Well, today is the day.
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Well, today is the day. I'm finally "sorta happy enough to pull the trigger" on publishing the book I've been working on for a very long time. It's a technical history book: by a techie, for techies (although I think that between all the code samples, there is plenty of meat for "tech-adjacent" and "tech-interested" people). It tells the story of the Lisp programming language, invented by a genius called John McCarthy in 1958 and today still going strong (to the extent that many people see it as the most powerful programming language in existence).
And this is a time for shameless self promotion, even if you don't plan on buying the book, please repost :-). Self-publishing is self-marketing, so there we go.
If you do buy and read it, please let me know how you liked it!
The book landing page, https://berksoft.ca/gol, has links to all outlets where you can buy the book,
@cdegroot The Kobo EPUB version makes it very difficult to see the formulas in the first few chapter. It's very blurry. The following images is a X2 magnification.
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@cdegroot The Kobo EPUB version makes it very difficult to see the formulas in the first few chapter. It's very blurry. The following images is a X2 magnification.
@NortherlyGoose strange. What version are you using? I've tested on my laptop and on my Libra and things looked fine there.
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@NortherlyGoose strange. What version are you using? I've tested on my laptop and on my Libra and things looked fine there.
@cdegroot I purchased it directly from KOBO and this is on the KOBO Libra 2. Publisher date is 2/1/26. Kobo software version 4.44.23552 (11/13/25).
Can you try downloading from KOBO to check?
Thank you!
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@cdegroot I purchased it directly from KOBO and this is on the KOBO Libra 2. Publisher date is 2/1/26. Kobo software version 4.44.23552 (11/13/25).
Can you try downloading from KOBO to check?
Thank you!
@NortherlyGoose an update is live on Kobo. I tested both on my Sage (I have a Sage, not a Libra) and on screen, the formulas seem to render fine (I've opted not to risk using MathML because I am not sure how wide support for that is, so as far as I can see they are SVGs, not much I can do w.r.t. rendering quality there).
New ebook revision has a revision identifier ("first revision") on the copyright page.
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@NortherlyGoose an update is live on Kobo. I tested both on my Sage (I have a Sage, not a Libra) and on screen, the formulas seem to render fine (I've opted not to risk using MathML because I am not sure how wide support for that is, so as far as I can see they are SVGs, not much I can do w.r.t. rendering quality there).
New ebook revision has a revision identifier ("first revision") on the copyright page.
@cdegroot I removed and downloaded the book from my Kobo reader but it appears to be the same book (I can't find the phrase "first revision" in the contents). Maybe it hasn't spread to all the servers yet. I'll wait 48 hours and try again.
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Well, today is the day. I'm finally "sorta happy enough to pull the trigger" on publishing the book I've been working on for a very long time. It's a technical history book: by a techie, for techies (although I think that between all the code samples, there is plenty of meat for "tech-adjacent" and "tech-interested" people). It tells the story of the Lisp programming language, invented by a genius called John McCarthy in 1958 and today still going strong (to the extent that many people see it as the most powerful programming language in existence).
And this is a time for shameless self promotion, even if you don't plan on buying the book, please repost :-). Self-publishing is self-marketing, so there we go.
If you do buy and read it, please let me know how you liked it!
The book landing page, https://berksoft.ca/gol, has links to all outlets where you can buy the book,
@cdegroot I love the book so far! I got an email from Pendora about the updated PDF, but the page it takes me to fails to download the new version. Do you have any insight into their process?
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@cdegroot I love the book so far! I got an email from Pendora about the updated PDF, but the page it takes me to fails to download the new version. Do you have any insight into their process?
@rjray Try it again, support just pinged me that the broken download issue should have been fixed. If not, private message me with your order number and we'll work something out.
Glad you like the book!
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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@cdegroot I removed and downloaded the book from my Kobo reader but it appears to be the same book (I can't find the phrase "first revision" in the contents). Maybe it hasn't spread to all the servers yet. I'll wait 48 hours and try again.
@NortherlyGoose yeah, one drawback of indirect sales channels is that all I can do is upload a new revision and then wait for the distributor confirmation "it is done!". I'll check today on a "not me" account to see whether things have propagated, if not, I'll have to ping Kobo support.
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@cdegroot I removed and downloaded the book from my Kobo reader but it appears to be the same book (I can't find the phrase "first revision" in the contents). Maybe it hasn't spread to all the servers yet. I'll wait 48 hours and try again.
@NortherlyGoose So... shockingly, Kobo does not allow updates to ebooks. It can, on request, push a replacement ebook but that also wipes bookmarks and notes for everybody. That's pretty bad, so I think I'll have to pull Kobo as a channel and see how I can reach people to receive updates from me directly. More to follow.
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@NortherlyGoose So... shockingly, Kobo does not allow updates to ebooks. It can, on request, push a replacement ebook but that also wipes bookmarks and notes for everybody. That's pretty bad, so I think I'll have to pull Kobo as a channel and see how I can reach people to receive updates from me directly. More to follow.
@cdegroot where do I report typos?
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@NortherlyGoose So... shockingly, Kobo does not allow updates to ebooks. It can, on request, push a replacement ebook but that also wipes bookmarks and notes for everybody. That's pretty bad, so I think I'll have to pull Kobo as a channel and see how I can reach people to receive updates from me directly. More to follow.
@cdegroot these missing images are also absent on my KOBO Libre 2.
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@cdegroot these missing images are also absent on my KOBO Libre 2.
@NortherlyGoose known issue, I asked Kobo to push out a corrected version.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@cdegroot where do I report typos?
@NortherlyGoose PM me and I'll add them to the errata page.
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Well, today is the day. I'm finally "sorta happy enough to pull the trigger" on publishing the book I've been working on for a very long time. It's a technical history book: by a techie, for techies (although I think that between all the code samples, there is plenty of meat for "tech-adjacent" and "tech-interested" people). It tells the story of the Lisp programming language, invented by a genius called John McCarthy in 1958 and today still going strong (to the extent that many people see it as the most powerful programming language in existence).
And this is a time for shameless self promotion, even if you don't plan on buying the book, please repost :-). Self-publishing is self-marketing, so there we go.
If you do buy and read it, please let me know how you liked it!
The book landing page, https://berksoft.ca/gol, has links to all outlets where you can buy the book,
Exciting!
Also promotion and sales is a noble task. You've created something important, sell it with pride! I am in business and even there, so many people avoid sales. It's not as difficult as people think. Take the bold step of making first contact (I don't know exactly what distribution looks like in books, but presumably conferences, media etc.) And then persist. It's not one and done. Keep trying to get through to your target. Be creative.
Gopd luck.
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Exciting!
Also promotion and sales is a noble task. You've created something important, sell it with pride! I am in business and even there, so many people avoid sales. It's not as difficult as people think. Take the bold step of making first contact (I don't know exactly what distribution looks like in books, but presumably conferences, media etc.) And then persist. It's not one and done. Keep trying to get through to your target. Be creative.
Gopd luck.
@jawarajabbi I was lucky in the sense that my "tech career" started with a u-turn through business school, so I'm less inclined to think of sales and marketing as "dirty" activities. Still, I would have preferred the book not to be self-published because it's hardly the sort of stuff I like to volunteer for :-). Regardless, a plan is in place and will be executed.
