Q&A;: Philip Parker, Developer of Automated Authoring Platform

Mac Slocum
April 30, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Philip Parker, founder of ICON Group International and a management science professor at Insead, has developed a patented approach to publishing that combines databases and programming with editorial management -- sometimes via humans, sometimes via computers. ICON Group produces books in 17 genres, including health care, business, reference and crosswords.

In this Q&A;, Parker discusses ICON Group's computer-driven process.

How do you identify book topics?

Based on personal and research interests, I select a genre. Once a genre is selected, I do all titles in that genre (e.g. all trade categories that are officially recognized).

Are writers, editors, or designers involved at any point?

Depends on the genre, but yes, all are relied on heavily at many stages. Health guides are written by medical professionals and hand edited. The business reports have highly edited sections, but 90 percent is computer based.

What types of sources/databases do you pull information from? Are there data sources you don't currently have access to that you think hold promise for this type of publishing?

Depends on the genre. I use the sources that are used by regular authors. For example, an economist uses well established sources to do econometrics, I use the same sources. Many companies and governments have under-utilized data sources and databases that may yield interesting genres; I have worked on the ones that I found of interest to me. I have a huge store of proprietary data. If I use a government source, this is cited, and will vary by genre (e.g. CDC for infectious disease information).

You were part of a print-on-demand (POD) panel at TOC '08. Are all Icon Group books POD? What POD service(s) do you use?

No, not all are print-on-demand. We use LSI [Lighting Source] and Booksurge for POD. We do some POD ourselves for specialized orders.

Could your company -- or a similar company -- function without POD?

Yes, in fact, most of our titles are not POD, but electronic via subscription for large libraries -- corporate and non-corporate.

Are all books also made available as ebooks? What ebook formats do you use?

Yes. PDF, DOC, Mobipocket (coming soon), Pocket PC.

Do researchers or clients ask you to prepare specific books?

Yes. We are able to do financial and labor studies on demand.

Mike Maznick says there's some fairly negative feedback on some of the titles. Is that a consequence of the automated nature of the content creation? Do you feel confident people buying these books know they're generated? Or does that not matter?

All publishers have negative and positive comments (e.g. O'Reilly). I would find it strange if our titles did not. Of the titles we have on Amazon, some 50/210,000 have real comments. Many are satirical. Of the ones from actual buyers, all publishers will receive negative and positive feedback (both can be not real, as Amazon comments are almost wiki based; posted by various people, including affiliates who are trying to sell titles).

I do not track the feedback on Amazon, but I imagine of the 17 genres (crosswords, classics, trade, outlooks, etc.), the negative ones are probably only on the health care guides, which are sold mostly to libraries and patient associations. Of all the genres, this one [health care] is not "generated by computer" -- all the text is written by professionals. The computer is used for formatting and doing the index, and compiling the glossaries.

I have a feeling that the low ratings are because the person does not like the content, thinks that better content or similar content is available elsewhere (e.g. the Internet) or was hoping for more. The health guides are clearly marked as Internet guides, and they cite Internet sources. All of the guides are vetted (by librarians, etc.). If people are dissatisfied because they think the computer wrote the text in the books, then they are dissatisfied for the wrong reason, which is unfortunate.

Many patient associations have not only reviewed the books, but also recommended them to patients and families. On balance, I think it better to make these available to patients with rare diseases who wish to better know how to navigate the Internet, beyond a Google search. For the other genres, I have never received negative feedback, only positive feedback or questions about methodology.

What is your most popular title? How many copies were sold?

Our trade reports, which are purchased by consulting firms, investment banks, and companies involved in international trade. This series is very popular. We gauge sales by series, not by individual titles. Traditional publishers think in terms of individual titles.

On average, how many copies of a single title do you sell?

There are thousands held by libraries (this is public data at World Cat). Some firms subscribe to all titles. Again, we often sell series. Some [titles] sell hundreds, some sell just a few, as a part of a series sale. The prices seen on Amazon are one-off -- we sell few or none of these.

