Following my last post introducing my self-published "Delphi 2007 Handbook", here is the cover of the book. It is the work of a a professional designer and I like it a lot:

The blog post had many comment and deserves a few clarifications. Rather than responding to the various comments in the thread, I think it is better to provide extra information on the project in a new post.

  • Lulu's printing system is superb. I bought a few books (including the one from Bucknall) and the quality is very close to that of a good quality traditional book print. Still, not having to make a print run, the is no upfront cost and the actual print can take place in a location close to the final destination (Europe, US, and so on), cutting on shipping costs and time.
  • IntraWeb (now also called VCL for the Web). After a lot of doubts I decided that having a chapter covering only the AJAX-oriented features of IntraWeb was not really worth. And covering the technology in full would have been out of scope. One of the options is to write a specific book on Web development in Delphi, including but not limited to IntraWeb. However, if there is a huge demand for an "update-only" or short summary of IntraWeb, I might reconsider my decision and add it.
  • Pricing. The book might seem expensive, but one of the problems I'm suffering a lot is the strong Euro or (to see the other side) the "devaluation" of the US dollar. This is siphoning 30% of my royalties earnings, compared to a few years back. It takes almost one dollar and 40 cents to buy a Euro today and I pay all of my bills in Euros...
  • Lulu only vs. distribution is quite a messy story. If you want to sell both on Lulu and Amazon you need to set the same cover price, with Amazon offering a discount. So even if readers could buy on both, Amazon would be cheaper (attracting more readers) and a writer would get much less money. If I got it right, of course. This changed over the last year and I had missed it.
  • A book on writing Delphi components is certainly possible. More generally I'm looking for ways to update and republish my Delphi Developers Handbook, of which I bought back the rights from the former publisher, along with thsoe of a few other books.