I'm planning to write a book about Bitcoin, any ideas?

[greyhawk]

Do not forget to thank me and satoshi in the credits.

  What is your contribution?

"She"'s one of the best scammers, so one of the only ones making money from BTC.

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[zhoutong]

Judging by your posting history, it will be 300 pages of Bitcoinica plugs ? I haven't seen any insightful posts from you on the topic of Bitcoin, so I really have to ask what do you think qualifies you to explain the concept to others ?

Why do I must qualify something to contribute? I don't have the habit to post on forums. Posting about Bitcoinica is because that's the only way I can keep connected to my clients.

I prefer writing a book and let people calm down and enjoy. I don't want to argue with trolls just to gain the qualification.

I'm not asking you for anything, why do I need qualification?

Before I launched Bitcoinica, I was not qualified to build a trading platform that the big guys can't deliver in months?

I

[deslok]

Judging by your posting history, it will be 300 pages of Bitcoinica plugs ? I haven't seen any insightful posts from you on the topic of Bitcoin, so I really have to ask what do you think qualifies you to explain the concept to others ?

Why do I must qualify something to contribute? I don't have the habit to post on forums. Posting about Bitcoinica is because that's the only way I can keep connected to my clients.

I prefer writing a book and let people calm down and enjoy. I don't want to argue with trolls just to gain the qualification.

I'm not asking you for anything, why do I need qualification?

Before I launched Bitcoinica, I was not qualified to build a trading platform that the big guys can't deliver in months?

I

If you're going to write a book sentences like that can't happen, I'm not saying you're not qualified, the only way you get qualified is by doing things, but if you're going to write a book about bitcoin the book is either going to be a failure or a book by you AND the bitcoin community, betabooks is going to keep you from getting off the ground 20 dollars to help write a book and be uncredited? let me say... no. You need input from other buisness ventures on the forums and otherwise, developers who've written the client(s) people who've made custom mining hardware people trying to get the word out and judging by the way you're starting off i don't think you're going to get very much of it.

[BubbleBoy]

By all means you are free to contribute all you want, and you don't have to prove anything to me or the community. A good book is a proof in itself.
However you must realize you do need to be qualified in the subject at hand before you can expect to produce a good book. You can't make it up as you go along. Otherwise it's an exercise in futility, time better spent fixing the consistency problems of your database before you suffer the fate of bitomat.pl and the like. Take it as a friendly advice - you achieved much more than the average troll on these forums, better consolidate your position and do one thing right, than diversify into a myriad of flaky activities.

[Maria]

Do not forget to thank me and satoshi in the credits.

  What is your contribution?

"She"'s one of the best scammers, so one of the only ones making money from BTC.

Idiot. IQ must be around 65.

Maria.

[fivebells]

Heh.  Very convincing comeback!

[zhoutong]

By all means you are free to contribute all you want, and you don't have to prove anything to me or the community. A good book is a proof in itself.
However you must realize you do need to be qualified in the subject at hand before you can expect to produce a good book. You can't make it up as you go along. Otherwise it's an exercise in futility, time better spent fixing the consistency problems of your database before you suffer the fate of bitomat.pl and the like. Take it as a friendly advice - you achieved much more than the average troll on these forums, better consolidate your position and do one thing right, than diversify into a myriad of flaky activities.

Thank you. I just want to find a comfortable way to contribute. I will definitely publish chapters of chapters of work on this forum and enable discussion, and take the points of other commenters can credit them accordingly. It's just that I don't have the time and space to consolidate what I know about Bitcoin. (I do chat with many members in this forum on Skype, about the market, economics, political implications and even philosophy, so don't worry, I'm not that kind of person who doesn't know anything but wants to do everything.)

I choose to write a book because I can't concentrate on coding all the time (it's highly stressful). Doing something else can help me relax a bit, and reduce probability of making mistakes in my code as well.

I won't be the only author, I guess. At least I have a friend to help me proofread. (He's quite established in the forum.)

That said, big things at Bitcoinica will come along. Thank you for your suggestion!

[paraipan]

Do not forget to thank me and satoshi in the credits.

 What is your contribution?

"She"'s one of the best scammers, so one of the only ones making money from BTC.

Idiot. IQ must be around 65.

Maria.

can you pls talk bout ppl's IQ in another thread, you obviously made a joke and no one got it


@zhoutong good ideea with the book but do read all you can about the btc protocol and all related parts not to make the same mistakes that news and blog writers do too often, i think this is the community biggest fear. Like a poster before me said it's better to have your book structured from "outside to inside" to get get an uneducated person's attention without boring him with details right from the start.