For a typical title, what percentage of the total retail sale is profit?

We do not have a typical title. ICON Group as a whole makes no "profit" -- all resources are plowed into R&D; for new genres. The margins of the books at retail -- as opposed to profit -- are very low for the POD titles, and higher for the business titles. The margins for the low-priced products follow the industry, though we have lower margins as POD can be expensive compared to short-run printing.

A recent New York Times article says that each book costs you "about 12 cents in electricity." What other costs are involved in the process?

It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, or more, to set up a genre (programming, licensing, editing, research/analysis, etc.). Many [genres] take about 1 year to create, some take 3 to 5 years. I have been doing this for about 8 years now.

How is pricing determined?

Same as in the publishing industry. In some genres we try to equate marginal revenues to marginal costs. On lower-priced POD we make sure we cover the basic costs. On higher end, we try to be substantially below related titles (e.g. trade and outlook, and other business reports). The latter [higher end] are really not sold via Amazon much, but rather through MarketResearch.com, EBSCO (content inclusion), NetLibrary and traditional channels for those markets (direct sales).

How many titles do you plan to develop this year?

Depends on the genre. For Mobipocket (mobile books), we plan on about 68,000 titles. For others, maybe around 50,000. We are working heavily on my dictionary and animations.

Related:

• Video: "Patent on 'Long Tail' for automated content authorship"
• Automated Authoring Frequently Asked Questions
• Measuring Success on Self-Published Titles

Nabokov's Final Novel: The Perfect Mash-Up Source

Mac Slocum
April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Vladimir Nabokov died before he could finish The Original of Laura, and the long history of the unpublished novel is worthy of its own literary epic. The saga is coming to an end now that Nabokov's son, Dmitri, announced his intention to publish the work.

But here's the rub: The Original of Laura is drafted -- in fragment form -- on 50 index cards, and Dmitri Nabokov has no intention of finishing the novel himself. Nabokov tells the BBC:

I would never presume to finish my father's works for him because there are so many strands and threads and thoughts there that perhaps might have been developed further. And I simply don't have the right.

Will another author accept the daunting task of completing a Nabokov title? Or, will the text from the 50 index cards be edited together as a book?

Here's another idea: publish the fragments on the Web and let Nabokov scholars and fans interpret the material. I know the chances of Nabokov-inspired literary mash-ups are remote, but content with this kind of pedigree would bring significant attention to digital publishing experiments.

Related Stories:

• Opportunities in Book Publishing and Web Communities
• Experimenting for the Sake of Experimenting
• Do Publishers Have the Stomach for Innovation?
• "Dilbert" Embraces User-Generated Content

Ebook Format Primer

Liza Daly
April 21, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | Listen

The simplest solution, of course, is to partner directly with the ebook manufacturers and let them take care of the details. These partnerships must be drawn up for each new platform and publishers are at the whims of the device-makers' terms of use. Innovative publishers may want to first experiment on their own and be prepared to shift platforms strategically: this means ebook distribution must fit into existing workflows. Although some of the formats below support digital rights management, consider eschewing DRM in favor of flexibility and cross-platform support.

Let's start with the major devices first:

1. The Sony Reader primarily uses Sony's proprietary Broadband eBooks (BBeB) format for documents with DRM but also supports RTF and non-DRM PDF. Sony does not provide any official tools for end users to convert to BBeB although at least one unofficial open source tool can convert HTML to BBeB. The most flexible non-DRM formats are RTF and PDF. Microsoft Word can readily save to RTF and Microsoft offers detailed instructions on converting from XML to RTF, but pure open-source alternatives are not mature. XML to PDF conversion has stronger open source support but files may need to be specially tweaked for optimum display on the Reader.
2. The Amazon Kindle uses Amazon's proprietary AZW format, which supports DRM. There are no tools available to directly convert to AZW, but AZW is a wrapper around the Mobipocket format and DRM-free Mobipocket files can be read on the device. Mobipocket documents can be created using a free (but not open-source) tool called Mobipocket Creator. As if the format wars weren't confusing enough already, "Mobipocket DRM" is not the same as AZW, and files created as Mobipocket DRM cannot be read on the Kindle. Mobipocket Creator does have a "batch" creation mode which could be integrated into an existing workflow, but the software is Windows-only. The Kindle also supports HTML and Word documents, but not PDF.

