April 26, 2010: For all you Lulu Customers
Only Story
Special post today, then we’ll get back to the relatively normal format tomorrow.
If there’s one question I’ve been asked more than any other since signing Rails Test Prescriptions with Pragmatic, it’s whether something would be done for those of you who bought and supported the original self-published version. We all really wanted to recognize those of you who bought the first version of this book, but there are practical constraints.
The Thing
Pragmatic is giving me five copies of the beta package – ebook now plus print book later – to raffle off in any way I see fit.
How I See Fit
Here’s how it will work. One week from today, I’m going to take the list of known RTP purchasers from the registration database at the old railsrx.com, and I’m going to pick five of them at random. I’ll contact those people via email. If they don’t get back to me in a reasonable amount of time, I’ll pick more people until all five copies are taken.
Now, I know that some of you registered at railsrx.com with one-time email address, and that some of you may not have registered at all. That’s why we have the one-week waiting period.
If you registered at railsrx.com with an email address that will still reach you:
You’re golden, nothing further needed.
If you think you registered at railsrx.com with an email address that is no longer valid:
Send an email to railsprescriptions at gmail.com with the subject line “Raffle email change”, include the email you registered with and the email you would like to be contacted with.
If you never registered at railsrx.com, or if you have no idea what email you registered with:
Send an email to railsprescriptions at gmail.com with the subject line “Raffle new email”. Include the email you would like to be contacted with, and some proof of purchase, like the Lulu receipt.
If you don’t have the Lulu receipt, but still think you have a purchase
Contact me at railsprescriptions at gmail.com with the subject line “Raffle Me Too”, and I’ll give you an alternate way of verifying your purchase.
Why?
I should say that I was not directly involved in whatever discussion happened inside Pragmatic’s marketing, so some of this is an educated guess.
Keep in mind that everybody involved wants to do something to recognize the early supporters of this book. However, it became clear (at least to me) that the logistics of any kind of general coupon code were probably not feasible. To see why, look at all the hoops I jumped through last section to verify existing users, and I’m only validating five of them. To do this for real on the whole batch would take a lot of time and effort.
Another way of looking at this: the Pragmatic version of this book is, in many ways, version two of this book. It’s going to be 30-40% longer, it’ll cover the latest and greatest libraries, everything has been edited and rearranged… there’s a lot of differences. It’s not unusual for a second version of a technical book to be sold as it’s own thing, separate from the previous version.
Thanks to all of you that have asked for your interest and your support.