I’m very late coming into this thread, but in terms of self publishing. Have you looked into BookSurge and Create Space? They are self publishing services, both owned by Amazon.com. Booksurge is being merged into CreateSpace. Publishing in BookSurge gets you into the Amazon.com bookstore, and as I understand it, they also do wholesale ordering (to answer your university bookstore.

http://www.booksurge.com

Hope this is helpful.

-Ray (ITP ‘01)

I took a quick look at the chapter one draft, and in short it is very encouraging! It looks very promising and I would definitely purchase it. I previously purchased “Learning Processing” and though it was well written, I was somewhat disappointed by it because I was expecting it to be more like the content I found in the “nature of code” sections of your website. So, I am truly delighted that that material will eventually make it into print. While having things in electronic form is convenient for search, etc, there is nothing like the ease of reading from paper and the convenience of using an actual book when reading on the bus or bed. Which leads me to my comments about your concerns about a self-published book for university courses.

I don’t see why this route won’t work. I am a PhD student in CS at Univ of IL. When I recently TA’ed Ralph Johnson’s object-oriented design course, one of our texts was a self-published pdf book. (See https://agora.cs.illinois.edu/display/cs598rejsu09/Textbooks) While the book was free, I am sure that all the students would have been willing to pay for it, particularly at the price point you have suggested. We also provided a link to a paper copy from Lulu. I know that many students, did in fact purchase (this otherwise free) book there.

Must your book actually be in the school bookstores? Since most courses that would use your book have websites, and since most students look up info about their courses online before the semester/quarter begins; if the professors using your book post their syllabus to their websites, their students should be able to get the book in time. The only annoyance I have had with purchasing a paper copy of a Lulu book is the regret I have when a updated version of the book is released. When this happens, I always get the new pdf version, but have never yet repurchased a new paper copy. However, I might purchase an updated paper copy if I was given a special discounted “update” price.

Good luck!

Maurice

So glad you have begun work on this project. I too will buy the new book in whatever format available (you are that good).

On your comment that self-publishing allows for online early release of PDF’s for feedback, I have been acquiring a new OSGi book one chapter-at-a-time as they are written through Manning Publications’ Early Access Edition program. Have to say it works well and the option to purchase an Ebook only at the end makes pricing fairly reasonable. Not sure about how fair the author’s share is though – you would need to look into it.