Specialized readers aren't the only way consumers may be viewing ebook content. Ultra-portable laptops like the Eee PC and OLPC XO are price-competitive with standalone readers. (I have an OLPC and reading by the pool in bright sunlight is quite a joy.) The next version of the iPhone is expected soon, and while the first edition was already a serviceable reader, the next version is likely to be more so, and to reach a wider audience.

All the devices listed above, except the Sony Reader, can read a common format: HTML. If XML is already a part of your workflow, converting to HTML is trivial.  If not, HTML is a worthwhile investment for a number of reasons:

1. XHTML is the standard markup for book content in OPS/.epub. .epub support is just getting off the ground but is expected to become widespread.
   
2. If your publishing workflow includes HTML, your organization is able to distribute content to dozens of devices in addition to the open Web.

HTML is also the lingua franca of online search engines, and inclusion of partial or full HTML books will attract casual surfers and can drive community engagement with your content. Whether it's BBeB or AZW that becomes the Betamax of the next decade (and one, if not both, will be obsolete by then), HTML conversion is guaranteed to pay off in the foreseeable future.

Related Stories:

• Keep Your Eye on the epub Ball (But Do Play Nice)
• Penguin's Missed Ebook Opportunity
• Bad Math Among Ebook Enthusiasts

Q&A; with WEbook President Sue Heilbronner

Mac Slocum
April 15, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (1) | Listen

WEbook is a new Web-based platform that blends traditional writing workshops with Web 2.0 functionality. Authors and groups can use the site to develop manuscripts, novels, screenplays and other publishable content, and if their efforts are well received, the projects are published by WEbook.

In the following Q&A;, WEbook president Sue Heilbronner offers further details on the company and its collaborative process.

How did WEbook start?

WEbook is the vision of Itai Kohavi, our founder and CEO. In addition to being a twice successful entrepreneur in the technology space, Itai is a twice-published author. When he "completed" his manuscript of his third project -- certain that it was in good shape -- he sent it to a few sharp friends for their feedback. The critiques he received were superb and comprehensive, but he realized that if he had the reactions and input throughout the writing process, he would have produced a far better written product in far less time. In addition, he would have enjoyed working together with friends and fellow writers. He looked online to see if anyone had created a cooperative publishing tool that would have met his needs. Finding nothing suitable, he conceived of WEbook, doing away with the age-old vision of the lonely author and embarking on a community-sourced content creation environment for book publishing.

Is the platform based on wikis? Blogs? Is it proprietary?

Our platform is proprietary and was built for this purpose. It is based in part on wikis, with additional focus on inline comments, inline ratings, and versioning.

How many people are currently participating in projects?

As of April 9, the day WEbook opened its public beta following the alpha, there are 750 registered users of WEbook. Many of the alpha users were recruited in to the process to help provide valuable feedback on the platform and prove that collaborative authoring works.

How are projects created and managed?

Projects are created by an instigator who has an idea for a new book, collection, story, screenplay, etc. That person, the "Project Leader," has the ability to invite others to participate in the writing, give feedback, or both. She sets exposure level and permissions for the project when she establishes it. The Project Leader is charged with managing the project, but in many cases the work can take on a life of its own, with other writers or reactors moving it ahead at a rapid pace.

Are all projects public?

No. WEbook felt it was extremely important to balance the interests of writers -- who feel very strongly about the ownership and protection of their written work -- with the wish of WEbook to create a vibrant community. WEbook allows a project leader or author to make a project private. In doing so, she can be the only member of the project or elect to invite a few friends. A "private" project can stay that way so long as it stays under 35 people (not coincidentally the size of the largest possible creative writing class). At member number 36, the project is effectively a WEbook public project. Users are made aware of this when their project hits that limit, and there are implications of this decision within the Terms of Use and the rights allocation.

