Archives For book

Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 Released Today

March 22, 2010

The latest version of Flex 4 was released by Adobe today. Adobe also released today the latest version of Flex Builder, now called Flash Builder 4. In case you’re not familiar with these products, Flex 4 is an open-source framework for generating Flash content that can run in a Web browser through a Flash plug-in, in a standalone Flash Player, or on the desktop using Adobe AIR. Using the Flex 4 SDK, any text editor, and a command-line interface, you can create Flash content for no cost. This is Flash content developed from a programming perspective, by the way, not graphically, like the original Flash.

Flash Builder is a commercial IDE, based upon the popular Eclipse IDE, that greatly facilitates Flex development. It is available in a 60-day trial and is clearly the best way to learn Flex, in my opinion. But I acknowledge the Flash Builder isn’t cheap. Still, a 60-day trial is more than generous enough to see for yourself if you’re interested in learning Flex.

I’m currently half-way through my book on Flex 4. It’ll probably come out in July; price to be determined. I believe an excerpt of it will be posted on the publisher’s Web site this week (I will post that link once I have it), and the entire book will be readable through Peachpit Press’ Safari Books Online. I’ll post more details about this when I have them.

In Flex
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Effortless Flex 4 Development Book Update

March 20, 2010

It’s been about a month since I’ve posted about my next book, titled “Effortless Flex 4 Development”, so I thought I’d offer up a quick update. The book is being written for New Riders press, and should come out in June (hopefully). I don’t have an exact date, or a price, but will post that information once I do.

I’m just about halfway through the first draft. I’m currently in the middle of the second part of the book, which focuses on using data in Flex. My approach in the book is that data is critical to the value of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), so I’m really focusing on the many ways you can create, retrieve, transmit, format, validate, and display data. The next two chapters on the docket will show how to perform client-server interactions, then demonstrate a handful of the most popular and/or best Web services available. I’m still finalizing that list, but Amazon, Google, Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter, etc. are likely candidates.

My thanks to those of you that have expressed interest in the book and please keep those comments and questions coming. In the meantime, I’ll be writing more of the book!

In Flex
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The Economics of Publishing, Part 2

March 18, 2010

[intlink id=”959″ type=”post”]In a previous post[/intlink], I wrote about a good New York Times article that discusses the economics of publishing, both physical and e-books. I also spoke a bit about my own experiences, in terms of the royalties received and what that means in actual take-home dollars. Coincidentally, I’ve just come across posts by two other writers: John Resig, who is better known as the creator of jQuery, and Peter Cooper, who has written a book on Ruby. Both writers post scans of their actual royalty statements, which you may find interesting, and share some of the intimate details about the economics of their books.

As a writer, I find this stuff to be interesting, because you’re always curious what other people are getting paid. The biggest factor, of course, is how well the book sells. A lot of considerations go into that, including how good the book is, the competing books, the potential market for that topic, and how the book is marketed by the publisher. Just writing a good book on a good subject is no guarantee of success. It’s also clear that different publishers pay different advances and royalties. Apress, the publisher for both of the above writers, seems to pay advances around $5000-$7500 and royalties from 10% going up to 20% (based upon sales). Conversely, I’ve personally received advances from $6000 up to $15000 but royalties capping at like 12% (or maybe 14%, I forget). Bill Pollack, from No Starch Press, commented that they pay up to a 15% royalty but with no advance or a 10% royalty with an $8000 advance.

Which leads me to add that if you’re interested in this topic, you should really read the comments posted to each thread. There are a few, casual comments, but lots of good input from other writers. More interestingly, you’ll see remarks from the publishers themselves, including the aforementioned Bill Pollack, the renowned Tim O’Reilly, and Dave Thomas at Pragmatic Publishers. Plus writers who used, and representatives of, self-publishing ventures.

In the process of reading all this stuff, I also came across Scott Meyers’s article on how to get published. Worth a read if that’s an avenue you want to pursue, even after seeing how little money is involved!

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The Economics of Publishing

March 4, 2010

Recently, the New York Times had a nice two-page article on the economics of book publishing and electronic book publishing. I’ve been thinking about writing on this topic myself, specifically about the money, as I suspect many people are curious about the financial aspects of the publishing business. However, I only have access to my numbers as a writer, so it was interesting to see the publisher side of things. I write computer books published as paperbacks, so my experience may differ from what the Times reported. That being said… Continue Reading…

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Effortless Flex 4 Development Book Outline

February 11, 2010

I’m currently working on my next book, Effortless Flex 4 Development. This is an entirely new title for me and my first full-length book on Flex. It’ll be published by New Riders, which is a sister publisher to Peachpit Press, that I normally work with. Most of the books I’ve written have been in the Visual QuickStart/QuickPro Guide series, which has a scripted format. This book will not be, so you won’t see the step-by-step instructions everywhere (there will be some) or the two-column format. I just submitted the third chapter, so I’ve now written about 90 pages or so, approximately one-quarter of the book. Here’s the rough table of contents, for those that are interested. Continue Reading…

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