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:

1. SUSE Linux 10.1 on a DVD inside a jewel case
2. A 150-page printed “Quick Start Guide” with basic installation instructions
3. An 800-page SUSE Linux reference book (SUSE Linux 10 Unleashed in this case) in PDF format on the DVD along with SUSE

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.

• Peter H. Salus/Groklaw
• Jon Watson’s Tales from the Motherboard
• John Berger/Bityard
• Nathan Willis/NewsForge

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