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The day is nearly upon us. Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em comes out tomorrow! If you haven’t preordered it yet, go do it right now.
Tags: poker, poker-books, small stakes no-limit hold'em
Please quit with these teasers and release the book! All this anticipation is just not good for my heart 
Ed et al,
I don’t know. I am too old school I guess. It seems to me that you are giving up a lot of potential sales of this book by only releasing it as a “computer” book. Or maybe, that is just a gimmick and it will be released in book form later.
I need/want something to put under my arm (I don’t have a lap top), carry with me, and use a pen and highlighter to mark up the interesting/important points.
Color me VERY DISAPPOINTED. I thought this might be the book to help me transition from tournament poker (almost exclusively) to cash games.
Now, sigh, I just sit here and wonder.
Sorry for me and sorry for any sales you might miss by releasing it this way only.
Regards,
NatchezToo
Jerry Krouse
- Kindle and related devices are starting to make big waves in the market
- TwoplusTwo (ugh) are starting to make their books available through ebook
I think we’re going to see a shift in thinking over the next few years concerning ebooks. I’m the opposite of the traditional guys with the bound books. If an author *doesn’t* release an ebook format, I’m extremely disappointed. I want immediate updates, I want to ability to carry my whole book collection while I travel.
It’ll be an interesting experiment for Ed and crew. I wish them the best.
Hi Jerry,
I definitely understand where you’re coming from, and I’ve heard similar sentiments from a number of people. I’ll give you my thoughts:
1. We decided to release first as an ebook simply because it’s the fastest way to get the book out. That’s how the idea first came to us, and it’s still our #1 reason. After PNL2 got canceled we felt obligated to get a book out quickly, and putting the book out as an ebook shaves really probably at least two months off of how long it takes to distribute the book. (And because others have paved the way and had success with the poker ebook format.)
2. Ebook format also solves distribution problems to the far-flung corners of the world. I’d guesstimate that more than half of our preorders came from people who don’t live in North America. Getting books distributed to other continents can be a headache, especially if we’re trying to do it ourselves without a major publisher behind us.
3. We’ve been considering for a month or two now getting a small run of copies printed up for all the people like you who do prefer having a paper book. The more success the ebook version has and the more people seem to like the book, the more certain we will be to get copies printed.
So I hear you. On our end we definitely don’t want to miss out on sales, and we also don’t want to disappoint people who want the book, but aren’t happy with the e-book format. We haven’t made a final decision, but I expect we’ll be looking into getting some copies printed in the near future (with probably a several month lag time before those copies are finished and ready to go).
Wooo-hoooo
woke up at 4 a.m. EST and am now unavailable to family and friends for an undetermined amount of time ( well, at least until my wife wakes up ). Congrats Ed and thanks for your sharing of knowledge ( thanks to your cohorts as well).
Back to reading, JC
The jonesing’s over. This is great.
I’m Adobe impaired. Quick question: is there any way to leave margin notes or something similar in a secured pdf? I’m used to underlining and taking notes directly in working texts like this. I’ve never had an ebook before.
My first ebook as well. Like old-timer that I am, I printed it out with about $50 worth of ink, so margin notes and underlining no problem.
Question though, for you guys that have been through this. Now that I have my beautifully printed-out text would you recommend just 3-ring puching it into a nice binder, or would you take it to kinkos and have it spirally bound.
I could care less about appearance, just wondered what pros and cons might be once you started working with the text. Sidenote: I printed on one side only. Ease of printing on my home printer plus annoys me if other side kinda shows through.
Thanks. Going to buy ink cartridges and then back to printing/reading. JC
Jamleeco, absolutely, positively take it to Kinkos and have it spiral bound. Also, print the cover at Kinkos on one of their vinyl covers (and place a matching vinyl on the back). It will protect your investment and make it easier to manipulate and read. If you 3-hole it, you’ll eventually end up tearing pages.
Re my dilemma, I noticed in the Document/Security/Show Security Properties that they disabled “Commenting” on the Security tab. Short of shelling out the cash for a third party reader that does annotations (e.g. Foxit, PDF-XChange Viewer), is anyone aware of a work-around so that I can take notes directly on the document – some obscure open-source plugin that I perhaps am unaware of?
Jamleeco – another thought: given that you single sided the document, I’m guessing you have a tall stack of paper growing in front of you.
If you go the spiral bound route, consider breaking it into two volumes.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been reading it this morning on my T-Mobile G1 phone running the Android OS. I had to download the RepliGo Reader app that ran me $7.99 (only one that seemed to support password protected PDF’s). So far, so good and should be a worthwhile investment as the world embraces digital books.
Can’t forget to mention that I like what I’m reading so far, and look forward to establishing better overall habits at the tables.
Cheers!
is there a way to set up adobe so that I don’t have to enter the password every time I open the file?
LowWaterMark, thanks for all your suggestions. Yes, quite a pile of paper. I’m afraid to take it anywhere until I have it bound,don’t want to end up like the poor bastard in “Wonder Boys”. (BTW, great soundtrack)
Really solid so far guys, very well written and easy to follow. I’m 1/3 of the way through and am pretty much not going to stop until I’m done. I’m headed to Vegas in a couple weeks for the series, and this is a great primer to get me geared up for some cash games in between tournies. Kudos!
