Jim Minatel's Wrox Book Editor Blog ASP.NET, XML, CSS, Ajax, PHP

professional asp.net 3.5 - a week in Amazon's top 50

What a week. When ScottGu blogged about the amazon discount on the Evjen, Hanselman, and Rader book professional asp.net 3.5 book, who knew that we'd end up with an advanced asp.net book at #5 on amazon for all books for a day.

That was Tuesday. As I write this Friday morning, the book remains wedged in the overall top 50 at #49.

Scott's blogged about our books before and it always sells a few. But nothing like this. And the discount was going well for amazon before Scott pointed it out on his blog but the two together, wow.

It's been a stir. Amazon stocked up on the book all through April, intending to do this sale earlier but even before the discount, the book sales were steadily increasing and the had to make more and larger reorders.

We could have never planned for sales like happened this week. Amazon blew through a month's worth of inventory in a few hours. They're now showing that their big catch up order will arrive tomorrow and after letting their customers know some orders would ship later than expected, I think they'll be able to start cacthing up tomorrow.

What a week. Bill, Scott, and Devin, I'm so happy for all of you. I hope you all printed and framed the amazon bestseller list.

typepad watching Twitter

Kudos to typepad for "getting it." 2 days ago I tweeted that typepad wasn't letting me login from blackberry. I got not 1 but 2 emails from typepad staff looking for details so they could fix it and I'm happy to say that as of right now, I'm typing in this post on m.typepad.com on my blackberry.

That's getting it. That's understanding the heart of "naked conversations." it's not about Blogs or any specific technology but about technology being a great enabler for actively listening to your customers.

Thanks Stephane and Andy!

Professional ASP.NET 3.5 #14 bestseller on Amazon

Congrats Bill, Scott, and Devin! Your book Professional ASP.NET 3.5 is now the #14 bestseller on Amazon! Not #14 in Computers, but #14 OF ALL BOOKS! Wow!

It's also easily the bestselling computer book, programming book (even though Amazon lists "The Last Lecture" ahead of it on the Computers and Internet list but that's of course not really a computer or internet book).

Another book Bill worked on along with Christain Nagel, Professional C# 2008, is checking in at #117 overall, another unbelievable rank!

5 Years of Wrox?!

Wow, some anniversaries sneak up on you. This one did on me. April marks 5 years that I've been working with Wrox. Wow.

So, what have been some highlights (and low points) of the last few years?

Highlights

• The readers who have thanked us for books that helped them solve a problem
• Readers who have told us about books that got them new jobs
• Working with great authors - there's no way I can list them all here but just a few Bill Evjen, Scott Hanselman, Devin Radar, Imar Spaanjaars, Rich York, Nicholas Zakas, Joe Fawcett, David Hunter, Michael Kay, all the DotNetNuke guys (even when you are months behind deadlines<g>), Andrew Connell, Ambrose Little, Wally McClure, and so many more are just a few of the more than 100 authors I've worked with personally who make me think I'm a very lucky editor
  • There, now by naming just a handful, I've slighted everyone not named :(
• Seeing your cover photos for the first time
• All of the Wrox author babies, marriages, and other family highlights you've shared with me

Lowlights?

• Every error in each book, especially the ones authors won't respond to
• Missing code files
• Answering "no, we don't own that book any more, you'll have to ask another publisher about it"
• Authors who won't respond to readers in their book forums
• Every author I've had to beg to work over a holiday for a book that ended up not living up to their hopes
• The handful of great authors who signed contracts with other publishers before we were allowed to talk with them and the other authors who've slowly drifted away
• The former Wrox employees and authors who were hurt when Peer LTD dissolved and Wiley purchased Wrox
• The dollar's weakness against world currencies that makes it so hard to pay anything remotely fair to European authors
• Seeing your cover photos for the first time
• All of the family tragedies and suffering we've shared too

Looking forward

• I have no idea what the next 5 years will hold but we won't set still
• Last year we launched Wrox Blox and very soon you'll see some other new efforts along those lines
• June 1, 2008 marks 5 years of the p2p.wrox.com discussion forums in their current version and I'm happy to say that this summer, you'll see an even better discussion forum experience launch

Thanks to all the authors and readers and editors for the fun of the last 5 years. I hope I'm still a part of this great Wrox family in April 2013 to update you on the successes of the next five years.

wrox.books24x7.com adds Wrox Blox

Our partner books24x7.com now includes Wrox Blox as part of the Wrox online subscription library at wrox.books24x7.com. So in addition to the more than 200 books available there, you can get Wrox Blox too.

