In the time between when a book is released and when the first reviews appear, authors experience a variety of symptoms ranging from unease to outright panic. “Did I miss something obvious?” “Did I really screw up?” “Am I the laughingstock of the tech industry?” Web pages can be fixed, but printed books are immutable; any errors are immortalized. Over the years, I’ve gotten the symptoms down to an ongoing gentle nausea.
Thankfully, the first two reviews on Network Flow Analysis are out.
I sent Justin at DragonFly BSD Digest a review copy of NFA, and he not only read the book, he’s planning to implement it at work. I’d call that a thumbs up.
Then there’s a review from Dad of Divas. DofD reviews lots of stuff on his blog, mostly stuff that he receives as a promotion. The odd thing is, I have no idea how he got a copy of the book. The lesson? The publishing publicity machine is mysterious and inexplicable, even to those of us trapped inside it.
But, having read the reviews, my lingering dread and nausea is gone. Thanks, folks.