November 23, 2009
My two most recent books on Delphi are now available in PDF format, for anyone who doesn't qualify to get them from Embarcadero Technologies for free.
My two most recent books on Delphi, Delphi 2007 Handbook and Delphi 2009 Handbook are now available in PDF format, for anyone who doesn't qualify to get them free of charge from Embarcadero Technologies. Some registered users of Delphi 2007 and registered users of Delphi 2009, plus developers who downloaded the RAS Studio 2009 trial for a given period of time, got these ebooks for free. However, developers still on older versions of Delphi or anyone who recently migrated from Delphi 5/6/7 to Delphi 2010 don't qualify for Embarcadero special offer. Since the books cover new features of each version, if you are moving to Delphi 2010 from "classic" versions of the product, you'll find a lot of useful information in them.
Granted these books can certainly be found online at some illegal download sites, but I feel it is relevant to provide anyone the option to buy a legal version of the PDF, in case they don't want to pay the extra costs for printing and shipping the paper versions of these books. Prices are about 50% of the printed version if you include shipping and handling. The "Delphi 2007 eHandbook" is available at 25 USD, while the "Delphi 2009 eHandbook" is priced at 30 USD. If you buy one and add the second to the cart, you'll get 3 USD off.
There is an introductory offer that gives you 5 USD off each book using the MARCOEBOOK coupon
[Updated: this was wrong in the original posting, very sorry about that]
. This discount coupon expires on December 1st, 2009: feel free to pass it around to any of your friends! If you buy both ebooks with this coupon you end up paying 42 USD, that is less than 30 Euros at the moment. That's for two ebooks of over 600 pages, combined. Of course, both books are and still will remain available in printed format at Amazon.com and Lulu.com. The only thing I cannot offer, at least for now, is a cross promotion between the printed and electronic versions.
In order to publish these ebooks, I opened an online shop managed by fastspring.com. They offer a very powerful and flexible online shop, manage all sales (including tax-related issues), seem very responsive, provide the download mechanism, have a very configurable system (well, possibly even too much, as you easily get lost in the options). They even ask for a more limited fee than most other sites. So I've decided to give this site a go, while finishing an ebook offer for the Delphi 2010 Handbook, which should be ready quite soon. Let me have any feedback related to your online experience with fastspring.com, both when buying my ebooks and with other products you shopped for on their site.
As an addition, I'm thinking of offering Amazon Kindle support, now that you can also buy ebooks using the free Kindle for PC, but Amazon's 50% commission on sales is somewhat discouraging me.
posted by
marcocantu @ 5:20PM | 11 Comments
[0 Pending]
11 Comments
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Marco,
I purchased printed versions of Delphi 2007 Handbook
and Delphi 2009 Handbook. I'm happy and would buy
again.
What is seriously missing is a Delphi 2010 Programming
Language book. Something like "C Programming" by K&R.
I'd even settle for Delphi in a Nutshell revamped for
2010.
I know you have Essential Pascal, but it is not the
same. And I hope you'd consider writing a Delphi
Programming Language book that covers 2010. I would
be the 1st in line to buy.
Not having a printed language guide for Delphi 2010 is
rather remarkable and Embarcadero should be
embarrassed about this.
Please write "Delphi 2010 Programming Language", I'll
have my credit card ready.
Comment by Rich on November 23, 19:02
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Rich,
the idea of a "Delphi Language Bible" or something like
that covering the language from the ground up, is
certainly interesting. While the Handbooks focused on
specific version of the product have a meaning, in the
long run it serve developers to have "vertical" books
focused on topics / product areas, covering the product
from the ground up (I mean, much less version specific..
. and continuously updated).
Maybe this makes more sense for ebooks than printed one,
though. But can certainly consider it.
Comment by Marco Cantu
[http://www.marcocantu.com]
on November 23, 19:07
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
I tried to purchase 2009 book but site would not let
me enter credit card number, actually any character
in the text box. Site worked for rest of info but no
way to finish order.
Comment by Tom on November 23, 19:50
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
I also bought the printed versions :) And i will buy
the printed version on lulu.com for Delphi 2010 also.
I don't own Delphi 2010 till now, but i will take the
book and read it. I will get Delphi 2010 soon enough
to have use for the book. :)
Great to see PDF's available also, but as i said, i'm
a more printed books reader. Especially on subways in
germany ;)
Bye, murphy
Comment by murphy
[http://www.dev0.de]
on November 23, 20:46
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
I tried to order the 2007 handbook ebook, but your
site does not work with FireFox (It seems to work with
IE8). Also the MARCOEBOOKS coupon was rejected. At
this point I gave up.
Will try again in a few days.
Comment by SleepuGuy
[none]
on November 24, 08:08
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Like the last poster, the coupon doesn't work when I
tried to order both products. I got this message:
"MARCOEBOOKS is not a valid coupon."
FYI - I've been using FastSpring as my shopping cart
provider for a few months, and have been very happy
with my experiences with them.
I agree though, that there are many options buried
deep in the FastSpring administrator interface.
Unfortunately at this point there is no comprehensive
user's manual or help system to steer you to the
options or explain exactly how to use them.
-Chris
Comment by Chris
[http://spudcity.com]
on November 24, 17:57
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Tom,
no idea about the credit card issue. Most people
Comment by Marco Cantu
[http://www.marcocantu.com]
on November 24, 23:46
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Tom,
no idea about the credit card problem. Several people
bought books, might be a browser specific issue, but
this sounds quite odd as the vendor is quite large and
tested. Maybe you can retry...
As for the coupon there was indeed a mistake, it has now
been reactivated.
Comment by Marco Cantu
[http://www.marcocantu.com]
on November 24, 23:51
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Marco, I think that I am not the only one who is
missing a two-tome (probably it should be now
three-tome;) ) hardcover book.
Please consider writing one.
You could gather all the stuff that you wrote in the
previous books in one large edition. It would be
great...:)
Comment by Dimitrij on November 24, 23:55
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
You could also release in .epub and .mobi formats for
eReaders - which are becoming more and more popular.
Comment by Alister Christie
[http://codegearguru.com]
on November 25, 23:21
Delphi 2007 and 2009 eHandbooks
Well it started off well with prices in local currency
but at the end the cost would have been £37.23 or
USD63.25 !
No I'll just buy a printed copy of the 2009 book from
Lulu instead
Comment by Douglas S on November 30, 16:30
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