’s Bookstore — which is kind of what you’d get if you combined into one huge store (to put it into terms that an Ann Arborite would understand) the original Borders, a university bookstore like Ulrich’s or Follett’s, and a used bookstore like David’s.
The full photo album, complete with many pix from the booth and the convention exhibit floor, is at:
http://www.colleen-n-mark.com/photos/album/200508osconportland/
Tags: OSCON, Portland, Colleen, Mark, second honeymoon, travel
BrainShare — Novell’s big annual user conference in Salt Lake City every March — was all open source, all Linux, all the time this year. It was fun to see big splashes of SUSE green thrown into the mix amongst all the usual red.
Here’s a slideshow of some of my pix, set to the neo-newwave sounds of the Killers:
Tags: Novell, BrainShare, Salt Palace, SUSE
A couple colleagues and I made a trip out to Provo, Utah in early November to visit with people at Novell, get an update on their software product plans for next year, and figure out what books we need to publish in Novell Press.
It was my third trip to Utah this year, but the first time when there was snow on the mountains — all three of us poor, terrain-starved Hoosiers couldn’t help but overtly ogle the stunning views through the windows of the conference room where we had our meetings.
Tags: Novell, Novell Press, Provo, mountains
I’ve posted a photo album and a slide show movie (in QuickTime format for a DSL or cable connection) from Pearson’s presence at this year’s MySQL User Conference in Orlando.
We were able to show off our very first book from MySQL Press — a new imprint we set up at the beginning of the year to publish the official books on the very popular MySQL open-source database system, as well as on other products and technologies from Swedish software company MySQL AB.
Here’s a quick-and-dirty slideshow that I put together with iPhoto, showing some photos I took at Novell’s BrainShare conference in Salt Lake City:
Medium Size and Medium Quality (QuickTime Format for a DSL or Cable Connection)
Tiny Size and Crummy Quality (QuickTime Format for a Modem Connection)