I would love to review as you write, and if you decide to follow some community suggestions I think it would be an unique experience for us and an honor to collaborate in such a new manner. Looking at it this way, I think you're doing history here, it was never done, have the public help the writer, write a book for them . Wish you luck with the project.

[zhoutong]

Judging by your posting history, it will be 300 pages of Bitcoinica plugs ? I haven't seen any insightful posts from you on the topic of Bitcoin, so I really have to ask what do you think qualifies you to explain the concept to others ?

Why do I must qualify something to contribute? I don't have the habit to post on forums. Posting about Bitcoinica is because that's the only way I can keep connected to my clients.

I prefer writing a book and let people calm down and enjoy. I don't want to argue with trolls just to gain the qualification.

I'm not asking you for anything, why do I need qualification?

Before I launched Bitcoinica, I was not qualified to build a trading platform that the big guys can't deliver in months?

I

If you're going to write a book sentences like that can't happen, I'm not saying you're not qualified, the only way you get qualified is by doing things, but if you're going to write a book about bitcoin the book is either going to be a failure or a book by you AND the bitcoin community, betabooks is going to keep you from getting off the ground 20 dollars to help write a book and be uncredited? let me say... no. You need input from other buisness ventures on the forums and otherwise, developers who've written the client(s) people who've made custom mining hardware people trying to get the word out and judging by the way you're starting off i don't think you're going to get very much of it.

You're right. Bitcoin is an open community that accepts new ideas.

However, every needs a start. The difficulty of "joining the conversation" is keeping many newbies out of the real Bitcoin community.

I want a revolutionary way that helps them to understand the basics about Bitcoin *all at once*, instead of keeping ask questions that no one wish to answer. I'm helping them to find answers themselves. That's why it's a book, not a blog or forum post.

I will credit those who help, but the nature of my work doesn't require much of collaboration within the community. Because they are going to find their own answers anyway. I don't have to teach them how to build a mining rig or Bitcoin exchange, I just have to let them understand why Bitcoin is an idea worth spreading, and how Bitcoin works to solve some of our banking problems - these are personal understanding and general knowledge, not necessarily experience of many other people.

I'm not qualified professionally I admit, but I do have a wide scope of understanding - I think the community needs someone who knows Bitcoin fairly well in different perspectives (philosophical, economic, financial, cryptographic and political) to give the project a start. There may be experts around, but most likely they are not that newbie-friendly. Potential Bitcoiners are curious, but unfortunately some of our forum members are destroying their curiosity - we need to know what they want to know, before they lose their interest.

This book project should more practically a personal project. We have Bitcoin Wiki that every can contribute, but again, it's not that newbie-friendly. That's why I'm asking for ideas and feedback, not actual contribution on the content. I will do thorough research before claiming anything in the book, and I will publish some content (especially more controversial parts) on the Internet to generate comments and debates - and I will credit anyone who has ever helped.

Thank you for your feedback!

[zhoutong]

Do not forget to thank me and satoshi in the credits.

  What is your contribution?

"She"'s one of the best scammers, so one of the only ones making money from BTC.

Idiot. IQ must be around 65.

Maria.

can you pls talk bout ppl's IQ in another thread, you obviously made a joke and no one got it


@zhoutong good ideea with the book but do read all you can about the btc protocol and all related parts not to make the same mistakes that news and blog writers do too often, i think this is the community biggest fear. Like a poster before me said it's better to have your book structured from "outside to inside" to get get an uneducated person's attention without boring him with details right from the start.

I would love to review as you write, and if you decide to follow some community suggestions I think it would be an unique experience for us and an honor to collaborate in such a new manner. Looking at it this way, I think you're doing history here, it was never done, have the public help the writer write a book for them . Wish you luck with the project.

Thank you!

Yes, I'm an Economics student, and I'm also a Rails developer, a trading enthusiast and a Libertarian Anarchist. I'm never like a journalist. I worry more about the boredom when I talk about too many things rather than the lack of scope of understanding.

If I finally decide to start the first page, I will start the Beta Book program after I have completed at least 50%. (Copyright license hasn't been decided yet, but it may be proprietary if the publisher requires so.) I'm not sure about the price, but I'm thinking about 5-8 BTC for the beta book which will include the final paperback edition. (Reviewers get the same price, but can access to the content earlier.) The price will only be used to offset the cost of publishing and some of my personal expenditures related to writing the book. If there's excess, I will gather ideas from everyone about what to do with them.

One worry is about the publishing. In order to reach out to more people, a publisher may be required (like Wiley). But I'm not sure about the the details.

