

Show HN: JavaScript Application Design book - bevacqua
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1617291951/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=

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azmenak
I'm very curious about what process is used to choose book covers. This one
seems even more random than most other books related to programming.

~~~
bevacqua
Manning use people in old costumers for their covers[1], and I hand-picked the
fisherman who presumably catches fish with his bare hands as a metaphore that
the book will give you the tools you need to stop catching fish with your bare
hands.

[1]:
[http://manning.com/about/covers.html](http://manning.com/about/covers.html)

~~~
agumonkey
Wow, quite profound small piece of text. Made me genuinely happy.

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fekberg
Congratulations on publishing your first book! Did you have to write the book
in Word, or could you use something like LaTeX?

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bevacqua
Thanks! I wrote drafts in Markdown and then we worked on OpenOffice for
formatting as it was more convenient for editors and proofers

~~~
fekberg
Interesting! I wrote mine in LaTeX and merging what I got from proofers got a
bit difficult at times.

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tzm
Seriously, congrats on writing and publishing your book. I'm in the process of
proofing a similar book for a colleague that (funny enough) was signed by
Manning, but he decided to buy back the rights and self publish.

~~~
bevacqua
Thank you! I was undecided at first, but at least in my case it really paid of
to have a team of editors, proofers, and reviewers helping me along the way. I
definitely recommend it for first-timers.

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ourmandave
It was released today, but there's already a used copy for sale. o_O

~~~
Zombieball
"Unread copy in perfect condition." and it is $39.56 instead of $29.99.

My guess is this is just a drop shipper. This seller doesn't actually have a
copy of the book and will instead automatically order it for you if you choose
to buy from them.

~~~
tpg
I don't understand why such a drop shipper would get any orders when pricing
considerably above new. Do you have any insight as to why somebody would
bother? Seems like a wasted effort.

~~~
Zombieball
Sophistifunk's mention about it being a bot is most likely the case.
Frequently drop shippers will source (site scrape) from one website and sell
on another.

A good example would be purchasing (used) books from AbeBooks.com, and cross-
posting to the Amazon.com marketplace for sale with a markup. Sometimes their
prices may come out lower and actually result in a sale.

Chances are this bot scraped this book from another site (among many others)
and re-posted it to Amazon with this markup.

Side anecdote: Ever seen posters around town claiming you can "make $X /
month, working from home!" ? Sometimes these are drop shippers. They cannot
always ship orders directly to the customers that purchased them due to
whatever security restrictions may be in place from where they are actually
purchasing their merchandise from. Instead they hire folks to receive
packages, slap a new shipping label on them, and send them back out.

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albertoleal
It's interesting that this kind of book is being released now, than, say two
years ago.

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keslag
A book released today with a 5 star rating about how much the reviewer needed
this book? Horse shit. If it was your mom, I might buy it. My mom would give 5
stars and babble on about how cute I was as a baby. But Si Dunn rates almost
everything 5 stars, and everything is life changing to this manning plant.

~~~
pedalpete
Lots of books will have pre-release and the author asks the reviewer to
comment on Amazon on release day.

Take down your anger level a bit. The world ain't so bad.. :)

~~~
keslag
So, because many publishers have fake accounts that lie, I should give this
one a pass? Pete, I encourage you to write a book. The world is far worse than
you seem to think.

~~~
seasoup
The publishers send out review copies to people. Sometimes they get 5 stars,
sometimes they get three. The publishers don't tell the reviewers to give them
five stars, they ask for an honest review. Do they send lots of books to
reviewers that tend to give five stars, probably, they aren't gluttons for
punishment. But that's a far cry from fake accounts.

~~~
keslag
If you read in there, Si Dunn won't write the review unless he gives it 4 or 5
stars. He then sells the books he reviews back on Amazon. He doesn't do ebook
reviews because you can't sell the ebook. So he gets paid about 65-75% of
list. Looking at his reviews and twitter feed, it's a few hundred a month, and
for a writer who quotes more than he reviews, probably not more than a few
hours work.

[https://sagecreek.wordpress.com/about/](https://sagecreek.wordpress.com/about/)

People can keep downvoting me, but it doesn't make that 5 star review any more
legitimate.

~~~
seasoup
So what if he makes a few bucks on it? The publishers don't pay him, they give
him the same thing they give all the reviewers they request reviews from, a
free book. He doesn't guarantee a good review in exchange, he guarantee he
will either give a good review, a mediocre review, or no review. 4 stars on
Amazon means the book is mediocre. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't review
it.

That doesn't make his 5 star review illegitimate at all. If he thought it was
a 4 star book, he would give it four stars, if he thought it was a 3 star
book, he wouldn't give a rating. He gave it 5 stars because he thinks it is
worth 5 stars.

\------------

His note in full from your link:

\------------ NOTE: I am not paid by publishers to review and tout their
books. And I do not guarantee to publish a review about a particular book. If
I do not like a book, I will not review it here. Writing a book requires
significant time, effort, and expense, and I will not trash someone else’s
writing. My goal here is to provide what I hope is an honest assessment and
provide useful information to readers seeking particular types of books.
Sometimes I offer a few critical comments, but mostly, I try to provide useful
information that can help a reader decide to purchase a book–or not.

I receive sample copies from publishers, and I am under no obligation to
publish reviews of any of those books. Indeed, I review only the books that I
want to review, and I try to assess how well I think the books meet the goals
set forth by their writers.

Publishers may mail printed books for possible review (no promises!) to: Si
Dunn, Sagecreek Productions LLC, 1101 W. 34th St., #131, Austin, TX
78705-1907. As a general rule, I do not review e-books.

If you buy a book or e-book through links published in one of my reviews, I
will make a few dimes (and not much more!) through my Amazon Affiliate
account. Periodically, after printed books have been on my shelves for a
while, I have to make room for new ones. So I sell some of the reviewed books
on the used-book market. A few get donated to libraries. And a few are passed
along to friends and relatives.

Book reviewing definitely is not a way to get rich quick–nor slowly. But
reviewing is something I have done, part-time, for more than 35 years, mainly
because I love books and enjoy helping authors reach new readers.

