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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Free books are gone
We've given away all the copies of the Technical Writing 101 book. Thanks for all the responses.
We are happy the books are going to readers instead of the recycling facility!
Labels: book, technical writing
1:16 PM Permalink | |
Yet more free copies of Technical Writing 101 (first edition)
As I mentioned in an update to my post yesterday, we located more copies of the first edition of Technical Writing 101. We have divided this lot into four batches, each of which has nine or ten books. If you'd like one of these batches, please contact me at books@scriptorium.com. We will ship the books to you at no charge.
Update: We have given all the books away. Thanks for your quick responses!
Labels: book, technical writing
9:14 AM Permalink | |
Monday, August 18, 2008
Free copies of Technical Writing 101 (first edition)
We have 27 copies of the first edition of our Technical Writing 101 book. We are no longer selling that edition, so we are giving away our remaining inventory.
To keep things simple, we have divided the books into three batches, each of which has nine books. If you'd like one of these batches, please contact me at books@scriptorium.com. We will ship the nine books to you at no charge.
Update: We have shipped all three batches. However, we think there are more copies lurking about. Stay tuned...
Labels: book, technical writing
8:26 AM Permalink | |
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
No more DRaMa: DRM-free books
O'Reilly has announced it will start selling some titles as ebook bundles free of digital rights management (DRM) in July. I'm sure a lot discussion went into that decision because we have grappled with this very issue for our Scriptorium Press titles.
When we decided to release our FrameMaker workbooks in PDF format in February 2006, we opted not to use DRM restrictions that prevent printing or that lock the file to a particular computer. It was not an easy decision to make. We don't want our materials to be pirated, but at the same time, we don't want to implement DRM that can make life difficult for legitimate users. (What if you get a new laptop and your PDF file is locked down to your old one?) We also did a survey a few months ago on digital books, and folks made it very clear they would avoid files with DRM.
With the recent release of our Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8, we took our sales of digital books even further. For the first time, we are offering buyers the option of purchasing a new reference book as a PDF file; previously, we offered digital versions for older reference books that we no longer printed. Another change with this latest release is that buyers who get the printed version also get the PDF version free. As is the case with our other digital versions, the PDF file of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 is free of the DRM restrictions I mentioned earlier.
Releasing our content without any DRM may seem foolish to some. ("You're too trusting!" "You're inviting people to steal your stuff!") That being said, DRM can be a huge hassle for people who actually paid for the material, and it also can be cracked. Those are two big reasons we have opted not to use it.
10:35 AM Permalink | |
Friday, June 20, 2008
Printed version of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 now shipping
A delivery person is stacking boxes of Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 in our back room as I type this. If you've ordered the printed version, your shipment will go out today or tomorrow.
Labels: book
12:24 PM Permalink | |
Friday, May 30, 2008
Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 is now available
As of a few minutes ago, you can buy our latest book, Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8 from our online store.
You can purchase the printed book and PDF file combination for $49.99, or you can buy just the PDF file for $29.99. You get instant access to the PDF file--available exclusively through our online store--with either option. (Printed books will be shipped in the middle of June.)
On Sunday, I'm off to the STC conference with Matt and Sarah. Hope to see some of you there.
Labels: book, FrameMaker
3:41 PM Permalink | |
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Getting close on FrameMaker 8 books
We have nearly finished the content updates for the new unstructured FrameMaker 8 book (Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 8). That leaves proofreading, production, and indexing.
Barring any unforeseen problems (and there are always unforeseen problems), the book should be available as a PDF download in mid-May when we ship it to the printer. The printed versions will be available a few weeks later.
Highlights:
- We are offering print and PDF versions. If you purchase the print version, the PDF version is included. In addition to search and live links, the PDF version offers instant gratification (you can download it) and is free of extortionate international or express shipping charges (because you download it).
- We explain how to use the new Unicode support for text and dialog boxes.
- We updated the workflow and output chapters.
- We nipped, tucked, and generally improved the content, and hopefully did a better job than this.
- We have rewritten the conditional text chapter to cover the new complex conditionals. I believe that Terry Smith is now the only person in the world who actually understands how to use this feature.
- We refreshed screen shots.
- We corrected errors and embarrassing spelling errors. (And probably introduced some new ones. Oh well.)
Labels: book, FrameMaker
3:28 PM Permalink | |
Monday, September 24, 2007
Living vicariously through our customers
We've received orders from some pretty faraway places for our books...Qatar, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, and Australia to name a few.
But we have a new winner in the Most Interesting category: Kivalina, Alaska
View Larger Map
Kivalina was evacuated in early September because of flooding: there's an AP story here.
It sounds sort of like the North Carolina Outer Banks:
The community sits on a 600 foot-wide sand reef...Well, except for this part:
...625 miles northwest of Anchorage and 90 miles north of the Arctic Circle.There's more information about Kivalina, which is described by the AP as an Inupiat Eskimo village, here.
It's oddly compelling to know that residents of Kivalina are interested in technical communication.
2:20 PM Permalink | |
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Instant gratification -- FrameMaker 7 book
Our massive FrameMaker reference, Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7, is now available for download from our shopping cart.
The download is $39.99. Site licenses are available; contact us for details.
After much discussion, screaming, blood, and tears, we have made the PDF available without DRM. Please do not share or redistribute it.
We are currently working on updates to the book for FrameMaker 8 and hope to have unstructured FrameMaker content ready before the end of the year. When you purchase the FrameMaker 7 PDF, you will receive a coupon good for $20 off the FrameMaker 8 content when it is released.
Note: Currently, our plans call for FrameMaker 8 content to be paper, not digital.
Labels: book, FrameMaker
1:40 PM Permalink | |
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Updating our books for FrameMaker 8
We've had a few inquiries about our plans for the Publishing Fundamentals book and workbook series now that Adobe has released FrameMaker 8. We do plan to update the book and workbooks for version 8: in fact, we've just started work on updating Publishing Fundamentals.
After we've completed that update, we'll start work on the unstructured workbooks, and then we'll focus on the structured workbooks. We don't have firm release dates yet, but we'll keep you posted on our progress here in Palimpsest and in the newsletter.
Labels: book, FrameMaker
3:44 PM Permalink | |
Friday, December 29, 2006
Pre-New Year's Resolution
Remember, Publishing Fundamentals: FrameMaker 7 is currently available as a secured PDF through the Adobe Document Center. Access will expire at year-end.
To access the book, click here. For access details, read Alan's original post.
Labels: book, FrameMaker, secured PDF
4:53 PM Permalink | |