As an author the most rewarding day in the life of a book is the day you are sent your author copies. When signing the author agreement many, many months ago, there is typically a clause that promises the author X copies of the finished book to give out to user groups, friends, family, coworkers, and so on. What follows are months filled with arduous writing, interspersed with reviews and the early stages of editing. The length of this stage depends on the number of authors, the length of the book, and the productivity of the author(s). My experience has been 3 to 4 months of writing, on average, but keep in mind that I'm verbose and that's typically writing three to four days a week for maybe six hours per day.
After the book has been written and the chapters submitted to the publisher, there's typically a month of author review, which involves the publisher editing the content for grammar and layout along with some technical editing/reviewing. Following that there's silence. The book is in the hands of the publisher as they put together the layout, get the book printed, have any accompanying media pressed, package everything, and distribute to the bookstores' warehouses. So after 3 to 4 months of really hard and tiring work, followed by a month (or two) of lightweight author review, there's 2 to 3 months of quiet. And then, it happens. That box of books arrives in the mail, your author copies. You get to hold in your hands the fruit of your labors. Those words that were just ones and zeros on your computer several month ago are now paper between your fingers. I imagine it's similar (albeit a very muted version) of what it must feel like to hold your child for the first time after their birth.
Today I received my author copies of my latest book, Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours (which is now available for purchase from online and local bookstores (ISBN 0672327384))! The book's first words were typed into Microsoft Word back in September 2005 and today, six months later, they are paper underneath my fingertips.
(In case you're wondering, the second most rewarding day for an author is when he sees it for the first time in a bookstore, sitting there proudly on the shelf. On a side note, if you ever do stumble across any of my books in a bookstore, please take a moment to turn it cover-out. That is, turn it so that the cover is facing outward, rather than just the spine. Thanks! :-)
...Now, about this book....
Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours is geared toward beginner to intermediate developers who are interested in learning ASP.NET version 2.0. The book is designed to be approachable by those who are brand new to development, and the first third of the book looks at fundamentals of server-side technologies (like ASP.NET), familiarizing oneself with Visual Web Developer, and a crash course of the Visual Basic programming language. Readers with experience with ASP.NET version 1.x (or other dynamic web technologies) will likely breeze through this first third.
The middle portion of the book looks at the core controls for creating data-driven ASP.NET pages. It begins with an examination of common Web controls like the Label, TextBox, DropDownList, RadioButtonList, and so on, and then transitions into working with databases, accessing data with the SqlDataSource control, and displaying data with the data Web controls, such as the GridView, DetailsView, FormView, DropDownList, CheckBoxList, and so on. This exploration also includes examining how to add paging and sorting support and creating GridViews that support editing and deleting of data and DetailsView controls that provide editing, inserting, and deleting capabilities.
The final third of the book examines master pages, membership, and site navigation, and then concludes with building a real-world web application from the ground up that ties together the lessons learned throughout the preceding chapters. This real-world application, whose design and creation spans three chapters, is a photo album application that allows for registered users to upload images to the website and manage them through a web-based administration page. Any visitor may view the images in a user's photo album, but only other registered users may leave comments about a picture.
Keep in mind that this book is targetted to the beginner to intermediate developer. If you're a hard core ASP.NET 1.x developer, this book is not the one you should pick up if you are interested in learning about 2.0. Rather, this title is for those developers brand new to ASP.NET who want to start with 2.0 or 1.x developers who would classify themselves as beginner- or intermediate-level. The book includes a CD with Microsoft's free Visual Web Developer software, which is the editor used throughout the book.
If you are a beginner- to intermediate-level developer interested in learning ASP.NET 2.0, or know someone who is, I hope you'll pick up a copy of Teach Yourself ASP.NET 2.0 in 24 Hours.