Green

Tea

Press

Five Easy Ways To Help Promote Free Books

by Allen B. Downey

Free Software has been around for a while, but Free Books are still pretty much an experiment. As far as I know, the only conventional publisher working with free content authors is O'Reilly, in what they call the Open Books Project.

My partner and I started Green Tea Press specifically to work with free content writers. Our first book was How To Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python which I wrote along with Jeff Elkner and Chris Meyers.

So far, things are going well. We get feedback every day from people who read the book online. They send in suggestions and corrections, or they just tell us they enjoyed the book. Sometimes they ask if there is anything they can do to help with the project.

Well, as a matter of fact there is! The following are some things readers can do to help make the Free Book experiment a success.

1. If you have a web page, please add a link pointing to the book. You could also add a note informing your readers that printed copies of the book are available, or add a link to the Green Tea Press pages. For the Python version of the book, you might want the link to point to thinkpython.com. For the Java version, you can link to thinkapjava.com.

2. If you have something good to say about the book, it would be great if you would post a few sentences on either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

3. If you would like to buy a copy for yourself, you might consider ordering a copy from your local bookstore. By doing that, you will be supporting local businesses, and you will also help us get our distribution channels set up.

   Right now, some mainstream distributors are skeptical of Free Books. But if bookstores all over the country start asking for the book, distributors are more likely to pick it up.

4. We are particularly interested in getting the books into schools and libraries. If you think the book would be appropriate for your local library or your school's library, please recommend it to them.

5. If you are a teacher, we hope you will consider adopting the book for a class. Here are some of the people we know who are using Python in the Classroom.

6. Lastly, you could help us out with our web hosting bill by clicking on the icon below and making a small donation.