Do authors maintain copyright?

The Terms of Use for WEbook required some really new thinking, as the model doesn't exist anywhere else on the Web, and we needed terms that departed in important ways from copyright law in order to make the process possible. Authors who work on private projects with fewer than 35 people retain rights throughout. Once they hit that 36th member, put their work into the public realm, or submit their work for contention as a published WEbook, WEbook takes a six-month option to publish. If WEbook does indeed publish a book, rights are transferred to WEbook, the publisher. If WEbook does not publish, rights revert to the author. That's the simple version. The WEbook Terms of Use are more detailed. We're also producing a short, snappy video to highlight key issues of this all-important topic.

What is the revenue split with authors?

Authors and substantial contributors receive a total combined royalty of 5 percent of net sales.

How are substantial contributors determined? Is it a quantifiable level (i.e. they posted x number of times)?

We use a formula to determine materiality. It has a few softer inputs beyond quantity, which constitute attempts to create a measure of quality and significance to the ultimate work. This is not fully refined, and we expect this algorithm to be a continually moving process as the site evolves. Ultimately, users will see a measure of how they stack up against the algorithm to give them motivation and transparency. We also are intrigued by the idea of giving authors marketing tools to motivate users to contribute to their projects. This might have royalty implications in the future.

Have you found certain topics that are suited for collaboration?

Our goal is to provide a platform that adapts and grows in the direction the community sets. Our first book is Pandora, a fictional thriller written by 17 authors and 17 other contributors and editors. We believe a novel is the highest challenge for collaborative writing, and we took it with the alpha community to prove the concept and learn how writers could write together in the hardest scenario -- a continuous work of fiction.

That said, we think the majority of the WEbook successes will fall into the category of non-fiction or fiction collections. Topics that resonate most with users and, presumably, with the reading public, will be those that are enhanced in coverage because they have input from a community. So, for example, we have a project on our site related to successes families have achieved at home with kids diagnosed on the Autism spectrum. On a far less serious note, there is a great collection of essays on 101 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do and The First Year, a collection of harrowing essays from first-year teachers.

How will books be selected for publication?

The community will vote on projects that have been put into contention for publication.

How will voting be managed?

Voting will be done on the site. Ratings already occur there for in-progress works and submissions. You will need to be a member of the community to vote. The bar to join is low, joining is easy, and we feel that in order to give an important thumbs-up or down to a work, you should at least identify as a member of the community.

The community will be the overwhelming majority voice in what is selected for publishing. This makes sense, as we view the community as an ingrained base of potential buyers. That said, it would be disingenuous to say that WEbook will move ahead on 100 percent of their top selections or not move ahead on something that just missed the cut. We have strong writers on staff and in our adviser circle (mainly coming out of the alpha experience), and we intend to use them as an occasional input to ensure we're on a good quality path for constantly improving the brand and the work we bring to the market out of the site community.

What formats will books be available in?

WEbook plans to leverage the full range of existing formats -- paper books, ebooks, audiobooks -- as well as delve into new potential formats, including mobile dissemination and unique, customizable downloads.

Will the books be made available through retailers?

Pandora will be available at Amazon.com, BN.com and other Ingram-related online retailers. As WEbook establishes critical mass, a following, and a brand, we will pursue favorable distribution opportunities with brick-and-mortar retailers.

Related Stories:

• BusinessWeek: "WEbook Puts a Crowd in the Author's Seat"
• Web Worker Daily: "WEbook: Book Publishing By the Masses"
• Writing a Book with Google Docs
• Haskell Book Author Adapts to Reader Comments While Writing

Is Publishing Getting More Comfortable with Digital Brand Building?

Mac Slocum
April 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Niko Pfund, Vice President and Publisher of the Academic and Trade division of Oxford University Press, recently offered answers to frequently asked publishing questions. Pfund's first response touches on the topic of online availability and its impact (pro or con) on print sales. Pfund writes:

The more specialized a book, the more likely it is to benefit from online visibility, and the more likely it is that people will be sufficiently interested in or stimulated by an online viewing that they will purchase a print copy.

