September launch?

ivan

I have to add a question mark there. The book, well the book is not finished. I could get through the corrections in a couple of days, plus one day to finish up linear algebra. It is possible to do some kind of book launch. Let’s not do a half-assed launch though, and print a book with typos and mistakes in it. I have to do something with the resource that is September and the start of classes. I owe it to my company and to myself to test the hypothesis that mathematics and physics can be taught well in just 400 pages.

So what do we do with the next four days then?

  1. Flyer. Math lesson + physics lesson + pitch: “come preview the book for free on minireference.com”.
  2. Doku-wiki website. (must setup nginx rewrite rules + nice-up the homepage)

This is all I have time for. We are basically going to redo the launch from November 2011, but focus on the web aspect. By analyzing doku-wiki’s access logs I will be able to see whether there is engagement with the audience.

First day of classes

ivan

The book is not quite done yet. This sucks, as I wanted to get the book content ready (especially the new chapter on Physics) so that I can crete the flyers from that content. Linear algebra is not done either. And my ticket to Singapore is for the 13th of September. Hmm…

Makes me wonder what the best strategy for the coming week is. The main goal is to get the book into student’s hands this semester and let them read and learn from it. I want to judge the interest in the book (will it sell?), but also judge whether the teaching in it is effective (will they pass?). I suppose testing the quality of the content  is more important than testing how well it will sell. I mean print has been my  favourite monetization strategy since the beginning, but it is unlikely to be the winning strategy. Realistically speaking, I think I am much more likely to see sales on Kindle, iBooks and Kobo rather than in lulu-print. Plus I recently learned that they want a 20% cut from the book profits. WTF? I am pretty sure this 20% thing wasn’t there before.

So in the week that I have left, these are the priorities:

  1. Website (Preview PDF, give-me-your-email box)
  2. Flyers & advertisement. (depends on 1)
  3. Work on corrections & Chapter 2.

So tomorrow is going to be a Django day I guess 😉