Don't Buy My Book

I love this time of year. The leaves are starting to change into their fall motley, there's a chill in the air, and the smell of wood smoke lingers like childhood memories. It's also the time when Leo Laporte's Technology Almanac typically tumbles from the presses to land with a thud on your bookstore shelves. Well, not this year, Jimbo. My contract with Que has expired and it doesn't look like either of us has much interest in resuscitating it. Que has been very patient with me. When we signed the deal I had two national US TV shows, a regular gig on Live with Regis and Kelly, and ample opportunity to flog my books. By the end of the contract we were lucky to get a plug on Good Morning Muncie. Needless to say, sales suffered. On the bright side, you should be able to find any one of my dozen titles in the remainder bin of your nearby five and dime, and at a very affordable price, too. I’ve enjoyed my stint as an author -- the sherry hours, the tweed coat with patched elbows, the bowlful of Borkum Riff, the love starved groupies, the 1.5% royalties -- but all good things must come to an end. There won’t be a Technology Almanac in this year’s remainder bin. Your collection will have to end with the 2006 edition, the fifth and final installment in my magnum opus. Hey, that’s almost as many as Harry Potter.

If I do return to the publishing world it will be as a self-published author. I wouldn’t want anyone else to assume the burden that Que has suffered these past couple of years. Amber and I have talked about writing a book on podcasting. We even got as far as an outline and subversion repository, but then Citytv came up with a better offer and, to be honest, that book is now so far back on the burner that it’s getting chillblains. It’s OK. This is all part of my transition from mainstream media maven to obscure Wikipedia entry. Writing books is hard work and, love starved groupies aside, the compensations are scant. I’ll put my energies into something I love to do, talking for a living, and leave the writing to my literary heroes, Bill O’Reilly and Ed McMahon. So thanks to all of you who bought my books. Perhaps we can gather someday at a local Denny's and reminisce. An even bigger thanks to the many, many more who put up with my endless plugging and still managed to resist the urge to buy. Never again will you have to hear, "buy my book," unless you happening to be watching the O'Reilly Factor. And if you are, you're getting what you deserve.

Poor Leo's 2002 Computer Almanac

Woo hoo! My book hits bookstore shelves December 3rd. We have the final art for the cover. (It's a PDF file you can download from here. You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat reader installed to see it. I'm already thinking of ways we can make it better next year. And how I can get back on Regis to plug it!

Second Printing

In one week my book will go into its second printing. That's a good thing; it means we've sold out the first printing of 50,000 copies. It also means I can correct any typos or errors in the first edition. Laura and I have been going through it, and we've found some errors. If you've found any yourself, please let me know. Send me an email or add a comment to this blog entry. No error is too small to ignore - I want to make the second edition perfect! I'll send a Leoville mug and t-shirt to the person who finds the most errors. Thanks for your help!

Focus Groups Never Lie

I've been re-reading George Gilder's brilliant Telecosm and I came across this telling anecdote about focus groups. In 1980 when Bob Metcalfe, inventer of ethernet, came to the industrial megacorporation General Electric on behalf of his fledgling company 3COM, the GE executives explained that they had done considerable research on the new personal computer and networking industries. In focus groups composed of GE customers held all over the country, executives were told over and over that there was no consumer interest in personal computers. PCs, the focus groups said, only were of interest to businesses. And the same could be said for networking. The was no home PC market, and never would be. General Electric decided to stick with refrigerators, nuclear reactors, and light bulbs, and to this day has never dabbled in personal computing or networking.

Delisted from Amazon

Amazon.com has, for some reason, removed the listing for the 2004 Alamanac. For a while I even had the URL amazon.com/leo. No longer. I feel so empty.