Pfund's answer reminds me of Kevin Kelly's "findability" generative and Tim O'Reilly's argument that obscurity is a bigger threat to lesser-known authors than piracy.

This topic also touches on the murky issues of brand awareness in a digital platform. Online marketers are accustomed to detailed tracking reports, but all those click-throughs and ad impressions don't reveal brand recognition. This discrepancy between the comfort of copious data points and the nervousness of brand building seems to be represented in publishing's first moves into free/viral online distribution. As Pfund notes, "... these sorts of things are very difficult to pin down and quantify in any truly conclusive manner, given all the factors at play." Even with the Web's built-in analytics, a digital effort still requires a healthy dose of experimentation.

What's interesting is that folks like Kelly, O'Reilly and Pfund have focused their thinking on specific groups -- in this case, specialized books and obscure authors. Perhaps this shift toward individual application is the beginning of increased comfort with the ambiguity of digital-based brand efforts.

(Via GalleyCat.)

Keep Your Eye on the epub Ball (But Do Play Nice)

Andrew Savikas
April 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (23) | Listen

On Peter Brantley's Reading 2.0 email list, former IDPF director Nick Bogaty offered a great argument for dialing down some of the pressure aimed at device makers for not yet fully supporting the .epub ebook standard. Nick has kindly given permission to have his comments reprinted here:

While companies like the one I work for have broadly implemented .epub support in its eBook products (in Adobe's case in InDesign CS3 for making .epub and Digital Editions for consuming it), I think it is too early to question vendor support for the .epub format. The final piece of the .epub specification (which is really composed of three specs) was only approved in September 2007 and it takes time for big companies to digest the implications of .epub on their businesses, integrate it into their products etc.

When we were making the .epub format when I was at the IDPF, we envisioned that eBook hardware and software would handle .epub in one of two ways. The first way is to simply render (in the case of eBooks that means "read") .epub files natively. Personally this is what I think makes most sense and it is what Adobe thinks makes most sense. You get an .epub file, open it in a piece of software or on an ebook reading device, and you're reading an .epub book. This scenario uses .epub as a consumer format.

The second way is for software or a device to take an .epub file and automatically convert it to a proprietary format. A publisher creates an .epub file, sends it to a vendor or through a channel that they want to sell, and that vendor or channel builds some sort of automatic conversion of the .epub to a proprietary format. There are many reasons for doing this, and all reasons generally have to do with companies thinking the .epub format doesn't meet the requirements of their hardware or software. This scenario uses .epub as a distribution format.

Either way, the advantage for publishers is very clear. Until now publishers had to convert to X numbers of formats if they wanted to take advantage of X numbers of channels. This significantly raised costs for publishers and forced publishers to make a strategic decision on what parts of their inventory they wanted to convert to an eBook in order to recoup their investment in conversion. And this had depressing consequences for consumers. Imagine going into a Barnes & Noble store with only 10,000 titles available.

What .epub really gives publishers is leverage. They can say to their vendors and channels, "ok, I'm now only giving you .epub and you better either provide software that reads .epub or provides an automatic conversion from .epub to Y format." This tremendously lowers costs and aggravation for publishers and, I strongly suspect, will increase inventory through the channels quite dramatically. The decision to create an eBook is just so much easier to make. And, if a hot eBook startup (or existing non-compliant eBook device/software) comes along to a publisher and says, "I've got this great device or software, give me your books in my format," a publisher can say, "you get .epub if you want my books." I strongly suspect that in the coming months, this above scenario of ".epub only" will start to happen more and more as publishers begin to produce .epub and understand its tremendous benefits to their digital businesses. And, publishers can use this leverage to get their software and ebook device partners to implement .epub a little faster.

While people don't seem quite in the mood these days to do so, I'd give Amazon (and others) the benefit of the doubt and a little time on .epub. The format is clearly in everyone's best interest.

