-----> Richard Gaskin wrote: Rev is in the "transition period" (or to use the better term, preparing to "cross the chasm"), and during this period we have the common catch-22 with regard to books: the market may be too small just yet to cinch a deal with a publisher, but indeed growth could be accelerated if there was a book.
Not to worry: all successful products go through this moment. The trick is to focus on other activities to build market share and community, and in due time publishers will line up with little prompting. Along these lines, there is still much we can do to further the true goal: sharing Rev knowledge and experience. Web sites, Wikis, PDFs, Rev-based media -- all good options, all immediately available. No complications, no waiting, no fuss, no muss -- we have everything we need right now to further this goal. Several are already moving works forward, and there's more in the pipeline. If we need a central index for such things, there's always RevNet... ------> I couldn't agree more. As someone who contemplated a book on Rev, and decided the time wasn't quite right, I think I can add something here. A few years ago, I was shopping to the big-name tech publishers a proposal for a book on WordPerfect for Linux. Peachpit Press was interested, but felt the market wasn't there yet (a year after my proposal, they actually did do a Visual QuickStart Guide, but with another author). SAMS was also interested, but only if the book covered the entire WordPerfect Office suite. I agreed, and in June 2000, published "SAMS Teach Yourself WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux in 24 Hours." Both of these publishers, and a few others, including the publishers of Linux Journal magazine, were on the fence about my proposal for one reason: there was insufficient proof of a viable market. As an unrepresented author (yes, there are agencies that specialize in representing tech writers), I handled on my own all of the negotiations with the various publishers, and with each of them, they wanted me to provide proof of the market (the number of Linux users, the number of WordPerfect Office users, the number of competing titles on the market, etc.), or proof that my book could build its own market (I still haven't come across any such proof -- indeed, shortly after my book came out, Corel sold its Linux business off, and WordPerfect Office for Linux was dead in the water. My book garnered some good reviews at Amazon, where you can buy a used copy right now for about 40 cents, but only managed to sell a few thousand copies). SAMS eventually took the plunge with me (to my sheer delight -- they were a pleasure), and ultimately took a small hit on my book. But a huge publisher like SAMS can absorb it (indeed, it might even be helpful for accounting purposes). Likewise, they can also afford to shoot high with riskier projects in the hopes of getting in on the ground floor of a hot technology. Would SAMS be interested in Rev? Perhaps, although ask yourself whether Rev has greater or lesser public mind share than Corel's WordPerfect line of products, of the Linux OS, for that matter. My guess is that most publishers would like to see the market grow a bit before taking Rev on. From my perspective, as an author who might one day see some royalty revenue from a technical book, I'd also like to see the market for Rev develop a bit more, so that I can make my pitch to publishers armed with strong market info (and they all require it as part of the proposal submission). I think it will eventually happen. Richard correctly points out that there are many wonderful existing projects (his own Rev resource at FourthWorld.com is one of my favorites) and several more in the works. Dan Shafer is about to release an e-Book about Rev -- it will be the first third-party Rev book, and, if it's anything like Dan's HyperCard books (or his newest CSS book, which is terrific!), it should be a success. I'm hard at work on The Revolution Journal, an online magazine about Rev and its user community. As I've stated in prior posts, one of my inspirations is Marc Zeedar's RB University, an online project the success of which ultimately made possible RB Developer, a full-blown, hard copy magazine dedicated to REALBasic. I mention it again as a great example of starting small, creating a market, and then using that market as the basis for larger, more ambitious projects. And that, I guess, is my point. There's some quality stuff coming out, both from Rev, and from the user community. We need to pay attention to each of these small steps and catalogue the successes so that one day soon they can be used as the collective springboard for larger, greater works. While I, too, would love to see some third party books here and now, my own approach is to try to build the market to a certain level, and then see where we stand. Alan S. Golub StoryCard Software, LLC _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
