I also really like the idea of offering a discounted ebook for people who already own the first edition. The size of the book is much less important when talking about an ebook and if it’s discounted (assuming Manning has records of my first purchase), then I would be much more likely to buy despite the duplication just to get the new chapters.

I look forward to getting my hands on the chapters about the new 4.0 features.

Best of luck,
Russ

I’m now mostly done with the new chapters, but haven’t started revising the old chapters yet. I think the outcome is going to get a mixed reaction from you:

1) For novice users, I’m hoping to publish a separate PDF of “C# in 30 pages” – very light on detail, but enough to get a competent C/C /Java/VB developer up to speed reasonably quickly. I may introduce more diagrams where they would be helpful too, but frankly I’m not very good at them anyway.

2) They won’t be “random” revisions, but it’s certainly true that the bulk of the new material will be in the new chapters.

3) I suspect the size of the original chapters will be about as it is now – through some slimming down, and some additions. I definitely *don’t* want to slim down the C# 2 coverage to a single chapter, as then it wouldn’t be suitable for people who don’t have the first edition and don’t already know the details of generics, iterator blocks etc. I still think these are widely misunderstood, and that the detail is useful. I’m guessing at 100 pages of new content for the new chapters. I apologise that this blows your 400 page limit, but I personally think all the detail is worth it.

However, I *am* hoping to have something useful to offer for readers such as yourself. I’m hoping to have a way for first edition owners to get hold of the new chapters (but not the revised ones) as a standalone ebook (with no effort made to disguise the fact that it really is the end of the bigger book). That way you should be able to get better value for money/time, but I can still give detail to new readers.

Jon