From: cwatkins@mindspring.com (Chris Watkins)
Subject: REV-PUB: Desire Opinions on Publishing
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 1997 03:52:43 GMT
Message-ID: <3457f989.50253779@news.mindspring.com>
Organization: MindSpring Enterprises



Please make comments on "Photorealism and Ray Tracing in C" by
Christopher D. Watkins (me) and Stephen B. Coy.  I'm interested in
what you thought was good about it, and bad about it.  What was it
missing or what would have made it better?  Would you want a 2nd
edition? Etc.

I would also have interest in any feedback on my other books too --
Photorealism and Ray Tracing in C was the only one I felt that there
was enough time before publisher pressure.  Some of the other titles
are Stereogram Programming Techniques, The Internet Edge in Business,
Learning Windows Programming w/ Virtual Reality, Virtual Reality
ExCursions, Taking Flight, Modern Image Processing, Programming in 3
Dimensions, and Advanced Graphics Programming in C & C++.

With a glutted market (partially due to about every publisher except
O'Reilly wanting to produce the first of every topic, and then 5 books
for that same topic :) where it's hard to find the gems of knowledge
through the noise, is there a place for a solid technical publisher
wanting to produce succinct academic yet practical popular works --
knowledge and wisdom presented, instead of disconnected information
blather? 

If you think so, what would be a preferred medium, and what would be a
preferred format.  I'm thinking short, focused volumes accompanied by
solid source code on CD that one could use in their commercial
projects (i.e. quite rigorous "academic" texts made accessable to
everyone without the "intuitively obvious" and "left as an exercise
for the reader" statements - with the focus on quality, and
understandable by all (hobbyists, programmers, professors/students,
and even artists and enthusiats).  All of this not done with profit as
the motivator, but quality.   What about journals following the
initial books/CDs or whatever...what about Internet presentation of
materials?  

Basically, I'm asking opinions on how to produce high-quality and
rigorous technical works that are really useful to everyone
(especially those wanting to learn these topics initially), and what
technical areas have a need.  There is too much fodder out there - to
some degree I feel that I produced some of it.  I understand why,
given the way publishing works, and how totally profit-driven
companies work...I want to try to change this somehow...

Thank you for you assistance and all the best to you.
Chris

________________________________________________________________
Christopher D. Watkins, Chairman & CEO    cwatkins@algorithm.com
Algorithm, Inc.                        http://www.algorithm.com/
Immersive Simulation Technologies for Entertainment and Training