One of the challenges for a tech book publisher is to create relevant and great books in a timely fashion. Microsoft's Silverlight 2 won't be formally released until the fall of '08, but you want information about it now, so what's a publisher to do?

The concept of an updateable book has been kicked around for a while, but we think we found the winning combination: a cool binder/presentation, an amazing author who works on insane deadlines, and a fascinating Microsoft technology (as well as a wonderful team at Microsoft). This all adds up to a book that will be continually updated until the final release of Silverlight 2.

It's an awesome concept! I can't wait to read this book.

I'm a current subscriber to Safari Books Online. Do you, or does anyone, know why
this book isn't showing up yet in Safari?

Thanks!
Nathan

Great question Nathan. We decided not to offer this book on Safari for now. The final release of Essential Silverlight 2 will look like all of our other books and be on Safari.

However, this project is evolving and this may be a topic we need to look at again.

Wow, just saw an advertisement in the Redmond magazine about this Up-to-Date program.
Here are my thoughts...

Excellent idea! This idea will become successful and be a hit if the books are updated on a regular basis, this includes code fixes, image updates, code updates, and any other errors that may get outdated or discovered.

I hope to see more books available soon, looks like only Silverlight 2 is available now??

Look forward to more!

I love the concept.

It drives me nuts that any Internet technology reference is out of date within a year of when you buy it, but, I can't bring myself to buy the latest edition to get the extra 5-10% of new material. There are always Internet references but I really don't like reading anything longer then a page or two on the Internet, maybe I'm weird but I like my books on paper. This solves the problem nicely and there are a handful of O'Reilly books I'd re-buy right now if I could get them in this format.

I was already looking for a Silverlight reference and am definitely ordering it this way and would like to know what other titles you plan to offer in the next 6 months or there about? I'd hate to buy a book from some other publisher only to find out that the same topic is coming out as an Up-to-date book from O'Reilly. Some topics I'd like to see in this format would be anything .Net since it's changing so fast (especially the 3.5 technologies like WPF, WCF and WF), XNA, and any Internet technology reference books (the Dynamic HTML Definitive Reference by Danny Goodman would be an excellent choice, mine is showing a lot of wear).

I'm looking forward to receiving the Silverlight book and hearing what titles are coming down the road.

Jay and SuperTal-
I'm glad you like the idea! We are really excited about it here too. Stay tuned for more announced titles--you hit the nail on the head, we are targeting technologies that are quickly evolving.

Thank you,
Laurel

I really like our new book. Not only does it look unique, but the idea is fresh and exciting. I'm looking forward to other 'Up-to-Date' subjects we might choose to cover.

I like the concept as long as it keeps up-to-date.

One problem I have is the binder.
The book doesn't stay open when laying in front of me and adding new pages will be impossible as the format is not A4 and the tripple hole binding is not standard either.

Any suggestions?

Hello-
To address your first concern, the first update is coming out next week. Also, we are looking at other options to have the book lay flat--we recognize that's a pretty important feature.

As far as the new pages go, we are formatting the update PDFs to be A4 size too, so all you'll have to do is print them out, trim along the lines indicated, and then hole punch where indicated. Or there's the option of purchasing the update already trimmed and punched.

The more recent versions of the book have blank pages included that you can print your updates on.

Hope this helps!
Laurel

Overall, I like the concept. If there's a way you could issue smaller updates every 2-3 weeks, that would be even better.

I'm not sure whether I like it better than the "Rough Cuts" approach, where you release a new PDF every so often, then release the print copy once you have a final release.

The biggest potential win of the Up-To-Date approach would be if you kept issuing releases after publication, sort of like software. Go through a beta cycle, release version 1.0 follow up with updates like 1.1 and 1.2, then eventually offer a reduced-price upgrade to version 2.0. The fact that you issue it in a changeable binder makes this technically feasible, and it is a good solution to the perennial problem of obsolescence in technical books.

In fact, if books on rapidly changing technical subjects were updated on an ongoing basis, I would be more than happy to pay a subscription fee if it were necessary to keep them up to date.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Hope this helps give you some ideas.

The idea is great. I hope PDF updates will be with full colors. Silverlight is a lot about GUI. Full colors will be great.

I've got the book and what's killing me is the binding. I know with a lot of books it can be a pain to code while reading from them, but with this book it is impossible. Usually I can get a book to remain pretty flat with some working, but you can't with the book's binder format. Already once I had the book come apart on me. I need a book that can open fully, you can barely have the book open at a 100 degree angle.

I was really down with the concept of Up-to-date, but there needs to be some work on the physical construction of future versions.

Hello-
Thank you for your feedback. We are keeping a close eye on what we can improve for future versions and having a lay-flat binding is a critical issue.

Thank you,
Laurel