I was thinking that the D Consortium could function as publisher of D books too, for the following (obvious) reasons:


1) To raise money for the D Consortium (from sales)

2) To increase the available documentation about D

3) Increased amount of documentation might lead to increased adoption.


Those in the D community who have experience writing books could chip in
with a chapter each. The books could then be put together as EPUB and the D Consortium could self publish them online (e.g. for Amazon Kindle). I have self published a few books on Amazon about programming. It's not that hard to do, once you get the first one done.

The books could be smaller with a more narrow scope, to get them done faster. For instance, one book about D collections, one book about D IO etc.

The price range could be around $5 - $9.99 . I think that is a fair price - especially if developers know that the profits goes back into the D Consortium. Each sold book on Amazon for $9.99 should be able to give a profit of $7 to the D Consortium.


Another option to raise money and increase the documentation for D would be to make an Android / iOS app which collects all the D documentation in one app. The app could work like an e-book. It is possible to charge a subscription fee for apps. Thus, supporters could pay e.g. $1 / month - or $6 a year for the app. The money would go to the D Consortium. In return subscribers would support D, and have all their D documentation gathered in one place.

An app would also be able to link to videos, or articles around the web about D.


Yes, I know it's a lot of work etc. but it's not impossible. Writing a focused book of around 100 pages can be done in 3-6 months. If more people chip in, it might even be faster.

On Sunday, 20 December 2015 at 21:09:31 UTC, Jakob Jenkov wrote:
> I was thinking that the D Consortium could function as publisher of D books too, for the following (obvious) reasons:
>
> [...]

All decent ideas- I've been thinking recently about setting up a paid blog for articles by D devs- but without someone to explore and push them, they will go nowhere, ie somebody has to do the work of wrangling the writers and docs.

> All decent ideas- I've been thinking recently about setting up a paid blog for articles by D devs- but without someone to explore and push them, they will go nowhere, ie somebody has to do the work of wrangling the writers and docs.

What do you mean by a "paid blog" ?

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 12:55:19 UTC, Jakob Jenkov wrote:
>> All decent ideas- I've been thinking recently about setting up a paid blog for articles by D devs- but without someone to explore and push them, they will go nowhere, ie somebody has to do the work of wrangling the writers and docs.
>
> What do you mean by a "paid blog" ?

Simple, a blog that you pay to read. :) It's amazing to me that people still continue to pump out books, such an outdated form, simply because it has an existing payment model in place, rather than trying new paid models online.  Simply churning out ebooks or the equivalent is all they do, when so much more is possible online, everything from pay-per-post to comments.  The lack of imagination is simply stunning.

I've been thinking about trying to get some D devs to contribute posts to such a paid blog- contacted one guy a couple weeks ago, he didn't have time- but I wasn't sure if anybody would be interested in writing posts and if I wanted to spend much time on getting it going.  That's why I said the main issue is having someone push it, at least initially.  After that, it of course depends on who wants to write and if anyone wants to read it.

> Simple, a blog that you pay to read. :) It's amazing to me that people still continue to pump out books, such an outdated form, simply because it has an existing payment model in place, rather than trying new paid models online.  Simply churning out ebooks or the equivalent is all they do, when so much more is possible online, everything from pay-per-post to comments.  The lack of imagination is simply stunning.

I agree. A website / blog allows links to videos etc. and it can
be expanded over time, and indexed by search engines.

Have you considered using LeanPub for this?

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 15:33:50 UTC, Jakob Jenkov wrote:
>> Simple, a blog that you pay to read. :) It's amazing to me that people still continue to pump out books, such an outdated form, simply because it has an existing payment model in place, rather than trying new paid models online.  Simply churning out ebooks or the equivalent is all they do, when so much more is possible online, everything from pay-per-post to comments.  The lack of imagination is simply stunning.
>
> I agree. A website / blog allows links to videos etc. and it can
> be expanded over time, and indexed by search engines.
>
> Have you considered using LeanPub for this?

Never heard much about them.  Looking at their site now, I like that they focus on getting chapters in front of readers right away, while they're being written (which almost every writer should be doing), but don't like their emphasis on producing books at the end.

A categorized/tagged blog with comments is a much better experience than a static book with a table of contents and index, yet they import blog posts and turn them into a book!  The only reason is that books have a long-standing payment model in place: it's as though everyone were still selling buggies because there are only buggy dealers and no car dealers yet.

It is all beyond idiotic: it is amazing how long antiquated ideas stick around, only because people cannot imagine anything else.

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 16:10:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> It is all beyond idiotic: it is amazing how long antiquated ideas stick around, only because people cannot imagine anything else.

What you're describing sounds basically like a magazine... paid freelance authors contributing articles.

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 16:16:53 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 16:10:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> It is all beyond idiotic: it is amazing how long antiquated ideas stick around, only because people cannot imagine anything else.
>
> What you're describing sounds basically like a magazine... paid freelance authors contributing articles.

Heh, never thought of that analogy. :)  I can see why you might think that, because a blog is continually produced by many writers, like a weekly magazine, as opposed to a single end product written by one person over a year or two, like a book.  There is some similarity to magazines, though bloggers wouldn't be forced to any schedule, even weekly.

As for the paid freelancer aspect, magazines pay by the piece and I think they usually keep the copyright, because they had that bargaining power.  With paid blogs, you'd do revenue-sharing, with the writer getting 70%+ of the money their posts garnered, and keeping their copyright, similar to the deal LeanPub makes.  There's just too much competition for writers these days for them to get much less than that.

But the biggest difference is that online is a much more dynamic format, with all kinds of innovations to come, with everything from tipping extra for articles you like, as you might for good service at a restaurant, to building recommendation systems to find the best customized selection of posts for _you_ to read.

If you'd have told me at the inception of the Web 25 years ago that most writers would still make money primarily through _print books_ in 2015, I'd have said you're nuts.  And yet, sadly, that's where we are today.

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 15:24:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 12:55:19 UTC, Jakob Jenkov wrote:
>>> All decent ideas- I've been thinking recently about setting up a paid blog for articles by D devs- but without someone to explore and push them, they will go nowhere, ie somebody has to do the work of wrangling the writers and docs.
>>
>> What do you mean by a "paid blog" ?
>
> Simple, a blog that you pay to read...

In the age of "FREE" everywhere do you really expects people paying for a blog? I don't think so. You may go with ads instead!

Bubba.

On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 16:51:38 UTC, Bubbasaur wrote:
> On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 15:24:23 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 22 December 2015 at 12:55:19 UTC, Jakob Jenkov wrote:
>>>> All decent ideas- I've been thinking recently about setting up a paid blog for articles by D devs- but without someone to explore and push them, they will go nowhere, ie somebody has to do the work of wrangling the writers and docs.
>>>
>>> What do you mean by a "paid blog" ?
>>
>> Simple, a blog that you pay to read...
>
> In the age of "FREE" everywhere do you really expects people paying for a blog? I don't think so. You may go with ads instead!

The problem is ads make no money for the vast majority of writers, so they have to write a book and sell it to make writing worth their time.  This is why you have to pay for almost all the D books, with free online books like Ali's the rare exception to the rule.

Most readers know they have to pay for quality.  If you don't want to, that's up to you.