Stop at any fast food restaurant in America, and no matter what you order, you’ll likely be asked, “Would you like fries with that?” Fries are the traditional accompaniment to any fast food entrée. More recently, fast food restaurants have begun to broaden their menu and offer healthier choices in response to demand from customers.
We’d like your feedback on items you’d like to see added to our SAS eBook menu. As we’ve been converting SAS print books into eBooks, our main objective was to make the content available to you in the most convenient form possible, whether in print or online. Initially, we were solely focused on providing eBook versions of our print books. Now that we have more of our titles available as eBooks, we’re looking forward to the next best features. Would those be:
- Video?
- More links?
- Downloadable examples?
- Smaller topics?
What should we add next to our SAS book menu? Have it your way, and tell us how SAS eBooks could serve you even better.
10 Comments
Hi,
Thanks for your wonderful work on eBooks. I like the idea of embedded videos. Here are two additional ideas: (1) It would be very helpful to have the eBooks linked. For instance, let's say I am looking up proc print in Delwiche and Slaughter. I might also like to know what other eBooks I have, or don't have that I should have, that also reference proc print. With embedded links to those other eBooks and pages, resolving problems would be easier, I think. Can you get this done by Friday? That's a day longer than my boss expects me things to get done!
(2) If we purchase and eBook, can you give us a discount on a hard copy, or vice versa? Hard copies are nice too. Do this by Thursday?
Thanks.
Thank you, Roger!
Your boss gives you until Thursday? That's better than yesterday!
Linking to other resources sounds like a great idea. And, being able to purchase the hardcopy and eBook as a bundle would also be nice to offer.
We'll see what we can do! Hmm...Now, WHICH Thursday did you need this?
Julie
I share Jared's view that links to downloadable code, samples and extras are must haves. Downloadable colour copies of illustrations might be a nice touch too - my Kindle's 'greyscale' screen doesn't always do them justice.
Thank you, Chris! We'll also consider making color versions of the illustrations available for viewing. While color is preserved on some eReaders, some eReaders don't support color.
Good point!
Julie
Please keep in mind there are some of us who don't use eBooks for reference. Please continue to have hard copy for us old timers..
Hi, Robert.
We've got you covered! While some books may only be released as eBooks, we'd make that decision based on two issues: length and content. Print books traditionally require about 100 pages for binding. However, not all topics require 100 pages to be explained thoroughly. In those situations, we may decide to publish the content as eBooks rather than require that the content be expanded to "fit" a print version.
Some content may simply work better online. It might contain more linking, animations, video, etc. In those situations, we would publish the content only online rather than force the content into a page format.
Print is still a very popular choice for SAS users! With eBooks, we're hoping to better serve those users who prefer to read online.
For me, it's a must to have the code (downloadable extras) and errata. These should be stored on a companion website who's URL never changes or location is easy to find.
Video's are extremely useful, but aren't a perfect substitute for an entire book (and they aren't always feasible). That said, part of a book may not be as well-suited as a video to communicate a message.
Perhaps the videos could be bonus sections or 'smaller topics'.
Links are not as helpful because they tend to change over time. If you did have links, perhaps stick to the SAS support pages.
(You'll likely want to use a URL shortener so you can track who is using your ebook related links, etc.)
Thank you so much for your comments, Jared! These are very helpful. Most recently, we've been working on options for ensuring that links persist. eBooks can be around for a long time, and we all know how transient web pages can be. We want to do what we can to avoid broken links in eBooks.
I think, overall, videos are more useful than reading a 300-page eBook. To give you an example,
SAS Data Integration Studio videos proved to be very useful in terms of coming up to speed
with the tool when I first started working with it. Its PDF manual, later on, was useful as a
reference.
Thank you so much, Divyesh! We couldn't agree more. We're experimenting with more video to complement book content and are getting good feedback. In fact, your comment has inspired my next blog post! We'll cover some of the experiments that we've done with video and hope to get your feedback!
Best,
Julie