Anyway, I'm completely open to the idea of open sourcing the book and making it freely available if publishing is an issue.

[Etlase2]

Fiat vs Crypto (Centralized vs Decentralized)

Might want to expand your definition of what fiat is

[Phinnaeus Gage]

By all means you are free to contribute all you want, and you don't have to prove anything to me or the community. A good book is a proof in itself.
However you must realize you do need to be qualified in the subject at hand before you can expect to produce a good book. You can't make it up as you go along. Otherwise it's an exercise in futility, time better spent fixing the consistency problems of your database before you suffer the fate of bitomat.pl and the like. Take it as a friendly advice - you achieved much more than the average troll on these forums, better consolidate your position and do one thing right, than diversify into a myriad of flaky activities.

Thank you. I just want to find a comfortable way to contribute. I will definitely publish chapters of chapters of work on this forum and enable discussion, and take the points of other commenters can credit them accordingly. It's just that I don't have the time and space to consolidate what I know about Bitcoin. (I do chat with many members in this forum on Skype, about the market, economics, political implications and even philosophy, so don't worry, I'm not that kind of person who doesn't know anything but wants to do everything.)

I choose to write a book because I can't concentrate on coding all the time (it's highly stressful). Doing something else can help me relax a bit, and reduce probability of making mistakes in my code as well.

I won't be the only author, I guess. At least I have a friend to help me proofread. (He's quite established in the forum.)

That said, big things at Bitcoinica will come along. Thank you for your suggestion!

Would a simpler approach be like how Doyle Brunson structured his How I Made Over $1,000,000 Playing Poker book? Each chapter was written by an expert of their best poker game--stud, holdem, omaha, etc.

[Ayo_4_Yayo]

Here's my suggestion: don't do it!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Here's my suggestion: don't do it!

Here's my suggestion: Just Do It!

[nhodges]

Why not make it an open source book?

Finalize the outline and publish it on github, and let members of the community send you pull requests as additions and/or revisions. Knowledgeable Bitcoiners can comment and vote on pull requests to the master branch. Not only would this satisfy the peer review requirement you have (beta book) but it would be a cool endeavor to publish a true "peer to peer" and open-source book about a peer to peer and open-source software project.

It would also be an abstraction of version control systems that you could enjoy as a programmer.

[zhoutong]

Why not make it an open source book?

Finalize the outline and publish it on github, and let members of the community send you pull requests as additions and/or revisions. Knowledgeable Bitcoiners can comment and vote on pull requests to the master branch. Not only would this satisfy the peer review requirement you have (beta book) but it would be a cool endeavor to publish a true "peer to peer" and open-source book about a peer to peer and open-source software project.

It would also be an abstraction of version control systems that you could enjoy as a programmer.

That's a good idea, but as I said, we have Wiki, but it doesn't help much in terms of content quality.

Reading a book should be an enjoyable process, so appreciating the author's writing style is quite important. The reason why I won't release the book before 50% progress is that the foundation must be good enough, with careful content design.

The best stuff (books or software) is almost always proprietary. Most open source projects are not newbie-friendly either.

I don't think we need initiators for.different kinds of projects that much, instead, we need people like Satoshi who can do a big thing on their own elegantly.

[Alex Thornton]

zhoutong, just to let you know I am currently working on a Bitcoin book that I will also be publishing as an ebook soon.

This shouldn't stop you from writing your own book as our books will definitely be different. There are a half-dozen books on Starbucks, for example. Each of them is unique.

From your outline, it looks like you are focusing on the technical and philosophical aspects of Bitcoin. I focus more on the business aspects. The more information out there on Bitcoin the better.

Good luck.

[fivebells]

Do you have an outline you could share with us, Alex?

[zhoutong]

zhoutong, just to let you know I am currently working on a Bitcoin book that I will also be publishing as an ebook soon.

This shouldn't stop you from writing your own book as our books will definitely be different. There are a half-dozen books on Starbucks, for example. Each of them is unique.

From your outline, it looks like you are focusing on the technical and philosophical aspects of Bitcoin. I focus more on the business aspects. The more information out there on Bitcoin the better.

Good luck.

Thank you for letting me know. I knew that someone else could be doing the similar things.

I'm not exactly focusing on technical and philosophical aspects, basically the purpose of the book is to introduce Bitcoin to newbies, and present the revolutionary currency to them in an interesting way. If you want to target existing Bitcoin users, business will be a great way to go - Bitcoin needs more entrepreneurs. Either way is perfectly fine.

[Elwar]

Fiat vs Crypto (Centralized vs Decentralized)

Might want to expand your definition of what fiat is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8&feature=player_embedded