Let me take a moment and explain something about the making of "Raw Materials for the Mind". What's new in the 4th edition of this book (1st edition came to life in 1998) is a variety of tools that are coming together to dramatically change the shape of knowledge. As David Weinberger described it in his keynote address at NECC in June; weblogs, wikis, RSS, Podcasts, and a range of lesser known applications are transforming content from a product to be consumed to an ongoing and global conversation.

The first three editions of RMFM where written using a word processor, burned to a CD, and mailed to the printers in Florida. This cost us a sizable investment in the thousands of dollars, which returned in a freight truck, that met me at hour rented warehouse, where we stored the books. My wife handled the web sales, and I carried copies with me to speaking engagements. Conference sales usually paid for cab fare to the airport.

This last edition was dramatically different. The minute I finished writing and editing the book, I went to a web site that I had learned of at a local BloggerCon, Lulu.com. Here I described the book I wanted to publish, and then uploaded the book to the web site. Then I produced, with a $100 graphics program, the front and back covers, saving them as Jpeg files, and uploaded them as well. Finally, the web site asked me how much money I wanted to earn from each book sale. I typed in two dollars (or something like that), and the web site came back with, "We can sell this book for $14.25." I clicked "OK", click "OK" one more time, and my book was published. You could have ordered it that moment, Lulu would print it on demand, and ship it to you.

Three hours after finishing my book, it was published. This is traditional publishing, becoming a conversation.