Re: David Torn book proposal

[DAVID_MITCHELL@HP-Australia-om1.om.hp.com]

>So, the reason for this message? We'd like to find out what YOU think
>about all of this. Any constructive comments are appreciated. As well,
>if you know someone who may be potentially interested in releasing a
>project like this, please get in touch. This is going to be a truly
>organic and grassroots effort.

Here's a left field suggestion...

An interesting idea that I came across recently is being tested by Que
books.  One of their new titles, "Perl 5 By Example", is released onto
the Web at http://www.mtolive.com/pbe/  Regardless of whether the actual
content is of any interest, it's worth checking out; here's a publishing
company that has decided to release an entire book onto the Web before
releasing it in paper form.

I suppose their thinking is "Let's put it on the web and gauge how many
people are looking at it using web counters.  Based on this, we can
- decide whether future books on this topic have a market
- collect general demographics info (what type of people are looking at
it (e.g. students, professionals, government), where are they
geographically, etc.)
and probably some other things".  This stuff can be accessed by the Web
server pulling down info from everyone's Web client.

The option is there for people to download the entire book, although the
structure makes it difficult.  I have downloaded the book entirely, and
intend to buy it when it comes out as I think it's worth the money.

I know of at least one other book that has been sold this way; Marc
Sabatella's "Jazz Improvisation Primer" was available on the web (and
ftp) for a long time before he sold it to a publishing house.  It's
still out there on the web somewhere.

This "free marketing" approach may be a good solution for David Torn's
book, if there's troubles selling it to the publishing community.

Regards

Dave Mitchell