On Jan 8, 8:25am, Nathan Torkington wrote:
> Yeah, but if O'Reilly were to print them, you'd complain that the
> book was nothing more than the online manual :-)
Hmmm. I can see it working if you take a slightly different
perspective on it.
Let's say O'Reilly acts as a content provider. In addition to their
existing role as a regular book publisher, they also collect and edit
content in the form of FAQs, manuals, other documentation, etc. They
make it freely available online for those who want it. This would be
all the content that isn't up to scratch, complete or unique enough to
warrant publishing as a regular book.
Joe Random Hacker browses online, finds something he likes, and clicks
twice to order it (one click being a patent infringement, of course :-)
Content gets sent to his local print centre (something like an existing
copy bureaux, run by a company like, oh, I don't know, someone like Canon
perhaps?) where it gets printed, bound and posted for next day delivery.
For an extra charge a guy on a Moped would risk life and limb dodging
London taxis to get it on his desk within the hour. Do you want fries
with that?
The author, publisher and printer all get a cut of the profit. Rinse and
repeat.
I should add that this isn't a new idea. POD[1] has been floating around
Canon for a while (oops, I hope I'm not broadcasting company secrets, oh
well :-) but no-one's been sufficiently interested to do anything about
it as far as I know. Most probably because they haven't figured out where
the content would come from. But with the right partnership(s) between
authors/publishers/printers, the idea might fly.
A
[1] that's Printing On Demand, not Plain Old Documentation.
--
Andy Wardley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Signature regenerating. Please remain seated.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For a good time: http://www.kfs.org/~abw/
