Thoughts on Interaction Design

Thoughts on Interaction got a nice blurb in the latest South Magazine.

Wendy was nice enough to ask for a short blog post on the book for Ambidextrous - here it is :)

Hey look - the book made the cover of Core77!

I’ve finally found the opportunity to sit down and quickly reflect on the publishing of this book. The text has been “released” for 8 days now, and has sold 115 copies thus far. 97% of these sales were through my own site, with the remainder being sold through Amazon (which is just fine with me – Amazon takes a ridiculous 55%!). Qualitative feedback has been strong, but I’m still waiting to see some kind of formal response to the contents (through reviews, discussion, etc). This is probably the largest challenge, now – to gauge the response, and try to create some sort of dialogue about the contents.

Shipping and handling is pesky, but not too difficult – I could see it being problematic if the quantity of books being moved was 3x or 4x, but the small number makes it fairly easy. It’s kind of interesting to see who is buying this, too: there are 17 international orders, with people interested as far away as Malaysia and Malta. I wish there was a way to see what these people look like; for some reason, I want to associate a face with each order, as if these people are sitting in a classroom with me or something.

Thoughts on Interaction Design showed up today ;-) The book looks great; the paper quality is strong, the green is fantastic, and the quality of print is just perfect. It feels, well, real.

So go and buy a copy: you can buy one from me directly, or over at Amazon. And if you read it, and actually like it, write a nice review or drop me a line to let me know your thoughts on interaction design.

So the book went to press today.

:D

We are working with Horizon Printing in Austin, TX - Justin has done some previous work with them, and they submitted a very, very competitive bid on the text. We are printing an initial run of 1000, and after we judge demand, we can - as necessary - print more. I hope there is demand :)

This is why you work with a professional graphic designer when you do something through production: Paul asked our rep for an "ink draw" and requested a "caliper for the book paper size" in order to "build the spine". It's all greek to me.

The book is also live on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Somehow, the sales rank on B&N changes from day to day (by as many as 50,000), but I have no idea what happens when someone buys there. Amazon is listing the book at a discount, which makes me wonder - couldn't I just buy my own book there and resell it, making $10 each time?

I paid for printing today; that kind of makes it "real".

I also enrolled in Amazon's Advantage program, and opened the site up to pre-ordering. We've decided on a cheaper price on our site than on Amazon, as they take 55% (eek!) of the profits.

So we're in the home-stretch; I should have books in my hand by March 25th. Exciting, but kind of scary at the same time.

The thing is almost done; 99.9%, and counting. I got the final prepress proof from Paul, and I'm going over it with painstaking detail one last time before we go to press on Monday! We've identified a strong printer in Austin that had a great price, and a good reputation; if we actually get the text out on Monday, then I should have books in my hand on March 16th.

Here's a snip from inside the book; paul nailed the "swiss-classic merged with a modern filter" that I was hoping for:

And here's a view of the back cover:

So close ..

One of the last items left - the cover! Here are some comps ..

We are waiting on some quotes from India; then, it's off to press ....

I spent a quick weekend in Austin, finishing up all the imagery for the book and trying to get some ducks in a row. After taking over Justin's living room, we took about 800 pictures. These will get whittled down to about 25, and then the content for the book can be called "done".

We made a decision to explore printers in India, too; since this entire book is one big learning experience, we decided to see what sort of quality we can get from offshore product development.

This thing should go to the printer in the next two or three weeks …