NabaTech

Book Promotion—Harder Than Writing the Book

Recently I bought two non-fiction books after I heard about them—the first one through a TV appearance and the second when the author spoke at a conference I attended. I must confess that until recently I have not done much to promote any of my computer books, nor have I taken advantage of my "already published" status to establish what Joe Wikert called an author platform. I honestly can't tell if the lack of an author platform hurt the sales of my books, but the lack of any promotion certainly did not help sales. After I began this blog, I got reeducated on how book promotion is ultimately in the author's hand. I accept this responsibility at face value, but I am not sure what specifically a computer book author can do to help promote books. The publisher certainly does the necessary work to make sure the book appears in catalogs and is available at both brick-and-mortar and online bookstores. For my part, I now have this blog and I am setting up an online presence, and perhaps I can gradually establish an "author platform" with my efforts. However, none of these steps address the problem of simply making the existence of the book known to prospective buyers. I don't think I have enough visitors to my blog and website to make a difference. Someday, in the future, I'll find out first hand if having a blog and a web presence makes any difference in book sales, but in the meanwhile I wish there were some other ways to promote an upcoming book—without spending too much money, of course :-)

Tags: books publishing promotion author platform presence blog online sales marketing

Google Subscriptions Someday?

I guess online businesses can make money three ways—transactions (buying/selling something), advertisements (pay per click), and subscriptions (monthly fees). What amazes me is that the pay-per-click advertising model works so well for search engines like Google. As for me, I ignore all the advertisements and only make use of the search results, just as I ignore all those Google ads embedded in most blogs and websites thanks to the Google AdSense program. When it comes to ad-clicking, I must be in the minority because Google is doing fine with the pay-per-click advertisements. Nevertheless, I was wondering if Google would someday introduce a subscription-based premium search service of some sort—not to replace its ad-based model, but to augment it. I don't mean the "ask a question, set your price" model of Google Answers, but a straightforward subscription-based access to some premium content. Sometimes, when I have trouble finding relevant material from Google searches, I almost wish for a subscription-based Google search. I think I'd go for it if the subscription fee is not prohibitive and if I could try out and see that the searches produce better results.

Tags: search advertisement Google google transaction subscription payperclick adsense

Blog Search Engine—Technorati Beta

Visitors often reach blogs through search engines and mine is no exception. The only surprise, at least to me, was that when it comes to searches that landed someone on my blog, it seems to be about 50-50 between Google and Technorati. I was surprised by this because I use Google extensively, but I had not realized so many people use Technorati as well. I had tried Technorati a few times, but gave up because it was too slow. Then I heard about the new Technorati beta and tried it out. The beta site looks better than the old site, but the response time is mixed—I had good response over the weekend, but the site seems sluggish during the workday.

Search for a keyword or a tag at Technorati beta and you get all the recent matching blogs along with supposedly related photos from Flickr. I found the tag search results more relevant than the keyword search, probably because blog posting tags are more relevant than whatever the keyword search is picking up. The Flickr photos don't typically relate to the search results, so I don't know what value they add. Displaying the most recent blogs seems like a good idea, but I wish Technorati would also display those blogs that are considered authoritative for a keyword—the problem is figuring out the "authoritativeness" of a blog; they have to figure out some kind of ranking system and number of links alone would skew this to the top few blogs. Maybe Technorati should add a "feedback/rate this" link to each search result so that users can give feedback and then factor that (along with number of links) into calculating what users find most relevant. Overall, I think I'll continue to try Technorati along with Google and also send them my feedback for the improvements.

Tags: tags tagsonomy Technorati technorati blog rank search flickr google feedback rating beta

"YOU: The Owner's Manual" Lives up to the Hype

By now you have probably heard about YOU: The Owner's Manual—a best-selling guide to your body, written in an entertaining style by two physicians, Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. I noticed that this morning the book is #4 in Amazon.com sales rank. From my previous post on sales rate versus Amazon sales rank, you know that means huge online sales. I finally had a chance to make one complete pass through my copy of the book (also purchased online from Amazon), stopping at interesting points and checking all the myths and facts. Here's my quick take on the book.

The 430-page hardcover book has 12 chapters, with the last chapter focusing on diet (which, I was pleased to see, jibes well with my dietary beliefs of lower-carb, more fish, nuts for snack, and so on). The ten chapters from 2 through 11 cover the major bodily functions—heart, brain, bones/joints/muscles, lung, intestines, sexual organs, sensory organs, immune system, glands—and one chapter on cancer. Each chapter has lots of relevant factoids, myths and myth busters, and a Live Longer Action Plan with specific actions for the bodily functions covered in that chapter. The action plans seem practical with lots of details. For example, the Live Longer Action Plan for the bones/joints/muscles chapter (Chapter 4) recommends the following four actions:

1. Do the right amount of physical activity (weight or resistance training, cardio/stamina training, and stretching or yoga). By the way, they don't endorse training for or completing marathons because of the pounding the joints take—a good excuse for me to skip the marathon :-)
2. Eat for strength (calcium, vitamin D and magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids from fish and walnuts, vitamin C).
3. Think of alternatives (where they mention glucosamine and chondroitin supplements to regenerate cartilage in knee and hip joints as well as use of acupuncture for pain relief).
4. Make minor changes such as stand up straight wear well-cushioned shoes, and stop smoking.

