October 26, 2004
Geek Chic
Computer books are transcending their user manual roots. I see many more lifestyle niches in the computer market, from digital photography to digital video, digital scrapbooking to LAN party guides.
Books that try to be everything to everyone, ala the old Using titles from Que, are finding a smaller market as readers look for more specific, or exciting, reads. My favorite trend, partly because it makes for cool books, are titles aimed at techno-hobbyists or just plain old geeks -- titles like PC Toys, Linux Toys, and the forthcoming Geek House from Wiley, or Hacking the X-Box from No Starch.
Along those lines I want to rep more one-off tech titles. Right now I'm looking for an author team for The Tech of Burning Man. I think it's a cool idea. There's plenty of hardware on the playa, and almost 35,000 people attended the festival this year. Let's see if i can interest a publisher. I figure it might be fun to follow some books from proposal to contract, and what better place to do that than a blog.
Posted by matt at 9:42 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2004
Tides in the Computer Book Publishing Business
I went to Border's Books in Davis the other day and scoped the shelves.
The computer book section continues to lose space, and the section was poorly managed, with books all helter skelter and shelved out of category. I was there to look at recent Photoshop books and what I saw confirms my sense of unease. The Photoshop and Digital Photography categories have been one of the few bright spots over the last two years, and there are many well established heavy-weight authors represented: Deke McClelland, Scott Kelby and Co., Martin Evening, Katrin Eismann, and others. I'm impressed with the quality of the books.
But I remember back to the booms (and subsequent over-publishing) in Java, web design, and then Linux and certification books, and wonder how long we can sustain this current boomlet, and for myself and my clients I wonder what's next.
The mass market segment has always featured plenty of me-too publishing, and though every publisher I talk to asks for a unique take on the product, at some point we're going to reach over-kill. I don't think we're there quite yet but that's my worry.
In the meantime I'm still looking for new Photoshop authors.
And I can't wait to see Katrin Eismann's new Photoshop Masking and Compositing book (Peachpit) on the shelves any day now.
Posted by matt at 9:38 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2004
A great line from The Dragon Reborn
"Once you decide to gut a fish, there's no use waiting till it rots."
Posted by matt at 6:55 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2004
This is a blog about books
Well, it's a blog about books and me, books and my job in the publishing industry, books I've read and books I'm especially proud of having represented.
I'm sure there are better blogs about books. As a reader, I'm a person who reads everything -- perhaps another way of saying I have no taste. In the last week I've re-read John McPhee's, Control of Nature; much of Charlotte Joko Beck's zen primer, Nothing Special; and I'm hip deep in the third book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, The Dragon Reborn. How's that for a chaotic mix?
I often return to McPhee and Joko Beck when I'm feeling overwhelmed, and I've been properly overwhelmed this week so I find them very comforting, a good soup. McPhee writes so well and clearly about geology and time, nature and landscape, and helps me to appreciate my place in the ultimate scheme of things. And Joko Beck always reminds me of where I am inside. I highly recommend her.
I'm new to Robert Jordan, but I'm thoroughly entranced and entertained with his epic. It's a huge series, and I find it inspiring around all the great themes of self-knowledge, self-reliance, and responsibility. These are also all huge issues in my life right now so the books really resonate with me.
More soon once I learn how to use this space.
Posted by matt at 6:30 PM | Comments (0)