[Axiom-developer] Re: book

[root]

Bill,

There are four paths that seem possible for republishing the book:

(1) O'Reilly press, which is very open source friendly. 

  You might try contacting them to see if they might publish a new
  volume (changed from the current version, lacking color plates, 
  adding a CD). 

(2) Dover, which republishes old books cheaply.

  We really can't afford to have the book be expensive anymore.

(3) Self-publish

  I believe it is possible to get a run of about 1000 books published
  by a regular publisher for a flat fee. That is an optimistic estimate
  of the number of axiom books sold or given away in the next 30 years.
  (I twice tried to write textbooks and was told that >3k is a bestseller)
  I'm not sure what the minimum number would be. It would be helpful to know.

(4) Pamphlet form
  
  If we carefully structure the book properly you may be able to print
  the book locally, hole punch it, and ring-binder it yourself. This
  would allow for incremental updates. I've played with this a little
  bit with the current version but am ambivalent about it. This would
  allow us to issue chapter updates and give a "standard" for pamphlet
  and booklet files.

The key issue is that we want the book to continue to be modified BSD
rather than copyright anybody. I have heard rumors that O'Reilly has
done such a thing. Dover might but I don't know. I'd like the CD to
accompany the book to contain the source text of the book and various
other useful things including Axiom sources.

The new version of the book is going to end up significantly different
from the NAG version. It is starting out with the source text (well,
the hyperdoc language version) but I'm adding and deleting chapters,
rewriting and adding examples, rewriting paragraphs, fixing problems,
etc.  I've formatted the book into pamphlet form, rewritten the tags,
regenerated the pictures, etc.  In spirit they will be similar but in
practice the book is a complete rewrite.  I'm trying to maintain the
"look and feel". Shortly it will fracture into booklet form but I have
to debug some of the machinery I'm trying to use first.

Tim
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