[Links and emphasis added]

Nick's comments are reasoned and rational (not unexpected from someone who's spent time on both the standards side and the vendor side). And while publishers need to be realistic in their expectations for adoption of such a new standard (here at O'Reilly we're still working ourselves to efficiently retrofit content for .epub), publishers still need to keep the .epub goal in sight, and make sure that our actions continue progress toward that endpoint. As Nick suggests, saying "ok, I'm now only giving you .epub and you better either provide software that reads .epub or provides an automatic conversion from .epub to Y format" is the right way to go, for publishers and consumers.

Related Stories & Information:

• .epub FAQ
• Pssst, Buddy, Wanna Buy a Kindle?
• Amazon Ups the Ante on Platform Lock-In
• A Twist on Mobile Book Content

Experimenting for the Sake of Experimenting

Mac Slocum
April 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Satellite radio companies Sirius and XM are both touting aggregated programming that focuses on a popular artist or topic (e.g. the '08 election) for a period of time, then gives way to the next subject. Sirius calls them "pop-up channels." XM dubs them "microchannels." (They'll have to settle on a name if/when their proposed merger goes through ...)

From the Washington Post:

By any name, they [aggregated programs] are a reflection of a changed entertainment and information culture, a recognition that the American audience is shifting from loyalty toward permanent formats to sudden plunges into topics and trends that flash onto the collective consciousness and then flit away as quickly as they arrived.

What I find interesting about this idea is that it tests bite-sized culture without abandoning traditional long-form or channel-based content.

Penguin Books is embracing this same "try it and see" concept with its We Tell Stories project, which uses digital delivery and Web-based tools to play with different storytelling forms. While I'm sure there's a revenue stream surrounding this idea -- and ideas of its ilk -- the real value comes in trying for the sake of trying, as Joe Wikert notes. This is especially true in a digital environment, where the platform minimizes risk. Penguin isn't abandoning its core business in favor of the We Tell Stories project -- it's just testing an idea.

Ultimately, the game-changing idea that revolutionizes publishing could very well be the end result of theses types of experiments.

Tag an Audio Clip, Buy it Later

Mac Slocum
April 9, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Stick with me on this one. TWICE says HD Radio iTunes Tagging lets listeners mark a song for future listening/purchase. The process is clunky -- users have to hear the song, press a "tag" button on a special HD Radio, connect an iPod to download the tag metadata, then sync the iPod to a PC -- but I imagine syncing will improve as the functionality matures (ideally, the HD Radio should wirelessly transfer metadata to a PC or a mobile device).

Usability issues aside, the idea of "tag-then-buy" could extend to audio books. If publishers and radio broadcasters team up to air select chapters from audio books, HD radio users could tag the book for future purchase through an online retailer.

Or, if the technology catches up, consumers could make a direct purchase through a mobile service and download an audio book or ebook to a mobile device, in-car hard drive, PC, set-top box or server.

A system like this might be just around the corner. If the move toward DRM-free content continues to gain steam and consumers get comfortable with mobile-based buying, electronics manufacturers and content creators will look for ways to shorten the line between discovery and purchase.

The Digital-Only Sequel

Mac Slocum
April 7, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

A sequel to a successful film soundtrack isn't a new idea, but the team behind "Juno" is tweaking the concept: the film's second soundtrack -- "Juno B-Sides" -- will only be released in digital format.It's an interesting move: ride a wave of popularity in a low-risk digital format. If the album doesn't sell, the backers don't have to deal with a warehouse full of "Juno B-Sides" CDs/coasters.

In a roundabout way, a digital-only release is a hybrid concept that plugs into the efficiencies of a long-tail mindset and the Web 2.0 beta ethos. Basically: the low cost of digital distribution gives companies the confidence to release an ancillary product (or any product, for that matter).

If you extend this thinking to book publishing, digital-only releases could be the domain of updated book chapters, fan fiction or "inspired-by" material, and editor's picks that relate to a book's core themes. It could also be a test-bed for weird or esoteric products (i.e. is there a market for "Juno in Esperanto"? Probably not ... but you get the idea).