So far, they've added 3 Wrox Blox: Scripting SQL Management Objects in Windows Powershell, SOA and ESB Architecture with Biztalk, and Working with Animation in Silverlight 1.0. I know they have many more Blox queued to add shortly, as well as a raft of Visual Studio 2008 books and other recent Wrox books that will be added in the next few weeks.

The $49.99 (US) 3 month subscription still gives you access to all the books (and Blox) in the library. We've added the Blox at no additional cost. Enjoy!

Warning: Politics and way off topic

Give me a presidential candidate who will pledge to spend more money on cancer research than on fighting wars, they'll get my vote.

Our collective national selfishness is shameful. We'll give up a few hundred billion like it's chump change to preserve the security of a "national interest" like oil fields. But cancer researchers go begging for grants.

We have parents who'll drop $1000 or more to send their princesses to see a Hanna Montana concert. Would they teach that same future adult a lesson in selflessness by donating the same amount to cancer research?

Yesterday, a friend of a friend died of cancer. I didn't know this little boy, other than through his mother's blog. I wouldn't have know that except for a Wrox author and technical editor whose daughter is fighting the same battle.

Childhood cancer. Hospice care. There's just no excuse that we haven't beaten this beast other than apathy and selfishness.

would you give up 1 percent of your income for the world to be cancer free in 10 years? It only took us less than 10 years to go to the moon when when put minds and money to it.

If tomorrow research proved that automobile exhaust caused 1/2 of all childhood cancers, would you ride a bike or take public transportation to work? Or would you deny the data?

Of the 1.1 TRILLION DOLLARS in the US DISCRETIONARY budget in FY2008, how much would you spend fighting these most terrible diseases?

If you spent 1% less than the current $620 BILLION of that on defense and the "war on terror" you could free up an extra 6 billion to double the NIH cancer research spending!

Hillary promises to increase breast cancer research spending by $300m annually which is laudable but wrong because

1: according to the New York Times, breast cancer research is already the best funded cancer:

"Among the big cancers, breast cancer receives the most funding per new case, $2,596 — and by far the most money relative to each death, $13,452."

and 2: $300 isn't near enough anyway. It's just a randomly large number that means little to most voters other than "wow that's a lot of money" and it's clearly geared to buy votes from 1 constituency.

3. How about we give NIH the money to study and cure cancer and let them decide the best way to spend it, instead of letting the politicians pick? I'm all for ridding the world of breast cancer. But let's cure lung cancer, prostate, colon, lymphoma, brain cancer, leukemia, and Ewing's Sarcoma while we're at it too.

And Hillary blew any cred she had remaining by promising to be ready to fight Bin Laden from day 1.

Tonight, I'll pray for Cody's family. And for Miranda and her family.

Congrats Danica Patrick; Onions to Tony George

Congratulations to Danica Patrick for becoming the first woman to win a major motorsports race wiinning the Indy Japan 300 at Motegi this weekend. (With of course respect to Shirley Muldowney and the NHRA. What is it about drag racing and NHRA that don't qualify Shirley's wins 30 years ago as the real first in the eyes of motorsports journalists? I digress.) Congrats of course to team Andretti Green for giving Danica the first class ride to get her there. And let's not forget team Rahal Letterman who gave Danica her first Indy Car ride and showed she was a legit contender. I'll admit I thought it was a PR stunt at the time and she wasn't ready, shows why I'm not a team owner!

But onions to Tony George who still found a way to blow the benefit of this "historic" moment by staging this race in Japan at midnight eastern time in the US guaranteeing that no one who was sober or wasn't getting paid to watch it and write a story about it saw the race live.

NASCAR has built fan friendly racing. Even in reunification and with the world's most marketable driver in Danica, Tony refuses to get it right for the fans. I know the Japanese fan market is important, but we all know that it's Honda and their dollars that drive this decision.