Caffeinated Coder

In a recent post, I raved about Jon Skeet’s book, C# in Depth. I thought it had all the yummy goodness of a six-shooter and then some.

Soon after I wrote the post, I discovered that Jon is currently working on a second edition to the book that will include new chapters devoted to C# 4.0 features. He wrote this post a few months ago that outlined the proposed content and solicited feedback from readers.

In particular, he seemed curious about what he could do to reach the widest possible audience with his second edition. The three target audiences he identified were 1) novice first time readers, 2) experienced first time readers who are already familiar with C# 2.0 and 3.0 features, and 3) developers who have already read the first edition.

At the risk of being sent a nasty LINQ-based virus by Mr. Jon Skeet, who is probably way too far into the writing process to be able to seriously consider feedback about the structure of his book, I thought I would weigh in on the topic. I have never considered purchasing a second edition of a tech book when I have already read and own a copy of the first edition, so the question of what would make me want to purchase a second edition intrigued me.

Here is what it would take for me to buy a second edition of C# in Depth:

1. No Effort Is Made to Appeal to Novice Developers – The first edition distinguished itself by purposefully not targeting this audience as a way to stay focused. Any effort made to dumb down the book in hopes of expanding readership will likely only serve to alienate those of us who are already fans of the first edition and ultimately lead to a net loss in readers. Since the tech book market is already oversaturated with books targeting novice developers, it seems like it would be very difficult to capture any significant numbers from this group anyways.
2. The Book is More of a Second Volume than a Second Edition – There are definitely some chapters that I wouldn’t mind rereading (iterators and expression trees come to mind), but otherwise it is not worth it for me to buy a book that is essentially a duplicate of one that I already have just because a few new chapters have been added to the end and some random revisions have been made. To be honest, it would probably take at least 60% new content before I would be willing to make the purchase. Some of the new content could be on novel uses of 2.0 and 3.0 language features that have emerged since the first edition was written, but mostly I want to read about C# 4.0.
3. The Book Stays the Same Length – As I mentioned in my last post, I think that four hundred pages is probably a magic number for tech books when it comes to being appropriately focused. If the content is going to be 60% new and it is going to stay the same length, that means that some ruthless editing needs to take place. The goal of the book should definitely not be to be comprehensive, but rather to provide insight into particularly difficult and interesting topics that can’t be gleaned from a simple blog post. If someone wants to know about partial classes, automatic properties, or simplified initialization, they don’t need a book to find out about it. The Chapters on C# 2.0 should be probably be condensed to one chapter and the ones on C# 3.0 should probably be condensed to three chapters at the most.

Perhaps spending a few weeks every 2-3 years trimming material that is blatantly no longer relevant in order to produce a new edition might be worth the effort if they are just trying to capture a few straggling new readers, but anything beyond that seems like a hopeless exercise for the author and publisher who hope to sell any significant number of books.

It seems like a much better approach would be to consider this an essentially new book project (hence the volume 2 comment) and try to minimize the overlap in content between the two books.

Are my expectations unrealistic? Does anyone else see any true value in traditional second edition approach of adding a few new chapters and making a few minor revisions?

Since I liked the first book so much I will definitely follow Jon’s efforts and seriously consider his new edition.

However, based on my prior experience with second editions, Jon has an uphill battle ahead of him.

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