Here is our second journey into quasi self publishing. Last year’s (x)CRM book was such a success we went ahead and tried it again, this time with Silverlight 3.
Honestly, our goal with the first book was two-fold. See that we could do it ourselves and at least break-even and get to press prior to others like it that were held back by traditional publishing. We beat met both of those goals easily. So, why not do it again?
This book was (is?) originally planned as a Silverlight RIA services book. And that book is still in progress, look for it in the PDC timeframe (your typical heavy tech book, some 600-plus pages). But on June 23 Dave had an epiphany. Any of you know him know that he’s a really smart guy and this was no different. He said there’s a huge hole in the market, no one has a book out there (or will in the near future) to get plain old .NET developers working on Silverlight, fast. At that point in time we had several of the first chapters for the RIA Services book already “done”. Done means 90% written and back from tech edits. Why not take those chapters, break them apart, add a few more and tadah, another new book!
I said, “Great idea, let’s do it!” Well, there were a few mutterings questioning Dave’s sanity wanting to get a book out in 17 days before we got to the “let’s do it stage.” for anyone involved in book publishing you know the amount of work to go from idea to tangible printed book in hand is huge. Besides the actual writing, there is basic edit, tech edit, book and cover design, then formatting to that design, review between author/editors at about every stage in between. The author provides the raw content the editor/publisher handle the rest and it is not quite a 50-50 split, the author picking up a bit more of the time/effort.
So, we made our goal, ready and to press by July 10. SEVENTEEN DAYS!! Silverlight 3 Jumpstart comes in at just over 200 pages. Perfect for a weekend of nose in book to learn what you need for Silverlight dev work over a weekend.
Some friends came to my rescue this past week, doing same day tech edits. Thanks to Dan Wahlin, Shan McArthur, Colin Blair and Ben Hoelting for that. Thanks to Joe Stammen for his fast work on a spur of the moment brand new cover design. I try hard not to ask for a rush if I don’t need it and was rewarded this time because of that, these guys came thru for me quickly and I really appreciate it.
The book is available to order from Amazon now and will be in both print and eBook form direct from us via the link below in the next couple of days.
(Yes, we planned the release dates to be all matchy-matchy, best we could.)
Silverlight 3 Jumpstart