Re: Reference Book
"Tom Serface" <tserface@msn.com> wrote in message
news:OGPDNrFyGHA.4976@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
I think it's tough for book writers these days with so much free code being
available quickly on the net. It used to be that the books were the only
place to learn the "secrets", but now there really are no secrets. I don't
know anyone who is writing a "book" for a living these days. Mostly I see
people doing this as an adjuct to some other career goal. Since Wrox did a
lot of tech books my guess is they are either moving away from those or
hurting.
I agree, the reason to write a book these days is the fame, not the fortune.
The info on the web has caused book prices to come down, but still, I find
info in books that is not easy to find on the web (if it is available at
all), and having all the info in such a handy place makes buying books still
worthwhile (especially at the lower prices).
BTW, anyone try O'Reilly Safari or other "rent books"? Is it worthwhile?
I often browse amazon.com just to see what's available. I type in a book I
already have and see the section on "The people that looked at this book
also looked at these books" section to find other good ones that are
similar. Amazing ability.
One other thing about the book market is the techies tend to want to write
about the newest coolest thing. Thus, there seem to be hundreds of books
that all say the same thing about C# and other .NET only languages these
days. My take is if you buy one of them you've filled out your library.
Yeah, very few that aren't regurgitations of MSDN.
Thank God for Paul di Lascia, Dino Esposito, and others who have stayed the
course.
-- David