The book includes tons of other useful facts as well such as the ideal blood pressure is 115/76 (no matter where you live in the world), the ideal weight for a 5-foor tall person is 100 pounds (plus 5 pounds per inch for taller persons), and the ideal daily calorie count for losing a pound a month is about 9 times the ideal weight in pounds plus the calories expended through physical activity and exercise.These examples should give you an idea about the kind of information the book provides.

I have lots more to read in this book, but the nice part is that you don't have to read it sequentially—you can use it as a reference guide and just turn to the chapter that relates to your current question about your body. All in all, I think the book lives up to the hype and provides health and diet information you can really use.

Tags: diet exercise glucosamine vitamins omega3 acupuncture chondroitin healthyliving

Can MDA Play a Role in Global Sourcing of Software?

I like the idea of model driven architecture (MDA) as a software design and development tool because in involves modeling the software and then generating code with the help of tools. I don't know if MDA is widely used yet, but at least anecdotally many seem to consider MDA important. Software tool vendors seem to claim support for MDA although the support may not always cover the full OMG MDA specifications. One aspect of MDA that intrigues me is the potential for using it as a way to assure that code conforms to design when software development is outsourced, whether within the country or offshore. Here's the idea.

The in-house design team develops the platform independent model (PIM) for the software based on the requirements. This would be a creative step that requires experienced software designers and experts on MDA. Then the in-house team provides the PIM to the outsourced development team who prepares the platform specific model (PSM) and checks out the design by generating executable code from the PSM (I assume that an automated tool is available to generate code from the PSM). The PSM is then delivered back to the in-house team, who reviews the PSM and then uses the automated tool again to generate the executable code, run any static analysis tools to check the code, put it under change control, and give the code back to the outsourced team to do quality assurance. The idea is for the in-house teams to assure themselves that the design conforms to the requirements (after all, an in-house team designs the PIM) and that the PSM-to-code step is performed under in-house control. I think using MDA in this manner might be a good way to use outsourcing without relinquishing the key software design steps and mitigate any potential risks that code does not fully conform to the design.

Tags: mda uml model PIM PSM OMG softwaremodel outsourcing offshoring risk

Shouldn't Ebook Pricing Model Be Different From Print Books?

I must confess that until I began to blog, I had not paid much attention to ebooks. Now that I have been checking out ebook news and availability of ebooks, what I hadn't known is that over the past two or three years most publishers have been offering ebooks and continue to do so. I found that there is, for example, PerfectBound for HarperCollins ebook titles, ContentLink—Random House's ebook store, Amazon ebooks, and many more online ebook stores that carry ebooks from various publishers. Then I looked specifically for computer and technology books and noticed that many technology publishers also offer their print books in ebook version, usually in Adobe or MS Reader format. If you want a quick look at some of the computer ebooks, check out the Computer Technology ebooks at eBookopolis. These ebooks all seem to be straightforward electronic versions of the corresponding print books. Now take a look at the prices for the ebooks. Each ebook seems to be priced nearly the same as its print counterpart. This ebook pricing model is confusing me. Shouldn't the publishers be able to price the ebooks much lower than the print versions, considering that there are no printing costs, shipping costs, and no need to accept returns from booksellers? Or, put it another way, wouldn't it make sense to price the ebooks as low as possible just to encourage buyers to go for the ebooks? Before we think of better formats and designs for ebooks, publishers should rethink the pricing model for the current computer ebooks—to ensure that there are some real incentives for buying the ebooks. One way or another we'll probably see a move towards lower-priced computer ebooks because that's an obvious way to compete in this marketplace.

Tags: books ebooks epublishing pricingmodel trends ebookopolis amazon harpercollins randomhouse adobe msreader

Model Driven Architecture—What is it?

Although Model Driven Architecture (MDA) has architecture in its name, MDA is not at the same level of abstraction as Enterprise Architecture (EA), rather MDA is a software design methodology. MDA was developed by an industry consortium called Object Management Group (OMG) as a standard approach for modeling the functionality and behavior of distributed software systems, independent of the computer platform—operating system, programming language, and middleware—on which the software is eventually implemented. MDA is based on OMG’s Unified Modeling Language (UML), a diagramming notation for modeling parts of software and their interactions. Here's a figure illustrating the concept of MDA:

The primary output of MDA is a Platform Independent Model (PIM), which represents the software design using UML. The modular structure of the software as well as any computation logic can be modeled by using an extension of UML called executable UML. This platform independent model can then be converted to a Platform Specific Model (PSM) that’s also written in UML, but that expresses the dependence on the specific operating system, programming language, and middleware. The final step is to automatically generate the software’s code (for the target middleware environment) in a high-level programming language such as Java or C++. In short, MDA can go directly from the functional and behavioral specification of software to executable programs. If the hardware and software technology changes, the software can again be regenerated for the new hardware and software technology by starting with the PIM and going through the PSM to code. Thus, MDA is supposed to isolate the functional behavior of software from any changes in the underlying technology. At the OMG's website you can read more about MDA as well as check out the links to some MDA success stories. MDA is definitely a step in the right direction for software design and development, but it's not all automatic—someone still has to do the hard part of designing the PIM in the first place.