P.S. Typo on page 52:
Or they can play tight and
passively preflop, passively on the **turn**, hyper-aggressively on the
turn, and back off on the river, and so forth.
I’m guessing that should say “flop”, given the rest of the sentence structure.
To everybody (like me) who prints out the file: I had to print the file in chunks of about 80 pages. Otherwise the card symbols and some other graphical elements would get messed up. I guess it’s a matter of your individual setup (printer, driver, memory etc.). Just make sure to check the pages for printing errors before you bind the stack!
Greyzy
Excellent, just excellent! I’m on page 53 now, i totally love it! It is focused on what is really important (no fuzzy thinking), it is very well written (no fuzzy sentences), it seems so far extraordinarily well structured.
P.s.: lol@page 54. Sorry Ed, but your dignity is gone. It was you, everybody who reads your blog knows 
As far as people having reservations over electronic distribution only, I say meh – you’ll get over it.
I’m not sure that online distribution only is such a bad idea. I bet most players start out playing online, and publishing as a whole is moving towards online distribution anyway.
And also – online editions give the luxury of correcting typos much more easily than with printed media. Just announce a corrected edition, and send out an announcement.
What about an audiobook?
Hey Poor E.,
Great idea! I am reading it anyway, I’ll read it outloud, tape myself , send it to you for $110. Send the money directly to Ed. I’ll get my half from him or lose it to him betting against LSU again.
JC
Jerry,
I assure you you’re not any more old school than I am. Don’t worry about prof.hard copy. Ebook is the way to go. Print it out like I did.
You can carry it under your arm if you work out with free wts. 3x a week. And mark it up all you want, and if you botch a page up just reprint that one page. I’m lovin it.
It’s not a big deal. And turns out it wasn’t 50 in ink but only 32 and after I take my empties back to Staples only 26.
Yo, oldtimer goes 21st century, Peace Out. JC
I printed mine with 2 pages per sheet, and then spiral bound at Staples for $5, including clear front and back cover. It is very easy to read and flip.
I’m going to be busy the next few days reading.
Thanks Ed et. al.
Another cool aspect of the ebook: did you notice the 4-color deck? I imagine that this would not have been possible in “real print” (but of course in my personal printout) or only for a significantly higher book price.
BTW: I guess there’s another typo on page 7 (yes, I even read the acknowledgements ). Shouldn’t it be “Dad” instead of “Dab”?
Greyzy
“BTW: I guess there’s another typo on page 7 (yes, I even read the acknowledgements ). Shouldn’t it be “Dad” instead of “Dab”?”
Um, Greyzy, no, it shouldn’t. Dab is Edward’s childhood nickname for his father. It originated when Edward was tiny and somehow turned Daddy Bear (from Goldilocks and the Three Bears) into Da’Bear and thence to Dab. The nickname stuck, and Edward still calls his father Dab. As you can see from the acknowledgments, he calls me ‘Mom’–no story there.
>Little Old Lady
Thanks for the explanation! Always a pleasure reading from you in Ed’s blog: I love that personal touch that you add!!!
Greyzy
P.S. Same goes for you, Elaine!
Does anyone know how to shift this thing onto a Kindle and then read it? Ed said that this should be readable on portable players.
Lorin,
I’m working on Kindle. I sent it to my friend for conversion and it looks a little weird. I hope to have a Kindle version within the week but I can’t promise.
Wow, this is outrageous. The twoplustwo guys are not just arrogant, they are really evil. Ok, I did not think too much when in the forums Malmuth wrote something like “hey, we cant work with Miller et al. cause it was such a pain last time”. Just jelousy.
But this, by the official id “twoplustwostore” is too much. He posted it in the thread about your terrific, fantastic, mind-blowing ebook:
“Re: Ed Miller Ebook
For those asking about bypassing the password entry (and getting your post deleted) “I found a nice inexpensive program for doing repetitive PC tasks, like entering passwords and much more complicated functions. I have been using it years. You can find it at http://www.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com. You can try it before buying it.”
I put in the Xs cause i dont wanna give away anything. Still, if you deem appropriate not to give wrong ideas to anyone, delete my post. I would totally understand and just wanted everyone to know what a bunch of mfs twoplustwo are. This is incredible.
str8 – The post you quoted is not talking about breaking the password protection, it is only giving a way to automate the password input so the user doesn’t have to type it every time. Ed and Sunny have endorsed this idea; see the “Support” forum at smallstakesholdem.com.
We all know that all 3 authors had troubles with 2+2 and Mason. Let’s not bring it up all over again. We now have a great new poker book available so let’s talk about that!
Oh. Seems I got that completely wrong. Sorry.
is highlighting/bolding selected text doable within the ebook? I’m not all that familiar w/ the acrobat options. Thanks.
vb_rounder–
There is a quite lively forum going on at the small stakes no-limit hold’em website. It is divided into two sections, one for technical support and one for general discussion. Your question has been asked and answered over there: http://smallstakesnolimitholdem.com/forum/feedback-and-support/taking-notes/
Allright. Bought this thing a few weeks ago and already forgot my password. What do I do?
can’t wait