A Q&A; on O'Reilly’s "Up-to-Date" Publishing Experiment

Mac Slocum
April 2, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

There's a common conundrum in the computer book world: software companies often release updates on a monthly or weekly basis, yet many programmers rely on printed references that can take months to write and produce. There are online options, but we also know that many readers still want something printed.

To try and tackle the problem, O'Reilly has launched a new experiment with the just-released Essential Silverlight 2 "Up-to-Date" edition (Silverlight is a new technology platform from Microsoft). Readers get a book that's current when they purchase it, but also get access to updates that can be physically inserted into the book.

I recently spoke with four members of the Essential Silverlight 2 project team to get their take on the development of this book as well as their view on the broader "updateable" concept.

Q: How is Essential Silverlight 2 different from traditional books?

Laurel R.T. Ruma, co-editor: The book is in a durable plastic binder that has three hole punches with metal pins. The binder can hold 425 pages, so there's room to grow.

Q: How does the update process work?

Ruma: You buy the book through a bookstore or online and then you register it through O'Reilly. When Microsoft releases a new beta, Christian [Wenz, the author] starts writing. Around 6 to 8 weeks later, a PDF of the update will be posted online and you'll be notified because you're registered. You can download the PDF for free and print and trim it yourself, or you can purchase printed and punched copies for an additional cost.

Q: When will the first update be available?

Ruma: Updates will be available online April 21 and in print the first week of May.

Q: What were the challenges in developing this book?

John Osborn, co-editor: There are unique challenges because it's a retail product -- security, display, etc. We needed to work with the binder vendor to create a security seal so people don't steal pages.

Laurel Ackerman, Director of Marketing, O'Reilly Open Tech Exchange: We needed to consider how it would integrate into a bookshelf. The dimensions of the book [7 inches x 9 inches] are designed for a retail shelf.

Christian Wenz, author: It was quite a challenge to plan the whole book structure. When writing a regular book, you can change the structure until very late in the process. Here, we had to create a flexible structure that would allow us to add content later without having to ship a whole new book with every update.

Ruma: We had to think about things like page numbering, because different pages and sections can be updated. We used a system that goes by section, chapter, and page number [e.g., 1.3.1]. We also had to shift all the templates because of the pins. Really, we wanted to make it so the reader will have to replace as few pages as possible. We want them to replace in a thorough way, but not a wasteful way.

Q: Was the production process different for the Up-to-Date edition?

Ruma: A standard book takes 6 to 9 months to write and 12 weeks to produce. We did this one in a little more than a month.

Christian and John had worked on a Silverlight 1.0 PDF. Christian incorporated his book updates into his 1.0 document within two weeks. Production on the book took another two weeks. And then it went to the printer for two weeks.

The book had to be done for the Microsoft MIX conference in March [2008]. We knew we would have an audience that is extremely interested in the subject matter and would give us unbiased and honest feedback.

[Editor’s note: authoring and production for this title was done using DocBook XML and a customized version of the open source DocBook XSL stylesheets.]

Q: What has the feedback been like?

Osborn: Generally the first reaction was 'Wow, this is a great idea." From there it was tons of feedback, most of it really good.

Ackerman: All of the feedback we've gotten from programmers is relief and delight. There's a lot of frustration out there with people waiting for books between releases. They're thrilled to be getting the content so they can start working.

Q: What type of content is best suited an Up-to-Date book?

Osborn: I see two scenarios: One is like Silverlight, which is a product in beta. Knowing the software release sequence and knowing the end point works well. In the second scenario, I could see something where you pick a core technology, like Visual Basic, and then offer updates. If anything new comes along, we'll provide it.

Q: Do you think other publishers will move toward updateable books?

Ackerman: I think it's inevitable that publishers will be going this way. At TOC, the two big topics were on-demand publishing and the value that publishers bring to information. Both of those things are in this book.