Andre, This hits my “sweet spot”. Excellent plan! I’m looking forward to your products. Best, Bill
William Prothero http://es.earthednet.org > On Jul 10, 2020, at 3:15 AM, Andre Garzia via use-livecode > <use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > > Folks, > > Thanks a lot for your detailed responses. Since you have all been quite > awesome in giving me all these great replies and feedback, let me tell you, > in probably more details than you'd ever want, where I am coming from and > what I plan to do going forward. > > Many here know that I have graduated from a film school. Doing videos feel > like going home for me and I believe in the potential of multimedia to be > an effective learning tool. Still, I have always been in love with books > and like many here I favour books over video any time. I was considering > doing more video related content because other people I know are having a > better return on video courses than on books. Of course this depends on the > community and here books appear to rule, which is good for me because I > enjoy writing books and that is the direction I want to shift my career to > anyway. > > I have just completed a major JavaScript book for a famous publishing house > in the U.S. and am ready to go back to self-publishing and work on my own > titles on my own time. The book I made about LiveCode best practices and > code organisation was well received and even though I have issued some > updates, I haven't updated as often as I wanted to. The reason behind not > updating often is because of some of the worst aspects of capitalism: > updating the book didn't really add to the sales figures and I live in a > very expensive city (I live in London now). Every time I updated the book > there would be some extra sales, but not as many as to justify working on > it. The alternative would be to raise the prices so that each sale would be > more valuable to me but I'm against it because I think the price should > reflect the value of the object being sold. That book has been done without > an editor and in a hurry, I can't charge as much for it as I'd charge for a > book that involved more professionals and more care. I think the price for > that specific book is right. > > So, going forward I think I am going to write more books but also shorter > books. There is a problem with trying to create comprehensive references or > bible-like books. They are harder to do and you sell them only once. Our > community is small, there is a limited amount of sales to be done inside > it. What I will do is create shorter books focused on a single topic and > sell them individually for a low price so that people can acquire them all > without actually having to worry. This way I can produce books faster > (which lowers the cost of producing them for me) and you get to have fresh > content, which is something that we all know a healthy ecosystem needs. I > might make some short videos, but mostly for engagement and highlighting > cool stuff. Video takes longer to produce and unfortunately my current > daily driver machine doesn't support any decent video editor. > > As for using stacks as interactive learning material, that reminds me of > Director. I think it is a great idea. The problem is that I am writing > about other technologies as well and I can't build a pipeline and tools to > deliver stacks (even as standalones) to the other communities at the > moment. I might explore that in the future but for now doing ebooks is the > best way forward. It is easy, I know how to do it, and I can focus on doing > content instead of building new tools. > > For those that haven't been exposed to my best practices book, you can find > it at: > > http://andregarzia.com/books/livecode-advanced-application-architecture.html > > I have also created a Ko-fi. This is a website like Patreon that helps > connect audiences with creators by allowing people to donate money as a one > time donation or as a recurring donation depending on how much they want to > support the creator. My plan is to engage with those supporting me on > ko-fi, and let them see advanced copies of the books, help decide what the > next topics to tackle and so on. Another thing I like about ko-fi is that > they style the whole process as "buy me a coffee", so you're basically > sending creator small donations so they can afford caffeine. Something I > really need to write books. I will price the books low, so if you think > about sending more money or making this more sustainable, my Ko-fi is at: > > https://ko-fi.com/andregarzia > > From what I have been reading on the list, I think there is a need for a > small book on "launchers" or as we used to call them "splash stacks". They > are a fantastic way to deploy tools to the enterprise and clients, they > unite the easy deployability of the web with the powerful feature set of > Desktop apps. More seasoned LC developers, especially those that worked as > ISV before the App Store, are probably familiar with them but this is > probably a new subject to many of the people who came to LC more recently. > I think this is will be the first new small book. I'm thinking about 45 > pages. I hope you'll like it. > > Best > A > > >> On Wed, 8 Jul 2020 at 20:20, William Prothero via use-livecode < >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: >> >> FYI, I’ve found some of the MovAvi <https://www.movavi.com/mac.html> apps >> to be good and very inexpensive. That said, I’m not doing a lot of video >> editing these days, but found the video editing app to be easier to use >> than iMovie. I used Final Cut Pro, but didn’t renew when Apple went to >> 64bit only. >> >> Best, >> Bill >> >> William A. Prothero >> https://earthlearningsolutions.org >> >>> On Jul 8, 2020, at 11:13 AM, Stephen Barncard via use-livecode < >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: >>> >>> I prefer video, but I feel demonstrations should have some production >> value >>> other that just a screen share. >>> Indicators, motion graphics, etc and not just a guy and his desktop. And >>> EDITING!!! >>> I'm a Final Cut Pro video guy these days and have ALL the groovy plugins >>> so I'm not being fair I guess. >>> >>> iMovie is far better these days that it used to be, but strangely very >>> difficult to upgrade an iMovie package to Final Cut, once one is there. >>> Roadblocks everywhere. Typical Apple %$#%#%#$%#$. >>> >>> sqb >>> -- >>> Stephen Barncard - Sebastopol Ca. USA - >>> mixstream.org >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jul 8, 2020 at 10:36 AM Jim Lambert via use-livecode < >>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hi André, >>>> >>>> I previously always favored printed books. >>>> >>>> But now I prefer digital materials that are a combination of text (with >>>> copiable code!), interactive elements, and supplementary video. >>>> As Richard pointed out LC itself provides "the many learning benefits of >>>> direct engagement with interactive media.” >>>> >>>> IMO, Video is most appropriate when used to convey visual, spatial and >>>> temporal examples. It’s can also provide a bit of a human touch to the >>>> instruction, even though it’s utterly mechanical. >>>> >>>> So, yeah, I like a combo. >>>> >>>> Hope this helps! >>>> >>>> Jim Lambert >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> use-livecode mailing list >>>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >>>> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >>>> subscription preferences: >>>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> use-livecode mailing list >>> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >>> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >> subscription preferences: >>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> >> _______________________________________________ >> use-livecode mailing list >> use-livecode@lists.runrev.com >> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your >> subscription preferences: >> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode >> > > > -- > http://www.andregarzia.com > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription > preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode