As reported by Linux Watch, O’Reilly publishers are starting a new trend, beta books. Dubbed “Rough Cuts“, these are books that have not been fully edited or lack complete formatting. I think this is pretty interesting. You get to see the book during its production when you purchase a cheaper online access pass. You can even send suggestions or bug fixes to the publisher to get incorporated into the final product. So what’s the point of buying a book that’s not even finished? You get to see it way before it comes out as a book. Take this Ruby on Rails Rough Cut for example. It was released as a Rough Cut in January and won’t be released as a print book until August. The online version is generally cheaper as well.
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Actually, the “beta books” idea has been first put into use by the Pragmatic Programmers IIRC.
David Heinemeier Hansson suggested this to Dave Thomas with regards to the release of the first edition of AWDwR.
AWDwR was finally released as a beta book and it was a great success.
Yup, I’m loving my copy of AWDwR. =)
Who doesn’t?
The point of the comment though was that, unless I’m mistaken, “O’Reilly publishers are starting a new trend” doesn’t sound quite accurate.
1. DHH’s idea (May 19, 2005)
2. Dave thinks about it (May 19, 2005)
3. Dave goes for it (May 26, 2005)
We’re talking about a year ealier…
Thanks for the clarification. I was just stating that with “start a trend” that larger publishing houses will start doing the same. Pragmatic Programmers doesn’t seem to be as large as O’Reilly, the 800lb gorilla in the industry. The fact that such a big company like O’Reilly is buying into this means that others might follow.
I think this is a great idea. I would totally buy one of the unfinished books.