Tags: MDA mda UML uml model PIM PSM OMG executableuml softwaremodel EA

Another Ebook Benefit—No Returns!

Last Friday's Wall Street Journal had a front-page article on the insidious problem of "returns" in the print book publishing world. Because book retailers can return unsold books, even successful titles can end up with tons of returns if the publisher overestimates the demand or if the retailers order too many copies. The WSJ article says publishers end up having to raise prices to compensate for the lost revenue due to returns, which makes books harder to sell (too expensive) and leads to even more returns. You get the idea—"returns" are causing a big mess.

Even if print books are not going away any time soon, perhaps we can lessen the problem of returns for tech books by moving to ebooks. With ebooks, there's no need for returns; nor any need to waste all that money and paper upfront and ship boxes of books around the country in the first place. I'm sure you can think of many reasons why ebooks may not sell—no good reader device;  tried it, didn't work; and so on. Well, we don't need a ebook reader device for reading tech ebooks on computer and perhaps the current prices are too high to generate sales of ebooks. We can't expect people to shell out $30 or more for an ebook that's simply a PDF file version of a print book. I think an ebook has to be priced much lower. If this requires reducing the size of the ebook (and focusing on a narrower topic), so be it. And while we're at it, we should redesign the ebook to take advantage of the electronic format; for example, use a layout that's easier to read on computer monitors, and include multimedia that provides a richer experience than a print book. For a 75- to 100-page ebook packed with information, a price point of $5 or so sounds right. On the other hand, the same size ebook with  embedded multimedia could be priced $10 and up. What I don't know is whether such a pricing model for tech ebooks would work for mainstream publishers or are such ebooks more the domain of self-published authors or small niche publishers. I guess we'd find out as the market evolves!

Tags: books ebooks epublishing returns trends WSJ

Preview of Latest Microsoft Start

I had tried out the two versions of Microsoft's online RSS aggregator/reader—http://www.start.com/1/ and http://www.start.com/2/ a while back and now there's a third preview version of Microsoft Start that combines various features from the previous two versions. To try the preview version, go to http://www.start.com/3/ and answer the five questions to get the new version's URL (don't worry, if you don't know the answers, you can click the search link to get each answer from MSN Search). Here's a typical screen shot of the new Start:

When you first go to Start, the initial RSS feeds appear organized in blocks in a dashboard (you can toggle the dashboard on or off by clicking the link in the upper right hand corner). Click Show next to Start in the upper left corner to see the feed categories. Click the arrow to the left of My Feeds to open it up and then click [add feed] to add your own feeds. After typing in the feed URL and clicking Add in a dialog box, you can pin that feed to the dashboard. You can drag the blocks by their title bar and move around to rearrange the dashboard. When you click a link in a block, a few more lines of that item appears in a popup dialog box. The new version's user interface is a mixed bag for me. I wish that clicking an item expanded it within its block in the dashboard instead of showing another popup. Clicking more... in the expanded view of an item brings up that item's full content in a separate browser window. I don't know what a good solution is, but when I click a link, I would rather have the content appear in the dashboard area and then I can click Back to return to the dashboard again. I think they could divide the box on the left hand side into two scrolling vertical panes and make use of the lower pane as a placeholder for the current dashboard when that area is showing an item's full content. They could offer a link on that lower left pane to revert to the dashboard view again. Anyway, I noticed a feedback link at the bottom of the window—I guess I better click that link and give my feedback directly to the development team!

Tags: RSS aggregator Microsoft start trends MSN

Microsoft's New eHow-tos

I thought adding animations, if not full videos, would be a good idea for computer ebooks. As it so happens, Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) has recently introduced what they call eHow-tos—multimedia documentation on various Windows software development topics. They are meant to be played in Windows Media Player, but the website says other JavaScript-capable media viewers would also work. I tried out several eHow-tos in Internet Explorer; for example, try the one on Creating a Bluetooth Application and you'll see how an ehow-to works. It's more of a video tutorial, but you see the code in the background screenshot with a smaller image of the speaker in the foreground, which seems quite effective. If you don't want to bother playing the eHow-to or don't have a suitable media player, here's a sample screen photo:

As the speaker explains the code, you can follow along in the screenshot in the background. The speaker can highlight parts of the code, point out specific items related to whatever is being discussed. When I was talking about interactive animations in computer ebooks, I was assuming simple animations, perhaps just the screen being captured with the mouse pointer highlighting code or pointing to specific parts as the ebook's text explained the concepts. I think full video with audio narration would be a bit much for computer ebooks, which may not be played in a full-blown media player; besides the file size would get bloated. Nevertheless, Microsoft's eHow-tos are an example of the new trend towards online multimedia tutorials and they're fun to watch—if you are into any kind of software development :-)

Tags: books ebooks epublishing multimedia tutorial ehowto microsoft msdn