As someone that has written multiple books : here is some info.
- writing a technical book is NOT something you do in 1 year unless you are a full time writer, and even then. The biggest obstacle are the graphics. 1/2 of the time is spent making the images, making the schematics, doing the boards etc. Screenshots are of course easy. It's the other stuff that gets time consuming.
Most of the books out there are 're-washes' of software revisions: 'Mastering Autocad 2013' is a re-wash of 'Mastering Autocad 2012'. there is 10% new content ( the new features ) and a few new screenshots and that's it. So yeah, they can crank those out. Not so when writing a totally new book on hardware. ( the original 'Mastering' book took long , the re-washes are short ). Don't fall in the trap of thinking : well these guys can keep up with every new version ... how hard can it be ?
As for paying for premium content. i'll do that , but the content will have to be 'premium', in the sense it takes me from zero to wizard without leaving out details.
Here is a sample of what i mean: i am learngin to use Inventor. I bought the 'mastering' book , spent 2 days reading the first few chapters and trying out some things with the software. After two days of frustration i managed drawing a rectangle. I still had not foun out how to move it , resize it or anything. Why ? because the book skips fundamental things. They show a screenshot before and after with some text in between. 'From the constraint menu select the parallel constraint item and place it on the rectangles top edge, then click on blabla. it takes 5 minutes to find out what the hell they are talking about. The software is a mash of icons. you have no cluse what the 3d menu icon looks like or even what the parallel constraint icon looks like. you sit there for 5 minutes mousing over all icons waiting for the balloonhelp to tell you if you got the right one or not... all becasue the book writers were too laze to place a screenshot while the menu tree is open so you can see where to go. Or simply place the two icons. find this picture (3d menu) then in the list that fly's out find that picture.
I took an inventor class yesterday . 3 hours , given by someone that knows the tool in and out and showed where the things are that you need. i'm up and running. As for the book ( it's a thick one, at least 3 inches ) . That's been put in the vertical filing system with the 'recycle' logo on it. Useless.
Now, driving a piece of software is one thing. Actually learnign the desing process is another. while you can learning to drive the software from a book, you need 'more' to actually learn the process. A book that simply describes all the buttons teaches you the program. A book that talks about how to do certain things and alternative methods is another story. That is 'premium' content. At least half of the course yesterday was showing how to do things ( not just software related ) and alternate ways. What technique to use in what circumstance. how do you center a rectangle ( place the center of the rectangle in the origin point ) . There is tons of ways to do that. But , when you cange the aspect of the rectangle ( widht/size) in many cases you will have to re-center. Here is the fail-proof technique : you draw a guide line from one corner to an opposite corner. so , no matter how this rectangle is resized later , that line is always diagonal. And then you click on the centerpoint of that line and link that centrpoint to the origin. I can now reshape that rechtagnel any which way i want. it will remain centered.
that is the stuff that is 'premium'. the book will show you how to select the rectangle and apply a numerical shift to it. if you were taught that you would simple repeat that operation over and over. you change the rectangle dimensions , select-all - calculate the shift and apply. Using the tools provided and some 'cleverness' you let the software do it for you. and that is what i am willing to pay for: learning the tricks to let the software do the work. I am inherently lazy. I use a computer because i can't be bothered fliping out a calculator and do the math. Computers are built to compute. Repetitive crap should be done by machine.
I have an idea , and want to visualize what it looks like and plug that into the machine. i'll drag and twist it a bit on screen until it looks like what i want and the machine should give me all the numbers i need. Actualy i don't even need to know the 'numbers' , all i want is to click a button so the cad program sends what is needed to a 5 axis cnc machine or waterjet and i can pick up the part a few hours later.
There is a lot of powerful software out there. just learning to click buttons is one thing , but it doesn't get you very far. everything will be hard and time consuming. Learning how to use the functions in the program to do something practical , that is the key. It's one thing to know that this icon means 'parallel constraint'. it's another thing learning when to use a parallel constraint and when not to use becasue there is an easier way.
3 cases:
- A book on PCB design that shows you what all the buttons are for in Eagle teaches you Eagle.. it doesn't teach you pcb design.... it only teaches clicking buttons. is someone tells you 'differential routing' you stare blank....
- A book that teaches you pcb design , does exactly that. Here is how you do differential traces. and then you go off and try to do this by hand in eagle... pretty useless. you are not making use of the tool. You have the knowledge , but don't know how to apply it. you go off and draw traces by hand that run parallel and you calculated by hand. when you find out the traces need moving or the layerstack changes , you heave a deep sigh and recalcualte everything by hand ... eventually you get pissed off at these diff traces becasue they are 'too cumbersome' and time consuming.
- A book that explanis differential routing and then shows you to use this in a real program by showing how to write a design rule for it by defining the layer stack , dielectric constants , the wanted impedance , the routing topology (source/target) so this diff pair appear automatically with correct width and gap and adapts itself if you move part around, the computer does the computing. Now THAT is -PREMIUM- content.
Why ?
Becasue it teaches you the theory , and then shows you how to use this , with the least effort possible , and highest return , in the software.
It shortens your learning curve and gets you consistent results in a faster way. Leaving the grunt work to the machine.
but that's just my 2 cents worth ...