Determining demand for an Omega and Omega 2 book
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Howdy folks,
I'm trying to determine the potential demand/interest for book on the Omega and Omega 2. I have written a number of books for IoT devices including:(I list here so that you may judge the content for yourselves)
These books are supplied in PDF format and are 300-600 pages. They are free to download with a suggested purchase/donation of $4.99 if you find sufficient value within. The effort to create a book is on the order of months with on-going maintenance, corrections, updates and additions on an on-going basis.
What I am trying to learn is the potential readership for such an effort. Do we have any indication on the potential number of Omega users both current and predicted?
I'd be disappointed to invest the effort only to find that the demand/interest for such a book was low.
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Is interesting, but you also must think in a combined version with different devices.
Regards.
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@manuti-manuti said in Determining demand for an Omega and Omega 2 book:
Is interesting, but you also must think in a combined version with different devices.
Regards.He does, explains about arduino and Pi working together. See Pi manual.
@Neil-Kolban, did you see the book from @Lazar-Demin on Kickstarter?
I would check such things first. And also as you wrote it is about a lot of work ... i guess you are true ... thats why i not would do it alone ... do it on github as a collaboration.
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Just from the Kickstarter campaign, there are 16.5K backers for the Omega2, all potential interested clients. However, everyone of us are also getting the Omega2 Project Book for reaching the $300K goal. Personally, I would not be a good candidate for you because I tend to go for the specs sheets and reference documents for the tasks I want to accomplish at that moment. I don't know why, but the only booklets I read from cover to cover before the item use are for simple stuff like tv, hair dryers, toasters, razors, etc... and never fill the warranty card.
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I've enjoyed your books about other platforms. They are very thorough, the Onion platform would benefit very much. I hope you decide to write this one.
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@Scott-Smith Thanks for the kind words. I'm definitely interested in having a go. The traffic on this forum though is a lot smaller than I would have imagined. C.H.I.P. appears to have between 25K and 75K users and hasn't shipped formally yet with quite high traffic on the forum.
I ordered a couple of Omegas back in 2015 but put them in a drawer when they arrived hoping to get to them later (I was in ESP8266 frenzy then). Then the Pi Zero came out and I got focused on the Pi. I pulled out my Omegas the other day to power them up for the first time only to realize that they were not breadboard friendly nor had I bought any docks at the beginning. As such I've now ordered a dock and some 2.00mm strip board. I'll need to study the forum and see what was said about 2.00mm spacings ... that struck me as very strange and a big restriction to the hobbyist.
I'm also puzzling in my mind the audience for Omega and Omega 2. I'm going to look and see if there were discussions on this area. Specifically, I'm asking myself the core question of "When would one choose a Pi Zero vs a C.H.I.P. vs an Omega?" as a platform. What are the pros and cons of each by task and skill level?
This isn't an arbitrary question (at least to me). Knowing the target audience of Omega and Omega 2 is necessary to know what to cover in a book.
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I've been reading your book on PI and ESP and have enjoyed them very much, please, please create one for the Omega and Omega 2. A thorough piece of literature would be a huge asset to the community.
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i really liked your esp8266 book and i would like to see an omega book
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I would buy the book
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@Neil-Kolban
I haven't read any of your books.
In fact, I don't read any books but rather use them as reference manuals (in addition to wikis, specs, etc.) when stuck.I was wondering if your book will be organized in a way that makes it possible to jump right into a chaper which then will be like a tutorial which does not require me to everything else and if that the book will cover the interesting topics, such as the (omega openwrt) build process in great detail and various practical example projects.
So, I just purchased your book on RPi, and it is exactly the type of book I want.So a big yes from me.
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Onion staff,
I'm interested in working on a book for the Omega and Omega 2 ... please see the body of this thread. I am hoping that this is a project that would interest you and I believe it might benefit both the Omega community and your own goals for the Omegas. If this is of interest to you, I am hoping that you can contact me at kolban1@kolban.com so that we may discuss.Neil
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Bump. Am still hoping to have some correspondence with an Onion staff member. If anyone associated with Onion is reading this, can you email me at kolban1@kolban.com.
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Neil, have you tried:
https://onion.io/contact/
I think you will have better luck than here in the community.
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Thanks for the suggestion. That was one of the first things I tried (according to my notes back in August). I raised a contact request and got ticket assigned (#2139). I just looked it up and there has been no response. In fact it lists at the top:
"Being Processed since 49 days and 12 hours"
I've got to imagine that the Onion.io chaps are busy.
It's no great secret what I want to chat to them about ... and I'll be very open on the notion ...
With Raspberry Pi, C.H.I.P, ESP8266 and the new ESP32 ... we are rapidly becoming awash in good single board computers of one description or another. My hobby is studying these and writing about them. I also like to make the materials available as cheaply as possible while at the same time trying to cover my own costs (time spent studying and materials to study upon). That's why I make the books available for no charge but with the notion that if one finds value within, one can donate $5 or so to the on-going maintenance.
The reality of that as a commercial venture is laughable ... all told I'm lucky if I earn enough for a large pizza in a day (and many days I'd go to bed hungry). As such I have my day job in the real-world and my passion/hobby (which I suspect many of us here have) in the evening which is tinkering and (for me) writing. My goal in wanting to chat with the staff at Onion is to see if they would be interested in making it worth my while to write the book. One possibility would be a modest contribution from them that we might consider to be a good will gesture to write the book. The book would still be delivered for free with contributions from readers if they perceive quality ... but I would open that information up to Onion and offer to pay them back for their contribution from any revenue that might accrue from the book. This would offset my fears that the demand for Omega 2 resources is too low.
So ... if we work on an assumption that if I wrote a book it would contain content folks might benefit from (and again ... that is the starting assumption) ... then if Onion "underwrote" my effort ... then if Omega and Omega 2 are successful, there will be lots of Omega and Omega 2 users ... contributions to me for the book would come in ... and that would be used to return the fronted offering from Onion. However, if Omega and Omega 2 don't draw the numbers that I fear ... then my effort would be worthwhile for my time (something like an insurance policy).
Hopefully this doesn't sound like too daft an idea. Comments pro or against are also welcome.
Neil
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@Neil-Kolban Have not yet read your books, time constraints. Stopped playing with the omega due to the lack of response here from the vendor and to be honest the few that seem to think they walk on water when the respond to questions.
Having said that the book would be great for those that like doing this stuff as a hobby but the restriction would be changes to the book to match changes in the product. Ebook would address this and keep it current.
If I do break out and dust off the Omega it would be nice to find answers in your book to a fast and quick ramp up.
